Solar pioneers say bright idea now paying off

ST. GEORGE — Sheldon and LaVerna Johnson don't have millions of dollars, and they're not tree-huggers. That's why it would surprise most to look at this retired couple and see the solar panels lining their roof.

Two years ago, the couple installed 24 solar panels on the south side of their home, providing the ability to generate 3,000 watts of energy. The Johnsons are apparently the first people in St. George to use the devices.

They paid $15,000 to have the panels put up in 2005 — a large sum up front, but the Johnsons point to their monthly power bills. The highest so far has been $18.20. And the lowest, 35 cents, is a far cry from the $100 to $150 average monthly electricity bills their son pays next door.

And in a city that gets an average of 300 days of sunshine a year, the Johnsons generate so much power that they sell most of it back to the city — hence the surprisingly low bills.

"It isn't profitable right at first because you're buying $15,000 in power bills ahead of yourself. But the end result is great," said Sheldon Johnson, a retired optometrist who is well-known for discovering a large set of dinosaur tracks on his farm on the outskirts of St. George. "It's so simple; there's nothing to it."

The Johnsons got the idea from Sheldon's son Kerry, who runs the local area electric company KV Electric. He had recently finished installing a huge solar unit for the government at Lehman Cave in Great Basin National Park. He persuaded Sheldon and LaVerna to get their own set, and they became pioneers of such projects in St. George.

"We wanted to do it because we're saving our environment, helping our community and our world," said LaVerna Johnson, a published poet. "We're investing in the future with these on our roof."

St. George uses the Johnsons' home in brochures for the city and sends people by to check out the panels. Their home was also included in a state solar home tour. The panels are hard to notice from the street, and from inside the home, LaVerna Johnson said: "You don't even know it's there until you get your power bill."

Sheldon Johnson said "the magic of it all" is that their solar power joins with the power of the city. Through a net metering program with St. George Public Utilities, a bidirectional meter is installed that reads what power the solar panels are producing, what power the city is producing and the net of the two. Any power the solar panels generate that the Johnsons don't use is then sold back to the city.