Larry and Twila Dove, owners of Two Doves Farm, an organic farm located at 380 Ebenezer Church Rd. west of Fayetteville, are self-described environmentalists. This year they decided to put their money where their hearts are.

They installed 45 solar panels on their barn roof to generate power for their home and their small farm. They are holding an open house tomorrow from 2-5 p.m. and people can visit the farm and check out the system for themselves.

“We just felt it was important to do,” said Larry Dove, who is a pilot for Delta when not growing produce or tending to his farm. “It isn’t cost-effective, but there are reasons to do this besides money. We are serious about wanting to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, having a clean environment and reducing our carbon footprint.”

Carbon footprint is a measure of the amount of carbon dioxide emitted through the combustion of fossil fuels that an individual or household uses as part of their daily lives.

Dove estimates that the new solar panel system generates two-thirds of his household’s annual energy needs. The rest of his energy needs are supplemented with electricity through Coweta-Fayette EMC. Dove was the first Coweta-Fayette EMC customer to install a solar panel system, so they had to approve the system and then original contracts had to be drawn up.

The system works like this: the sun shines down on the 45 solar panels and the direct current from the panels goes to two inverters with each side getting half. The current is converted from direct current to alternating current and gets matched up with the electricity from the Coweta-Fayette EMC.

The system normally generates six kilowatts of energy every hour and Dove estimates that he gets about 30 kilowatts a day on a good day.

The Dove’s system is a grid-tied system, which means that it does not store power but sends the extra power to the neighbors. When the sun goes down, the Doves buy their power just like everybody else, but who wouldn’t want to just buy their power for the few hours before they go to bed each night?

So, what did this cost? Well, Dove can tell you that it wasn’t cheap. The whole thing cost about $50,000 and Dove thinks it will take about 20 years before it has paid for itself, but he isn’t concerned about the money.

He just enjoys watching the solar meter spin on a sunny day, knowing that for those hours on that day he isn’t adding to the problems of the world, which include more oil buying or pollution from coal burning.

The Doves started contemplating a move to solar panels two years ago and last year got very serious about the project. Dove bought the panels himself after finding a good price on them at the end of last year and then contracted out the labor.

In March, four people, including George Andrews of Solar Source, came out and installed the system in three days. The system has been up and running for about a month and the Doves couldn’t be happier with the system.

Solar power is the wave of the future, the Doves believe. Homes in California and Tennessee are already being built with solar systems in place and a bill introduced to the House of Representatives this year, “Securing America’s Energy Independence Act,” would extend the current solar tax credits for residences and businesses through 2015. The credits are currently set to expire in 2008.

The technology is also changing rapidly. There are now panels that are built to look like shingles and some systems use a thin film that can stick to one’s roof and hook into a system.

If you would like to see the solar panel system in person and talk to the Doves or Andrews, visit Two Doves Farm on Thursday, Apr. 19 from 2-5 p.m. You can also see the farm in action. The Doves have a flock of 37 chickens and an organic vegetable garden that has donated over 10,000 pounds of vegetables to food banks over the last several years.

For more information on Two Doves Farm, visit www.twodovesfarm.com. If you would like to calculate your carbon footprint and find ways to reduce it, visit www.carbonfootprint.com.

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