King of the Swimming Pools Goes Solar

By Baylis Greene

John Tortorella looked into the strained face of America's energy supply and saw Switzerland.

The man who runs J. Tortorella Swimming Pools, on County Road 39 in Southampton, is also, since last September, the president and chief executive officer of Sunteg U.S.A., a subsidiary of a Swiss-based renewable-energy company.

"I bought in," Mr. Tortorella said Saturday, sitting in an office above his pool company's Hampton Bays service center. "I'm helping to roll out their U.S. operation. It's their business; I became a licensed dealer."

What he deals in is photovoltaic energy systems - solar panels for houses and businesses - and though the parent company may be European, his motivation is a forward-looking American combination of optimism and profit-seeking.

"I was always interested in renewable energy, and today we have the technology to do it right. We're so tied in to oil, we walk around with blinders on. . . . The amount of oil is finite, and not only that, there's pollution, so I thought, 'Why not get into it?' "

He said he believes the imperative of the moment is to get smart before a global crisis hits. "Germany is in the forefront. They're the largest buyer of photovoltaic systems in the world," he said. "Italy is passing laws - the government will pay 75 cents per kilowatt hour produced on a 20-year plan, or 95 cents on a 10-year plan" to individuals who run their homes, at least in part, on the sun's rays.

If Mr. Tortorella's views are those of an internationalist, it may be because he was born in Italy and moved to the United States in 1969 when he was 11. After he graduated from college with a degree in marketing, he fell, so to say, into the pool business in 1981.

It might not have been his dream, but the turn of events has more than worked out. He employs 128 people, operates a fleet of about 85 vehicles, and, according to Pool and Spa News, a trade publication, his company's 2002 gross revenues totaled $9.3 million. "We're the largest on Long Island," he said, citing an industry survey of a couple of years ago.

And the wealthy South Fork is well suited to more than just gunite-lined holes in the ground filled with chlorinated water. "What's nice about this area is that people have a pretty good amount of land" with their houses. "They don't have to put [a collection of solar panels] on the house; it can be somewhere on the ground, out of sight." Also, he said, "LIPA's major problem is with the summer power demand; photovoltaic will lower it."

On Saturday, Mr. Tortorella's pitch for solar power was an economic one. "A 10-kilowatt system will average $8 per watt, or $80,000, installed. Then you get a $45,000 rebate" from the Long Island Power Authority "and $5,000 to $6,000 in tax credits, state and federal."

New York State offers a tax credit of 25 percent toward the cost of buying and installing a photovoltaic system, up to $3,750. The federal credit is 10 percent of the cost.

But LIPA's rebate is the big incentive. Its Solar Pioneer Program, according to the company's Web site, gives back $4.50 per watt to individuals who install a solar-power system of up to 10 kilowatts, "saving you approximately 50 percent on system costs," with a maximum rebate of $45,000.

"It looks like the rebates will be around for a while," Mr. Tortorolla said. "Now, they may go down, but the technology will get better and cheaper."

He produced a computer printout showing savings accruing to an East End car dealership that bought a Sunteg system in recent months to partially convert to solar power generation. The entire setup cost $74,500 for a 10-kilowatt system, but this was cut to $26,550 after a $45,000 LIPA rebate and $2,950 in other "direct/indirect benefits."

Plus, "in the first year alone, he had $1,918 in savings," Mr. Tortorella said, in net revenue from energy production, "a 7 percent return on his money." After 30 years, the car dealership will have saved $190,431, according to Sunteg calculations. "Energy rates never go down; his return will increase."

Still, Mr. Tortorella added, "the rebates have to be increased for businesses."

For individuals, net metering is another benefit of a solar hookup. In 1998 Gov. George E. Pataki signed the Solar Choice Act, which allows residential electricity customers to connect to utility companies' regular distribution systems and, according to LIPA, "run their electricity meters backward, offsetting their normal utility bill."

This is important because a solar-power system will produce energy even when no power is being drawn from it, for example, when no one is home. A net meter will also run backward when the photovoltaic unit is producing more than the building it is connected to needs.

Sunteg U.S.A. sold its first system in November. "We've got a lot of responses so far," Mr. Tortorolla said, "from businesses, too." And the successful purveyor of pools practices what he promotes: His Southampton headquarters has its own photovoltaic generator, and in Hampton Bays, 70 percent of the building's downstairs and some of the upstairs operations are run off the panels on the roof.

"The word is beginning to spread," he said. "It's time we started looking for other means of energy."

The company will have an informational open house at its Southampton location on Sept. 18.