BEST PRACTICES: A well-lighted lot, powered by the sun

Sixty-five high-lumen LED light fixtures tower above Butler Nissan of Macon's 8-acre site in Macon, Ga., lighting up the store with energy harnessed from the sun.

Those fixtures provide about 30 percent more light than the typical lamps at a dealership of that size, says Trey Jarrard, CEO of Renewvia Energy Corp., of Atlanta. They also use about half of the power conventional lighting would require. "The Butlers believe in a very vibrant and bright lot as part of the overall feel for their facility," he says.

The dealership, which is on pace to sell about 1,300 new and used vehicles this year, could afford to add more light because it generates much of its own power thanks to a Renewvia-designed 100-kilowatt solar array mounted on the dealership's roof.

Driving past large new solar farms in central Georgia piqued Marsh Butler's curiosity, but tax incentives and the prospect of controlling costs caused the co-president of Butler Auto Group in Macon to look seriously at solar and LED technology.

With interest rates and other costs likely to rise in the next five years, says Butler, "it just made financial sense for the long haul."

The first big factor in Butler's adoption of solar power was the federal Solar Investment Tax Credit. First offered in 2006, the 30 percent credit was extended by Congress for eight years at the end of 2008, and again for three more years in 2015.

The credit lets businesses recoup 30 percent of the cost of their solar systems in the first year. Accelerated depreciation and utility rebates can allow even more of the system to be amortized quickly.

The second factor was the ever-falling cost of solar-generated electricity. Years of ramping up production has vastly reduced component costs, maximizing the return.

Jarrard says, "Eight years ago, just to give you a metric, we were installing, in a fully burdened system, at cost of $6 a watt. We are in some cases under $2 a watt now." The cost of the solar panels has fallen to just 55 cents per watt, from about $2.40 per watt previously, with the installation cost of a typical 100-kW system dropping by as much as 65 percent.

"It's sort of the perfect storm for prices coming down," Jarrard says.

The tax credit will fall to 26 percent in 2020 and 22 percent in 2021, before permanently dropping to 10 percent in 2022.

When the Butler group acquired a Nissan franchise in an older location in 2014, it decided to build a larger Nissan dealership and accompanying collision center closer to its other Macon stores, providing a "test kitchen" to try solar and LED technology.

The savings were immediate.

"We opened the collision center in December of 2015, and our Nissan store opened in April," says Butler. "We've got another collision center that's of similar size to our new one, and our power bills are anywhere from $2,000 to $3,000 less per month at the new facility because of solar."

Butler expects an annual cost savings of around $30,000 at the dealership. He says the system will pay for itself by the end of 2019 and provide insulation from future energy-cost increases.

The initial success of Butler Nissan of Macon has led the Butler group, with 12 dealerships retailing about 13,000 new and used vehicles a year, to plan to roll out the technology at two more new-built stores: Audi South Atlanta in Union City, Ga., opening at the end of 2017; and Butler Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram in Beaufort, S.C., which should open in early 2018.

After those projects, Butler plans to start introducing solar and LED lighting in the group's other dealerships.

Butler says he sees an opportunity to get community appreciation -- and possibly vehicle sales -- out of solar adoption, noting that other dealerships often tout their green accomplishments.

Although Butler Nissan of Macon has not yet advertised the solar project in a major way, the group plans to make it a part of its public profile going forward, particularly as the next two solar-equipped stores open. "It's something we're going to continue to do across our footprint," Butler says. "So we certainly need to get some good will from doing it."