As Amherst, Mass., writes its rules for where to put solar, some local environmentalists worry about farmland and forests getting lost to solar projects. Other local environmentalists worry that overly restrictive solar rules would limit the town's ability to fight climate change.
Now, six years after Musk first touted the solar roof on a Hollywood set with great fanfare, the solar roof is barely generating a spark within the solar energy industry.
A new report from analysts at energy research firm Wood Mackenzie released Thursday estimated that Tesla has installed only about 3,000 of its solar roofs since 2016. The report is notable because it does something that Tesla has never done – quantify how many solar roofs it has installed.
While I get the importance of generating more carbon free energy, I'm not sure what my thoughts are on many of the farm fields surrounding the historic agriculture museum being taken over by hundreds of acres of solar panels and electric generating equipment.
There are some that say these massive industrial solar facilities are necessary to battle climate change but I’m skeptical not about climate change but their impact on reducing climate emissions. Sure, they make power plants that burn coal and gas work somewhat less hard to produce electricity, therefore burning less fuel and producing less carbon but the plants are still running.
Community solar is in many ways similar to turning off the air conditioning or headlights on your car to save fuel. The gas engine is still running, it’s still burning fuel at idle. Community solar shutdowns no actual fossil power plants, they’re still running but at a slightly lower load. Despite the marketing, community solar is not carbon free electricity.
Community solar is in many ways a method for people to sell off their guilt and pay their indulgences. It outsources the environmental impact of energy production to rural areas with land intensive, industrial solar facilities. It also makes people believe they are getting clean energy when they are not.
Community solar doesn’t even lead to new solar facilities being built – they’re being built by renewable energy mandates that require large utilities to get an increasing percentage of their power from solar. Your paying money earmarked for solar but electrons are not segregated in the grid.
I do support building solar on the roofs of homes, commercial and industrial buildings. Solar there can legitimately be eliminating load on the grid, and reducing waste throughout. While solar on roofs doesn’t eliminate the spinning reserve requirements at least its paired closely with the users load and saves consumers money. Brownfield generation on toxic waste sites and landfills is worthwhile considering but it’s really just too inconsequential to make a difference.
And to be sure I’m not against solar. I use solar energy on my truck to power my campsite and when I own my own land I will have solar for my off grid home. But I’m not going to be covering hundreds of acres with solar panels – just a few kilowatts of panels to create deminis electric power. That’s a little different than powering a city with off site solar.
Action on climate change is important but the real path forward is higher prices and taxes on fossil energy, not government subsidized community solar facilities that make electricity cheap. Fossil fuel energy on the grid can be and should be expensive to encourage people to put solar panels on their home and business and buy fossil energy from the grid as a last resort. Everybody needs to learn electricity is and should be expensive so people use less, especially when they are not able to generate their own power from solar.
With an appropriate price on fossil electricity, even renters and business owners will insist on solar being on their business to save money – and there will be an aggressive effort to conserve expensive fossil energy.
It’s not trendy and nice to talk about higher energy prices but its what’s necessary to save our planet.