What’s Going On With Solar Energy?
I thought we’d have solar-powered cars by now
If solar power is going to flourish anywhere, it’s going to be Arizona. The sun shines all the time here. Yuma is the sunniest place on Earth, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Phoenix is right up there, clocking nearly 4,000 hours of sunlight per year.
When I’m driving around in the blazing sun, I often ask myself: Why isn’t every surface in this town covered in solar panels? And where are the solar-powered electric cars?
Solar power just makes sense. When we purchased a home last year, I immediately started thinking about solar panels. Several houses in our neighborhood are rigged up with solar, and I imagined the satisfaction of powering our home by the sun and paying no electric bill.
We went to a home show a couple months ago, and I approached a solar company to get a general idea of the cost-value situation. We talked to a company called Veterans Solar, so named because company is owned and operated by military veterans. They were quick to point out that their solar panels are not manufactured in China.
The purchase and installation estimate they provided was $20,000. If this solar energy could bring our electric bill down to $0, the purchase would pay for itself in about 15 years.
Not too shabby, except for two things. First, the complication of our roof, which is no spring chicken. Whenever the roof needs a replacement, it will cost extra to get the solar panels removed and reinstalled. It might make more sense to get the roof replaced before installing solar panels.
Second, we were told that SRP, our power company, has a monthly minimum service charge to access the power grid. This killed my dream of no electric bill, and reduced the financial incentive of converting to solar.
APS, the state’s other power company, has a home solar program that’s more favorable for home installations because they don’t charge to access the power grid.
There are both state and federal tax incentives for solar installations. I would need to crunch the numbers to see if these incentives are big enough to compensate for our roof complication. At the moment, the grid access charge remains the biggest financial factor holding us back from installing solar panels.
The wildcard question is how fast the technology will improve. Maybe holding out for a few years will be enough time for the technology (such as battery storage) and the policy to improve to more sophisticated levels.
What about solar farms?
There is a massive solar farm near Yuma called the Agua Caliente Solar Project. The farm is 2,400 acres and produces enough electricity to power 200,000 homes. Even though it’s physically located in Arizona, it’s not an example of local sustainability. The project launched thanks to a $967 million guaranteed loan from the federal government; it’s owned by a gigantic energy company headquartered in New Jersey; and it supplies power to San Francisco.
The Solana Generating Station in Gila Bend, by contrast, provides 100% of its solar energy to Arizona customers. Solaris is a “solar-thermal” plant that creates energy by using mirrors to heat oil, which then produces steam that turns a turbine. In its lifetime, the Solaris plant has been plagued with issues such as underproduction, excessive pollution, and chemical leaks.
If SRP isn’t the friendliest company for home-installed solar, they are definitely getting aggressive by investing in solar farms. In the past year, SRP announced it is contracting with three solar plants, and also developing its own solar plant in Flagstaff. Hence their new “solar choice” plan for those who don’t install their own solar panels, but want to offset their bill with purchased solar power.
APS is contracting to get power from a 2,800 acre solar project under construction in the West Valley. The Papago Solar + Storage Project expects to be fully operational by 2023. From the Phoenix Business Journal:
The project would transmit the electricity generated from the solar facility to the nearby existing Delaney substation, which is owned and operated by Arizona Public Service, and ultimately to the regional electric grid, the report said.
APS customers are currently receiving power from the previously mentioned Solaris station. In addition, APS is building a solar storage plant, planning to be operational by 2025.
Overall, solar power from all sources accounts for about 8% of Arizona’s energy production.
Is solar energy totally clean?
Not really, because the raw materials need to be mined, manufactured, and shipped. Also, solar panels aren’t biodegradable, so there’s a question of what happens to them in the long haul.
Energy writer Michael Shellenberger bursts the bubble in this Substack post. He details the problems with solar panel waste, and the economic dilemmas if solar panel production quadruples in the next decade as predicted. Right now it’s much more expensive to recycle solar panels than to dump them.
First Solar Inc., a company headquartered in Tempe, claims to recycle up to 90% of their panels:
First Solar’s state-of-the-art recycling facilities are operational in the U.S., Germany and Malaysia, with a scalable capacity to accommodate high volume recycling as more modules reach the end of their 25+ year life. Our proven recycling process achieves high recovery rates. Up to 90 percent of the semiconductor material can be reused in new modules and 90 percent of the glass can be reused in new glass products.
Hopefully this issue can be tackled so we can fully harness the power of the sun.
About those solar-powered cars
It’s not a pipe dream, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal:
Lightyear, a startup in the Netherlands, is developing a four-door car whose solar cells can generate enough electricity to power brief outings after a day of sitting in the sun. While the company’s Lightyear One resembles a conventional sedan, Aptera Motors Corp. of San Diego is taking another route. It is stretching the traditional image of a passenger vehicle by developing a two-seater featuring three wheels and a dolphin-shaped body.
These and other solar-power vehicles now in development are the descendants of spindly, solar-powered contraptions that gear heads from around the globe have been racing across the Australian Outback for decades. All feature on their exteriors solar cells that work much like the larger solar panels seen along roads and on residential rooftops, converting sunlight into electricity and storing it in an onboard battery pack.
But because their small surface area limits the amount of electricity they produce, solar-powered vehicles need to use energy far more efficiently than most cars on the road today. And the cars being designed for everyday use will come with plug-in capability so motorists can get where they need to go when solar power alone isn’t enough.
Elon Musk has his doubts:
Others have expressed doubts about the vehicles, including Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk. “The least efficient place to put solar is on the car,” he said in 2017, noting that many people park indoors and cars have limited sun-facing surface area. In 2019, however, Mr. Musk said the company’s Cybertruck pickup would come with integrated solar cells as an option.
Not to say that Tesla is deterred from entering the solar panel market. Their solar panels might be the best option on the market, according to solar writer Andrew Blok.
Final thoughts
While we might not be driving solar-powered cars this decade, here’s hoping for a rapid acceleration in solar technology. Public policy matters, too, which is why I’m rooting (against the odds) for rational people to win more elections.
Do you use solar panels at your house? Did I miss anything important about solar energy and Arizona?
Write a comment below, or email your thoughts to chollaexpress@substack.com.