SOLUTIONS
Countdown:
Top Ten Reasons Solar Power Wins
by Doug Payne
Solar areas defined by the dark disks could provide more than the world's total primary energy demand: all energy currently consumed, including heat, electricity, fossil fuels, etc., would be produced in the form of electricity by solar cells. The colors in the map show the local solar irradiance averaged over three years,taking into account cloud coverage available from weather satellites.
10. A job is a job is a job
With all this talk about green jobs, clean jobs, and other kinds of jobs -- how about we just call it a job? A job that puts food on the table, pays the bills, keeps the kids in clothes, and affords the occasional family night out. And, if you subscribe to the belief that all is lost due to the Chinese PV manufacturing juggernaut, keep in mind that you can’t export the thousands of business development, sales, design, engineering, installation, and service jobs we’re going to need every year.
But opinion only matters if the data supports it. Solar is one of the only industries adding private sector jobs in our struggling economy -- with 6.8 percent growth from August 2010 to August 2011, when overall U.S. job growth was only 0.7 percent and when fossil fuel generators actually cut jobs by 2 percent. It’s estimated the United States already has over 90,000 direct and indirect jobs in the manufacturing and installation of solar panels. That’s more than in either steel production or coal mining (not including transportation and power plant employment).
9. It's the fastest growing sector of the economy
Growth is a good for everyone. U.S. solar photovoltaic installation increased by an impressive average annual rate of 64 percent between 2005 and 2010, with over 70 percent of the value of solar products and installations produced here at home. Solar is already up and delivering in 21 states, representing two-thirds of America's population.
8. Voters are ahead of politicians and the media
Despite what you hear from political ideologues and read about in the news, Americans want more homegrown, renewable, clean energy. They want it not only because it will make the air they breathe cleaner, but because they know that competition for their money is a good thing and that economic growth will come with the continued growth of a homegrown industry. Americans are also tired of borrowing money from China to pay for energy we import from many countries that are not our friends.
7. It's about prices
Solar energy is already affordable in many states and cities. A new report by Lawrence Berkeley Labs shows how rapidly solar prices are falling. In its analysis, LBL shows that the average cost of installed solar photovoltaic was $6.20/watt for systems installed in 2010, falling 17 percent from 2009 and 43 percent below 1998. Prices fell an additional 11 percent from 2010 to the first half of 2011. Since 2008, panel prices alone have declined 61 percent, with 30 percent of this reduction happening this year. Large commercial rooftops systems are now being installed for less than $3 per watt DC -- approaching the SunShot goals set by DOE only this year.
So in case you’ve missed it, “solar past does not equal solar present.” Solar is rapidly reaching the point where it competes with traditional energy on price -- even without the kind of taxpayer subsidies that coal and natural gas have received for decades.
6. Follow the private money
Even in a struggling economy, the clean energy industry drew a record $7.8 billion in venture capital worldwide in 2010, a 28 percent increase compared to 2009. Seventy percent of that world total was invested right here in North America. Solar alone received more than 30 percent of U.S. clean tech venture capital in the first quarter of 2011, indicating a maturing industry that is expected to continue growing.
5. Existing policies will make solar energy affordable for millions of Americans by 2015
As Emperor Hadrian of Rome said, “Brick by brick, my citizens, brick by brick.” In seven years, the solar industry has come a long way very quickly. Forty-three states have adopted a net-metering policy, which simply means that utilities don’t have to replace their antiquated software and hardware to accommodate homes and businesses that produce extra power they loan to the grid during peak times of the day. Consumers (homes and businesses) make money for every bit of excess solar production that they don’t use themselves. Instead, their utility buys it at the full retail rate. The small business owner, school, or family gets to pocket the difference.
4. A truly competitive free market favours solar over the oil and coal welfare queens
Solar and other renewables will succeed, despite a national energy playing field tilted towards the oil, gas, and coal industries, which continue to benefit from 70 years of embedded incentives, subsidies, and deductions worth $20 billion a year. In other words, we are paying these guys twice -- once at the pump and electric meter and again when we pay our taxes. The single biggest energy subsidy, worth some $2.2 billion per year, goes to the oil industry -- and doesn’t even support domestic production.
Don’t blame roustabouts, roughnecks, and drillers. It’s not their fault. But if you ask a senior oil and gas company executive, CFO, or Director if they’re willing to give up these incentives and compete on a level playing field in a truly competitive, open market, what do you think they would they say? How about we find out? On the other hand, the solar industry has already declared that they will allow their 30 percent tax credit to expire in 2016.
3. The military loves it
The U.S. Department of Defense's clean energy investments increased 300 percent between 2006 and 2009, from $400 million to $1.2 billion, and they are projected to eclipse $10 billion annually by 2030. Why? Because sun and wind -- not gas stations -- can be found deep in mountains, in deserts, and on the high seas. When combined with brilliant new battery technologies that store energy when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining, the military has the energy and fuel it needs wherever it goes -- rather than waiting for huge, vulnerable tanker convoys.
2 . Solar in a box
We love solar because homes and businesses will soon be winning on price and quality through simple, affordable “solar-in-a-box” deliveries right to your home. These mass-produced, “air conditioner/satellite dish/water heater” installations could be producing the equivalent of one nuclear power plant to the grid per year.
1. Solar will win because we love our nuclear power plant: the one, the only, the original…93 million miles away
These are just ten reasons why renewable energy will win -- and why historians and economists will record individual company failures merely as footnotes in the story of our transformation from dirty, often imported, fossil fuel energy to cleaner, homegrown renewable energy.
Originally published on Greentechmedia.com