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For years we've thought of solar as primarily a small-scale method to generate power - on home rooftops, for small businesses and for remote installations. And the economics have been sort of OK but not great, typically requiring tax incentives to motivate buyers. But now it seems large scale installations have overtaken those smaller systems, to the point that utility companies are now buying power directly from large providers because - get this - the cost of power from these systems is lower than from natural gas plants. And that's motivating increasing use of solar even in states that have no special mandate for green policies.
One downside - a number of experts are starting to question the value of home solar systems, which may further accelerate utilities backing away from buying excess capacity from home users. Why incentivize consumer installations when you can buy electricity cheaply from large providers? Can't be good for the already declining coal industry, but on the plus side this should be a greener energy solution (though I'm still not sure about total carbon cost of solar if you include manufacturing the panels and related materials).
Economies of scale for large commercial solar plants should be much cheaper power than the home-based setups, so this is good news.
When I was a student engineer at Northern States Power in Minnesota back in 1978 we were researching solar energy with residential, roof-mounted setups to heat up the hot water and comparing results versus conventional gas heaters.
The U of Minnesota even built their bookstore three stories underground to save on heating and cooling costs, year round.
Daniel - was that solar as in thermal rather than photo-voltaic? My Dad has thermal water heating panels on his roof in the UK. pre-heats the water going into the water heater. Maybe the same thing you were working on in U.Minn?
The utility companies consolidated energy production because larger power plants are more efficient with fuel and have much lower emissions. Imagine each house with its own electric generator chugging away. It would be a lot like camping with a bunch of RV's with their generators going. Plus you would still have to have the infrastructure to get fuel out to each home. Solar is quiet, and the fuel is delivered daily by the sun. It can also be pretty efficient based on solar input. This eliminates several of the compelling reasons that we do not have home based generators.
So home based solar might last longer in the face of improved economies of scale for larger facilities. But this is an interesting development nonetheless.
Daniel - was that solar as in thermal rather than photo-voltaic? My Dad has thermal water heating panels on his roof in the UK. pre-heats the water going into the water heater. Maybe the same thing you were working on in U.Minn?
Yes, that was thermal solar for the water heating.
Here in Hillsboro, Oregon we have SolarWorld, the headquarters and location for the largest PV production facility in the Western Hemisphere. We all think it's because of generous tax breaks, because everyone knows that Oregon gets no sunshine, LOL.
