Steve O’Hare just bought four more 120-watt solar panels at around $600 each for his Shadyside home, adding to the two he installed a few years ago. They feed electricity to a battery that powers the garage and outdoor lights, plus his tools and a dehumidifier in the basement.

His family’s electric bill was around $80 a month without the panels. “Now, it comes in at $50,” said O’Hare, who owns rental properties and restores older homes. “I’m very pro-solar alternative and I’m trying to get all my neighbors interested. Even if they put a couple panels up, it would offset their electric bills.”

Much of consumers’ new interest in solar, wind and other systems, in fact, is rooted in worries about rising electric bills in the next two years.

State officials have warned some utilities could raise their rates by 40 percent or more as the capped prices imposed under the state’s deregulation law in 1996 expire, and demand for power increases.

Most of Vox’s solar installations have been in the center part of the state, but the company started servicing Western Pennsylvania early this year, Foltz said. So far, it’s put about four systems online in the Pittsburgh region.

Conservation Consultants Inc. plans to double the solar panel array on the roof of its South Side building, said Ann Gerace, executive director. The nonprofit promotes environmental responsibility through programs such as home energy audits.

The expanded system should produce 10 percent of the energy used in the building, where 55 people work. And because utilities have to buy excess power produced by solar systems, Gerace said, “We figure when we’re not here on the weekends, we might as well give it back and let Duquesne Light pay us for it.”

The Smiths had been considering solar panels for their home for years. What convinced them was a four-day power outage last year that ruined all their refrigerated and frozen food, and forced them to replace an older refrigerator that never recovered, Martha Smith said.

The couple say they might put a small wind turbine on their three-acre lot on a hilltop, to help power the electric-heated house where they raised six children.

More immediately, Martha Smith intends to go solar on the local roads. She ordered a Solar Bug vehicle for $15,000 from Free Drive of Bozeman, Mont., that should be delivered in November.

Resembling a miniature golf cart with one seat in front and one in back, the electric-powered car has a roof full of solar panels.

Smith said she’s been promised the second car the company produces, and she’s ordered a vanity license plate: “Sunbug2.”