Californian Utility to Blanket Rooftops with Nation's Largest Solar Collector Cell Installation
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles 
on 03.29.08
Image courtesy of Pink Dispatcher via flickr
Two square miles of Californian rooftops will be blanketed with the country's largest solar installation - a collector cell array that could power the equivalent of about 162,000 homes by 2010 - if Southern California Edison's $875 million bid is approved by state regulators. Governor Schwarzenegger has already endorsed the project, praising it for its potential to "set off a huge wave of renewable energy growth," reports Reuters.
The first sites, on buildings in the Riverside and San Bernardino counties, could be operational as early as August - not a moment too soon for the region's always beleaguered peak load capacity. Company officials estimate that the rooftop photovoltaic arrays will be able to generate close to 250 MW of electricity.
When combined with Florida-based FPL Group's recently announced 250 MW solar thermal plant, which will be built in the Mojave Desert, Southern California Edison's project will help boost the amount of solar energy-derived electricity by more than 50%.
Via ::Reuters: Solar farms to rise on California rooftops (news website)
See also: ::California Developers Making Solar Roofing A Standard Item, ::Largest Solar Farm Ever to be Built in California, ::A Picture is Worth... Solar Power in California
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this is the smartest strategy our country (and the world) can take on both energy independence and reducing our impact on the environment. we need a leader like california to prove to the country this can work (just like they did with CARB emissions regs); hopefully in ten years generating your own power will be just as commonplace as generating your own hot water. here is a lazy saturday afternoon list why this strategy beats all others, including sci.am's "cover the desert with solar thermal and swith to dc transmission" plan:
- dispersed, zero emission power generation is much more energy efficient (no transmission losses) than centralized power generation
- dispersed power generation (even if not 100% of household peak demand) gives the crazy wacko terrorists less targets (side benefit: calms the nerves of the crazy wacko conservatives)
- dispersed power reduces the stress on our "frail" power transmission system
- dispersed power generation allows for a gradual decomissioning of worst offender power plants as more pv homes come online
- individual home pv systems are already at a not-too-unbearable-to-reasonable cost if built into mortgage payments
- mass implementation will, of course, bring the cost down faster and improve technology
- as technology improves, older roof pv systems can be recycled and replaced, further increasing their contribution to the grid, and making more power plants obsolete (the grid allows for net positive buildings like wharehouses to compensate for net negative buildings like skyscrapers)
- integrated pv roofing systems (steel sheeting instead of shingles) make most sense when replacing an old roof or in a new home, and can be implemented gradually as homes undergo renovation (can you imagine a zoning regulation that requires all new/replaced roofs to provide some ratio of kwh pv production to SF of home??)
It just makes sense for a utility company to do this. Rather than spending millions to find land in some remote location, just give businesses or homeowners a discount on their electricity if they let the company put solar panels on their roof.
Icelander - Here in Philly, the electric grid or generating capacity aren't anywhere near peak load and there is absolutely no incentive for the utilities to reduce demand or support customers' generation of their own electricity. Coming from California, I'm not saying it's right, but that's the current situation here...