A FUTURE UNDER THE SUN

Building a Solar Future; Repowering America’s Homes, Businesses and Industry with Solar Energy
Tony Dutzik, Rob Kerth, Rob Sargent and Bernadette Del Chiaro, March 2010 (Environment America Research & Policy Center)

THE POINT
The Mayor of Los Angeles this week used the excuse of building more solar energy in Hollywoodland, obviously one of the sunnier places in the U.S., to apologize for raising the electricity rates in his city.

The truth is, the fluctuating price of natural gas and some other bureaucratic and management issues at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LA DWP) seem to have put the city in a financial hole and these tough times have left few options to dig out.

So Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and his people, some of the staunchest advocates of New Energy (NE) and Energy Efficiency (EE) in LA’s nasty “Chinatown” political world, ran a poll to prove the obvious, that sun-drenched Angelenos like the idea of solar energy, came up with a plan to raise rates 2.7 cents per kilowatt-hour and promised to set aside 0.7 cents of the money in a trust to make LA homes more efficient and finance a feed-in tariff to boost the building of large solar systems.

First, pols have got to stop cynically using NE and EE as an excuse for problems with fossil fuels and the rising price of power. They only fuel the public’s growing sense that climate change and all the best answers to it are little more than an environmentalist scam. The truth is, power prices are going to go up because of fossil fuel expenses and it is plain wrong for cowardly politicians to put the blame on New Energy.

Furthermore, we’ve got to get organized. Like so many other platitudinous and insincere political cheerleaders, the LA leadership has a long-term goal to get the city off coal and to get a big percentage of the city’s power from NE and EE but it doesn’t have a clear and concrete bridge from here to there.

Insiders report Mayor Villaraigosa will lose his gambit to raise power rates and blame it on New Energy but the defunding does not mean sunset on New Energy in LA. The fight is still ahead. (click to enlarge)

Building a Solar Future; Repowering America’s Homes, Businesses and Industry with Solar Energy, from the Environment America Research & Policy Center, offers a more detailed blueprint of a bridge to a New Energy and Energy Efficiency future. It lays out the full spectrum of solar power options and what their potential is and gives a detailed plan for building the infrastructure with which the U.S. can generate 10% of its total energy demand with the sun by 2030.

The solar technologies detailed in the paper: (1) Photovoltaics (PV), (2) Concentrating solar power (CSP), (3) Solar water heaters, (4) Solar space heating and cooling and (5) Passive solar design. How these solar technologies, as described in the paper, can be put to work: (1) Solar homes, (2) solar businesses, (3) solar factories, (4) solar farming, (5) solar transportation, (6) solar communities and (7) a solar energy-friendly transmission system.

The paper concludes with a set of public policy changes that must be implemented at the local, state and federal levels to remove barriers, drive growth and achieve the vision: (1) Financial incentives, (2) renewable electricity standards (RESs) with solar carve-outs, (3) new financing tools, (4) advanced building codes and standards, (5) consistent and long-term rules to ensure access to solar energy, (6) public education and workforce development, (7) public investments in a solar grid, and (8) research, development and deployment (RD&D) programs.

Somebody send a copy to Mayor Villaraigosa. And to the House of Representatives and the Senate. And the White House.

click to enlarge

THE DETAILS
The U.S. solar potential is huge, if not limitless, but being able to use that potential to replace fossil fuel dependence in time to impact the changing climate will require a major national commitment to restructuring the national energy system.

The numbers:

A possible but ambitious goal would be to obtain 10% of the nation’s total energy (not just electricity) from the sun by 2030. That’s more energy than the U.S. currently gets from the electricity generated by its nuclear plants, more than half the energy now used by U.S. cars and light trucks and almost half the energy now produced by burning coal.

The first part of the equation is Energy Efficiency. The U.S. can, according to studies, cost-effectively cut energy consumption through EE 26-to-31% (from 118 quadrillion BTUs (quads) to 82-to-88 quads) by 2030.

click to enlarge

Getting 10% of total energy from solar would require replacing 8.8 quads of energy consumption. 6.4 quads could come from solar energy-generated electricity.

The other 2.4 quads would be more challenging. Half the U.S. potential for residential and commercial building solar water heating would be another 0.3 quads. The rest would come from (1) using industrial solar process heat, (2) more extensive deployment of EE technologies (net zero-energy buildings, replacing vehicle and airline trips with public transportation and rail), (3) increased solar electricity generation from the use of solar power plant energy storage, (4) solar district heating and active solar space heating and cooling systems, and (5) the increased deployment of distributed solar energy systems (agriculture, vehicle charging, etc.)

The potential of the nation’s solar technologies:

(1) Distributed solar PV

Photovoltaic (PV) panels transform the light of the sun into electricity.

The U.S. has the potential to generate hundreds if not thousands of gigawatts of electricity with rooftop solar PV. The 712 gigawatts foreseen in a now-outdated 2004 study would supply 25% of U.S. electricity demand.

PV panels can also be installed on factory roofs, roadsides, parking lots, former industrial (brownfield) sites, airport buffer lands, wastewater treatment plants and other similar otherwise unproductive open areas.

Finally, PV panels can serve innumerable off-grid uses (offshore oil and wind platforms, streetlights, emergency call boxes and rural water pumps).

(2) Utility-scale solar

Solar power plants use concentrating solar power (CSP) from either massive arrays of PV panels or technologies that use mirrors and/or lenses to capture the heat of the sun and use it to boil water into steam that, like Old Energy power plants, use the steam to drive turbines that generate electric power.

The parts of the U.S. Southwest that are flat, near transmission lines and outside environmentally sensitive areas have the documented potential to generate 11,000 gigawatts of electricity through solar power plants, some six times more than present U.S. demand.

click to enlarge

(3)Solar water heating

Solar water heaters capture the suns heat and transfer it to a home or commercial building’s water system.

By using the sun to partially or entirely heat water, the U.S. could replace 0.5 quadrillion BTUs of fossil fuel consumption, 0.5% of the national total, and a small but significant part of the national electricity use.

Industrial solar heating could displace 4% of industry’s use, cutting U.S. energy onsumption another 0.15%.

(4) Passive solar and active solar heating, cooling and lighting

Smart building design makes use of the sun to keep spaces warm at cold times, cool at hot times and bright at light times without the expenditure of energy. The paper identifies no documentation quantifying the potential of active and passive solar heating, cooling and lighting from smart design in residential and commercial buildings but points out the technology to increase their use exists and the potential energy savings is significant.

How these solar technologies can be put to work:

(1) Solar Homes

New homes can be designed to maximize the benefits of passive solar energy and efficiency technologies and built to be ready for the installation of PV panels and solar water heating systems. It is estimated PV panels can be installed on 35-to-40% of U.S. homes and solar hot water systems could be on half of all homes. Effectively designed and built, homes can produce as much energy as they consume. Net zero energy homes are already being built around the U.S., in all climates and, because of the savings obtained by the technologies, can also be net zero cost homes over time for their owners.

click to enlarge

(2) Solar Businesses

Commercial buildings (big-box stores, strip malls and office complexes) could also have rooftop solar systems. The larger the system, the less expensive it is per unit of energy output. ~60-to-65% of U.S. commercial roof space could be used for PV and hot water systems. Walmart's big box skylights have cut their energy costs 15-to-20% and Boston’s Fenway Park, home to baseball’s Red Sox, as well as laundries, hotels and hospitals are cutting the use of natural gas with rooftop solar water heating systems.

(3) Solar Factories

Rooftop solar PV and solar water heating could cut manufacturing facility expenses and the excess heat generated by their industrial processes could be channeled to the hot water systems to make both the building and the system still more efficient. Food processing plants, chemical companies and textile plants are good candidates. A Frito-Lay plant in California uses solar concentrators to provide cooking heat. At full capacity, it saves the amount of natural gas used by 340 average American homes.

(4) Solar Farming

PV systems can pump water for irrigation and meet remote area electricity needs off-grid. Farms could also use solar energy heating systems for greenhouses, ventilating barns or drying crops.

(5) Solar in Transportation

Plug-in vehicles, hybrids and fully electric vehicles are usually parked all day and could therefore be recharged after the drive to work with solar energy-generated electricity. Toyota is expected to have a solar charging station for its plug-in hybrid Prius by 2011. The vast stretches of the nation’s highways and all its parking lots could have PV systems. Public transport vehicles such as buses and electric trains could be charged from solar energy. California’s highspeed rail authority plans to buy New Energy to charge up. Major shipping companies are piloting the development of solar sails and kites to cut the energy costs of ocean transport.

Dr. Paul MacCready's 1987 Sunraycer was a mere hint of things to come. (click to enlarge)

(6) Solar Communities

All government facilities (not just offices but schools, wastewater treatment plants, etc.) and community institutions (churches, meeting halls, etc.) could benefit from solar energy. New policy tools put the purchase of such systems within reach. New housing developments in Europe already have neighborhood-wide solar district heating systems that cut community water heating costs as much as 25% or more.

(7) Building the Solar Grid

Utility-scale solar power plants require transmission from their typically remote desert locations to population centers. Distributed PV systems require smart transmission for the effective integration of their contribution at peak demand times. Together, new and smart transmission can eliminate the need for many new fossil fuel power plants and allow for the decommissioning of old ones.

The concrete steps necessary to make this vision a reality:

(1) Financial incentives

Grants, tax credits and feed-in tariffs reward system installers. Incentives should be long-term to create stability.

(2) Renewable electricity standards (RES)

29 states have RESs that require their utilities to obtain a specific portion of their power from New Energy sources within a specified number of years. Many have solar carve-outs that require a specific part of the New Energy be solar energy. A federal RES with a solar carve-out would be even better.

click to enlarge

(3) New financing tools

The single biggest obstacle to more rooftop solar is the big upfront cost of a system. New innovations like the Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program that allows municipalities to use their big, low-interest-rate borrowing power to finance residential solar and efficiency installations can eliminate that obstacle. Utility on-bill financing can do the same, as can low-interest loans and loan guarantees from state and federal sources and power purchase agreements and lease arrangements through the private sector.

(4) Advanced building codes and standards

Mandating the prepartion of residential or commercial building for solar installations during construction is the affordable compromise between adding the expense of building solar in and ignoring solar altogether. Design and positioning make passive solar heating, cooling and lighting possible but codes and standards requiring such desirn and positioning make them widespread. Some states and countries already require solar in new builds, especially solar water heating systems.

click to enlarge

(5) Consistent rules to ensure access

Solar access laws prevent recalcitrant homeowners’ associations and municipalities from using rules that turn back solar growth. Revisions to permitting rules and utility regulations will add to the easy implementation of solar. Net metering laws and feed-in tariffs guarantee fair remuneration to implementers.

(6) Public education and workforce development

The nation must become energy literate. That begins in the schools. Skill centers and community college programs that train solar installers do more than provide a ready workforce, they drive the growth of solar businesses. Public education provides answers to consumers’ doubts. Energy labeling requirements for buildings teaches consumers what they gain from NE and EE and encourages home buyers to shop for energy bargains.

(7) Investments in a solar grid

A smart grid delivers savings to every electricity purchaser. New transmission lines allow utilities to buy and deliver New Energy generated electricity.

(8) Research, development and deployment programs

RD&D is the way a nation goes from here to there.

click to enlarge

QUOTES
- From the report: “America has virtually limitless potential to tap the energy of the sun. Solar energy is clean, safe, proven and available everywhere, and the price of many solar energy technologies is declining rapidly. By adopting solar energy on a broad scale, the nation can address our biggest energy challenges—our dependence on fossil fuels and the need to address global warming—while also boosting our economy…America has the potential to obtain a large and increasing share of our energy from the sun. In the near term, America should set the ambitious goal of obtaining 10 percent or more of [not just our electricity but] our total energy consumption…from the sun by 2030, using a wide variety of technologies and tools…”

click to enlarge

- From the report: “America can obtain a large share of its energy from the sun. But it will not happen on its own. Local, state and federal governments must implement public policies that remove the barriers currently impeding the spread of solar energy and adopt policies to make solar energy an important part of America’s energy future.”

click to enlarge

- From the report: “Achieving that target [of obtaining 10% of U.S. total energy from the sun by 2030] would result in the sun providing us with more energy than we currently produce at nuclear power plants, more than half as much as we currently consume in our cars and light trucks, or nearly half as much as we currently obtain from burning coal. A comprehensive suite of public policy strategies can remove many of the common barriers to solar energy development and help to make this vision a reality.”