Solar is Starting to Come of Age

What Is Solar Power

Solar power is energy that comes from the sun. This very powerful energy warms the earth, regardless of whether or not we harness it. Even the minuscule percentage of sunlight that contacts the earth is more than enough to meet the energy and power needs of the entire human population more than 8,500 times over.

The only trouble is becoming skilled at how to collect this energy efficiently. Today there are many different technologies for achieving this purpose. Due to real concerns over the longevity of traditional energy resources, many people today are interested in developing renewable energy technologies, such as solar devices.

Solar Power Technology Is Harnessing The Sun’s Energy In Many Ways

Here are some examples:

• Solar cells: Also known as photoelectric or photovoltaic cells, these are the most common devices that transform sunlight into electricity. Solar cells are combined into modules of which solar panels are comprised.
• Solar water heaters: Basically, heat from the sun is used to heat water through glass panels (solar collectors) which are installed on roofs. Solar collectors deal with heat from the sun (solar thermal energy) as opposed to light.
• Solar furnaces: Solar furnaces use many strategically placed reflective surfaces, such as mirrors, in order to concentrate all of the sunlight into a single point. This small space of concentrated energy creates an extreme amount of heat which can be used for making electricity, melting steel, or creating hydrogen fuel.

Why Solar Power Is Such An Appealing Energy Source

• Solar energy is a completely free and inexhaustible fuel source
• No fuel, waste, or pollution is expelled in its usage.
• In remote areas, or small villages, solar power can be the saving grace. Sometimes it is the only realistic way to provide energy to a place that is not capable of drawing energy from other sources.
• It can be used for low-power purposes as well as larger ones: from battery chargers, hand-held calculators, and solar-powered garden lights to air conditioning, cars, and satellites.
• Sunlight is provided, regardless of whether we use it or not. There is no need to process sunlight beyond the amount which a solar cell or solar collector is capable of doing (unlike fossil fuels or even other alternative energy sources, such as biomass.)

Electric Costs in Florida

While gasoline prices have dropped from their highs of a few years ago, electric costs continue to rise.  Gasoline for all of the 1990s was about $1 a gallon, oil $18 a barrel, natural gas, $2 for a thousand cubic feet. Residential electricity in Florida was 8 cents a kWh. (kilowatt hour). Gasoline, at its peak in 2005 was over $4, oil over $140 a barrel, and natural gas over $11 for a thousand cubic feet. Residential electricity in Florida was 12 cents a kWh.  After that, the price of electricity to some consumers in Florida had reached 15 cents per kWh.  The average Florida customer who used 1,250 kWh of electricity per month paid $120 in 2005 and $152 per month in 2008.  In 2009, the average customer is paid more than $160.  So by doing nothing, the price has gone up more than $40 per month (33%) since 2005.  Some customers will be paying $188 per month, a $68 per month increase (50%) since 2005!

Solar Explosion In Florida

Solar power in the Sunshine State has exploded in the past three years, providing millions of dollars in new projects and hundreds of jobs, even as most of Florida’s economy withered.

The state’s planned investment in solar energy crossed the $1 billion mark April 9, 2009 with the announcement of Florida Power & Light’s 75-megawatt Babcock Ranch project, billed as the largest photovoltaic array in the world. FPL has three other large solar plants already under construction. Small solar installations have tripled in less than three years, and Progress Energy customers recently surpassed 1 megawatt of solar installed. Nearly 250 megawatts of solar projects have been announced statewide.

Florida’s solar industry hopes that solar can do for Florida what computers did for Silicon Valley.

If that seems like a stretch of the imagination, consider this: The 110 megawatts of solar that FPL has under construction will cost $738 million and employ 660 construction workers. For all that, the projects will generate only one-fifth of 1 percent of the power used by the utility’s 4.5 million customers.

If FPL supplied just 3 percent of its power from solar, the investment will run into the billions of dollars and put thousands of people to work. If those solar panels were made right here in Florida, that could mean tens of thousands of permanent, high-paying jobs.

The renewable energy lobby offers thought-provoking estimates of just how green jobs could transform the economy. The national solar industry group estimates that solar energy could provide 440,000 permanent jobs nationwide by 2016. The Vote Solar Initiative, an advocacy group based in San Francisco, estimates that Florida could see 85,500 jobs in solar if the Legislature adopts Gov. Charlie Crist’s goal of getting 20 percent of the state’s power from renewable sources by 2020.

The developer behind Babcock Ranch, which will include 19,500 homes and 6 million square feet of commercial and retail space, is already negotiating with solar companies that may want to locate in Florida.

The Florida solar industry hopes to get a piece of the rapid expansion of solar nationwide. Solar power grew 17 percent, its third straight year of record growth, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. The installation of grid-connected solar panels surged 81 percent. Solar panel manufacturing was up 65 percent.

“We’re in the fourth quarter of the game,” said Jerry Karnas, Florida Climate Project director for Environmental Defense. “We’re not in Hail Mary pass time, but we certainly need the hurry-up offense.”

Florida’s solar industry owes its recent success to policies enacted in the recent past:

First, in 2006, the state started offering a rebate of $4 a watt for solar panels. The rebate cut the cost of installation by half or more, paying homeowners $20,000 for a 5-kilowatt system. Since then, the amount of solar on the state’s electric grid grew to more than 3 megawatts, and there are thousands of backlogged applications for rebates. Starting in 2007, Governor Crist began pushing a series of measures that would force the state’s utilities to slash greenhouse gas emissions and get more of their power from renewable sources.

Now, lobbyists are peddling a slew of new policies in Tallahassee, hoping to kick-start an even bigger boom. Proposals include strong renewable energy targets, premium prices for solar electricity, tax incentives for solar companies, rebates for consumers and firm backing from state regulators. Similar debates are playing out in states across the country, and in the nation’s capital.

The issue has attracted farmers, developers, small-business owners, big businesses such as Florida Crystals and the usual complement of utility lobbyists and environmentalists.

Riddled with acronyms and technical jargon, the debate can often be impenetrable, with millions of dollars worth of jobs and investment in the balance. The Legislature is debating Crist’s “20 by 2020″ renewable target, and utilities are pushing for a “clean” policy that would include new nuclear power.

A policy known as feed-in tariffs also is gaining traction, pushed by a renewable energy lobby that includes solar installers and manufacturers. The tariffs force utilities to pay more for electricity that customers generate from solar panels than those customers pay for electricity generated by the utility’s power plants. Gainesville recently adopted the tariffs, and advocates want to see it enacted statewide.

The state also could extend the policy that paved the way for FPL’s 110 megawatts. Passed last year, it allows the Public Service Commission to approve renewable energy projects up to a certain limit, even if those projects cost more than fossil fuel plants.

Despite the enthusiasm for solar, it still has a long way to go before it displaces fossil and nuclear fuels. Consider that the state’s three largest utilities — Progress Energy, Tampa Electric and FPL — have seen a few hundred customers install a combined solar capacity of close to 3 megawatts. The utilities together serve nearly 7 million customers and have nearly 40,000 megawatts worth of power plants that run on coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear fuel.

Florida-Solar Projects

• The state’s solar rebate program has spent every dime of the $11 million the state has budgeted for it since 2006, according to Sarah Williams, a spokeswoman for the Florida Energy Office. So far, the money has helped pay for 15 commercial solar water heaters, 4,000 residential solar water heaters, 3,200 solar pool heaters and 400 solar photovoltaic installations. There are more than 4,700 unpaid projects on a waiting list. Gov. Charlie Crist hopes to devote $9.8 million in federal stimulus money to pay for the backlog.
• Florida Power & Light plans to build 35 megawatts of solar photovoltaic this year, as well as 75 megawatts of solar thermal. It’s a total investment of $728 million, with 660 workers building the plants. All three projects have broken ground. The utility also announced last week plans for a 75-megawatt solar photovoltaic array at Babcock Ranch, the largest planned array in the world. The utility estimates that it will cost $350 million to $400 million, and plans to start construction late this year or in early 2010.
• Gainesville Regional Utilities recently enacted a feed-in tariff, modeled on Germany’s successful solar program. The utility will pay 32 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity from solar panels, far more than customers pay for power from the grid. Contracts have already been signed for the installation of 8 megawatts of new solar to be built by the end of 2010.
• Lakeland Electric last year announced a partnership with SunEdison, a Maryland company, to build 24 megawatts of solar over the next decade. The utility also hopes to expand its solar water heating program from 60 customers to 10,000.
• Tampa Electric announced plans this month to build a 25-megawatt solar photovoltaic plant in Polk County.
• Florida Power & Light, the state’s largest utility, serves more than 4.5 million customers with a total electric capacity of more than 24,000 megawatts.
• 8 new solar installations were added to FPL’s system from 2001 through 2005.
• 227 were added from 2006 through 2008.
• 914 Kilowatts of solar capacity connected to FPL’s system at the end of 2008.
• 110,000 Kilowatts FPL plans to add by the end of 2010, not counting new customer-owned systems.