Got Sol?

I’ve been fascinated with solar power since I was a girl, when my mother attended classes to calculate what it would take to install photovoltaic (PV) panels on the roof of our middle-class, suburban home.  At that time, there was no option for grid inter-tie.  The decision to go solar meant batteries for electrical storage, and full disconnection from the power grid.  My mother decided the costs and hassles of maintaining the system weren’t feasible.   

Times have changed.  Passage of Amendment 37 in Colorado required local utilities to provide grid-tie options, so that people could install PV panels to produce solar electricity during the day, and draw from the electrical grid at night.  No batteries, no mess.  Just good, clean power.  And no need to install 100% of a building’s electrical demand – a partial solution would work, too.   

I’ve followed the solar industry for about 15 years as an outsider.  Not much a technological type, I’ve simply thought that solar made a lot of sense for where I lived.  In 2006 I attended  the American Solar Energy Society (ASES) national conference in Denver.  Plenaries focused on several aspects of climate change, including a moving presentation by Dr. Jim Hanson of NASA.  This was probably my “come to Jesus” moment for renewables.  Hanson said we had 9 years to make significant changes in order to offset serious and catastrophic effects due to global warming.  I staggered out of Hanson’s lecture, wondering how I was going to prepare my young boys for what might be coming.  If Hanson was right, this might be the dominant issue of their generation. 

 Chuck Kutscher, of NREL, chaired the Solar 2006 ASES conference, and edited a report compiled from the plenaries, called Tackling Climate Change.  This free report has had 500,000 hits since publication, and represents a serious, balanced, solution-charged approach.  It’s possible, if we are aggressive with renewable and conservation solutions, to fill the gap between our current trajectory (what Hanson calls BAU, Business As Usual), and what would be required to lower carbon emissions.   It will be hard work, expensive.  But much less expensive if we act now, rather than wait. 

 On July 7, 2006, I decided the time had come to do our part by installing solar panels, to offset our need for electricity from our city’s coal-burning plant.  We could not install a 100% solution due to roof configuration, but we did what we could.   Last month (April), we were billed for only 107 kilowatt hours of electricity.  BSP (Before Solar Panels), we averaged 400-500 kwh a month on our bills. 

 The new EIRP plan by our local utility studies and predicts energy demand for our community over the next decade and more.  When the first version was released, several people noticed hints about the need to build a new coal-burning power plant.  Community response was small but powerful.  Climate change data was rolling in, and people were understanding that emissions from coal plants were a huge part of the problem. Architect Ed Mazria cites that 80% of global warming is caused by coal-burning plants.   The new EIRP is under revision, but now renewables will have a bigger part of the future energy mix for our community.

 Our family cut our home’s need for coal-burned electricity nearly in half, a teeny investment against building a new coal-burning plant.   Solar panels are expensive, and out of the reach of many families.  The solar industry is working hard to cut costs for solar energy, and bring new technology to the market, to make solar power available to more and more people. 

 We often see long trains carrying coal to the city power plant.  I ask my kids, “What’s on that train?”  Coal.  (hear the bored voices)  “What’s it used for?”  Making our electricity.   My son now says, “Making way LESS of our electricity.”