About Photovoltaics
Benefits of Solar Electricity
In this age of dwindling fossil fuels and increasing climate change, we must, as a society, do all that we can to insure a bright future for generations to come. In the world of energy, solar is an option that is gaining interest among home and building owners. It is an alternative to nonrenewable energy, and is highly effective and increasingly accessible.
- When considering solar power as an energy option, it is important to consider the immediate positive impact that it has on the environment, on your property value, and on your monthly utility bill.
- It is good for the environment. Use of solar electricity to power your home substantially reduces your carbon footprint.
- It is good for the value of your property. Your house’s value will rise an average of $60,000 with a solar installation, and will sell much quicker than a house without solar.
- Your monthly utility bills will drop significantly or completely. Properly sized PV systems will offset most of your electricity bill.
Environmental Impact of Solar – Immediate and Substantial
The number one cause of global warming (climate change) is the burning of high sulfur coal to produce electricity. Burning coal is the predominant means by which electricity is produced around the world. There is no such thing as “clean coal.” Coal burning releases by far the greatest amount of CO2 into the atmosphere, more than any other source, including automobile exhaust. Coal is also the leading cause of heavy metal, such as mercury, being released into the environment. Mercury contamination is most easily observed in the marine life food chain. Before man began to burn coal, there were only trace amounts of mercury in the environment. Now it is ubiquitous, and can be found in all regions of the world. The negative effects of burning coal have been researched for decades. The general consensus among scientists and environmentalists is that burning coal is not a sustainable option. In addition to other harmful side effects, it has accelerated the melting of the polar ice caps.
Some utilities, like LA Department of Water & Power, use natural gas for steam turbine-produced electricity. They bill their electricity as “clean.” During low use hours and regular operations, this may be true. But during peak demand periods, when extra electricity is needed, LADWP buys power from other energy companies that produce electricity from coal. The plant may be in Arizona or Utah and the effects might not be noticeable locally, but our atmosphere is polluted just the same.
Informed homeowners increasingly desire to have a positive impact on the environment. When they install a modern solar electrical system or a solar thermal hot water system, they can be reassured that they are significantly reducing their carbon footprint.
Installing photovoltaic (PV) on the average size home is comparable to planting one acre of trees, or of removing 6,600 pounds a year of CO2 from the atmosphere. The average PV installation lasts for at least 30 years, with many projecting the life of these systems at 50 years or longer. To put this into perspective, the first modern solar cell ever made in 1954 is still producing electricity at Bell Laboratories. If the average system lasts for 30 years, that is the equivalent of 198,000 pounds of CO2 no longer entering the atmosphere from one system alone.
By installing solar you can spin the meter backwards. This means that any electricity over and above that used by your household, goes back into the grid. This is more beneficial than just lowering or zeroing out the homeowner’s monthly utility bill. Each PV installation is like adding a small power plant to the grid. It has become a common sight to see solar panels being installed on buildings all around the country. In states like California, which is averaging 100,000 installations a year, that is the equivalent of 5 power plants coming online each year. This is attractive to the electrical utility companies because this extra capacity costs them a fraction of the cost of building huge commercial-grade power plants.
What are “Net Metering Laws?”
Net Metering is a special metering and billing arrangement between utilities and their customers, especially in solar, where your electric meter tracks your net power usage, spinning forward when you use electricity from the utility, and spinning backward when your system is generating more electricity than you need. In some areas, if you produce more electricity than you use, your credit is carried forward to the next month, and sometimes to the next year. Net Metering laws have been put in place around the country to insure that public utilities provide these incentives to participating rate payers.
What Is a “Feed-In-Tariff?”
Feed-In-Tariffs use net metering principles to track the surplus power being fed into the electrical grid from private alternative energy systems like solar. The difference with feed-in-tariffs is the customers that produce more electricity than they use get paid for the excess electricity being fed into the grid from their system. This arrangement encourages conservation and the installation of profitable PV systems.
In states and regions that have enacted feed-in tariff rules, a credit is carried forward each month, and at the end of the year, the customer is paid for their excess power.
Another arrangement allows the grid-tied PV customer to offset the utility bill with excess solar power produced, but the balance does not carry forward past the end of the yearly cycle. This last portion goes into the utility companies’ coffers, and the PV customer’s clock resets for the next yearly cycle.
For each of these scenarios, Net Metering Laws were passed in states, cities, and municipalities to insure that the utilities cooperate in these incentive programs.
In some areas of the world, like Germany, feed-in-tariffs are substantial enough that they have encouraged an amazing amount of solar to be installed. These tariffs, paid to the property owner, have spurred PV installations and rewarded conservation. The average customer-paid rate is 50 cents per kWh or roughly 40 cents more per kWh than in the US. This has spurred the growth of PV to the point where Germany now leads the world in solar installations. It has created thousands of jobs and put Germany in a position of being a major electricity exporter to other countries in the region. The funny thing is, Germany has half the sunlight (or solar resource) of Southern California. And yet they lead the world in solar.
Every state, with the exception of Alaska, has substantially more daily sunshine than Germany. With the current movement toward “green” the solar energy future is bright for the United States.