Solar Energy Becomes Personal

Electricity is essential for our way of life. Traditional sources of power derived from renewable sources and fossil fuels are barely adequate to meet our current demands, even as emerging power-hungry entities like computer-based data storage or artificial intelligence computing centers are now competing with humble residential consumers for more power. 

But some of us have realized we can capture solar electricity and use it to enhance our lives and help others. 

Happily, the sun is ready for us. Earth intercepts in one hour enough sunlight to power the world’s electricity needs for a year. Tidal, geothermal and nuclear energy exist, but their electricity is neither free nor universally distributed right where we live. Each of these will ultimately have to compete with solar in the marketplace. 

How exciting then that solar panels that convert sunlight into usable electricity are becoming both more efficient and less expensive. Affordable photovoltaic panels can now convert 25% of the energy in sunlight into electricity. On a day when the sun is out and directly overhead, it delivers a continuous 1,000 watts of power to each square meter of the Earth’s surface, or about 1.2 horsepower. 

No wonder commercial developers are building photovoltaic generating farms, some nearly as large as conventional nuclear generators, or about one billion watts (one gigawatt) in size. Further, the size, safety and cost of big batteries have kept pace with the solar industry, and most utility-scale solar farms now include batteries that manage the flow of power to the local grid, night and day. 

Low-cost solar energy and storage are tweaking traditional electricity businesses across the country in ways that benefit both the consumer and local utilities. Community solar projects, for example, link a landowner with a solar developer and a utility for distribution. Customers of the utility can sign up and their bills decline typically by 5% to 20%. No surprise, then, that these projects are popular around the country. 

In California, a project called the Clean Power Alliance linked state and county governments with utilities and installed solar panels and storage batteries at no cost to 300 lucky low-income homes in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. The state paid for the panels, the batteries and the installation. The utility worked with a contractor for wiring and software upgrades. Count the wins! Monthly bills decline for select customers; more pollution-free power comes to the grid; the grid becomes more resilient; and the utility partner can use the 300 batteries as a virtual power plant that can be tapped when power demand is high. The utility thus avoids buying expensive power on the open market. 

Similar community choice programs are operating in Illinois, Maryland, Ohio and Virginia, and are planned elsewhere. Such an arrangement could bring solar electricity to the Key Peninsula since Peninsula Light Co. is the likely utility to receive power from the solar installation on part of the old Purdy landfill. (“Solar Array to Be Built at Purdy Transfer Station in 2025,” Dec. 2024) Pierce County received the necessary funding from the state, and construction is expected this year. With that state funding, the Purdy project should not be affected by the uncertainties of federal support. 

Utilities themselves are sponsoring virtual power plants. They appreciate that the power they can get from their customers’ rooftop solar systems, electric vehicles, smart thermostats or batteries is much less expensive than the power they might otherwise have to buy from commercial sources. Virtual power plants are up and running in Texas and Utah, as well as in California and other states. Businesses with high electricity costs are also doing the math and adding renewable solar to manage costs. 

The super major oil companies use the renewable energy they generate to reduce the costs of refining fossil fuel products they sell to the rest of us. Smaller businesses are also going solar. An article in PV Magazine described how the Del Dotto Winery in the Napa Valley dealt with their Pacific Gas & Electric Co. bill of $10,000 per month. Working with experienced suppliers, they installed four sets of panels on masts fifteen feet off the ground, not in rows on the ground. Each mast carried 43 kilowatts of solar panels and a dual-axis tracking system that kept the panels pointed at the sun. By following the sun from sunrise to sunset, the yield of electricity was increased by 40% compared to a fixed-angle ground system. This 172 kW system produces 95% of the winery’s electricity and is expected to pay for itself in three years. 

Could PenLight do what the winery did and place 43 kW of panels on masts, perhaps one or two a year, feeding power into our grid? Wired up as part of a virtual power plant? 

For perspective, home solar systems tend to be smaller than 43 kW, in the range of 5 to 25 kW. But even a modest home photovoltaic system with a home battery reduces one’s electricity costs, especially the cost of charging an electric vehicle. That’s a personal benefit.

Richard Gelinas, Ph.D., whose early work earned a Nobel prize, lives in Lakebay.