When it comes to green energy solar seems to be the
panacea. It is limitless and at current
standards works but with the improvement of batteries and collector technology
it seems the sky is the limit. For solar
to be successful though we have to have a paradigm shift.
Currently the solar technology push is following the old
tried and true. In a central location
build a massive array of equipment and collect as much energy as possible and
then distribute it for a profit. There
are so many things wrong with this they are too many to mention but I will
cover a couple. The biggest is that it
requires upgrades to our aging electrical grids, the other is a insane amount
of real-estate it take to make a centralized collection facility.
For solar to work is it has to be a distributed and
specifically decentralized system where much smaller collection systems are
used right at the location where the power is needed. The advantages to this are huge. The largest economic advantage is that is
requires zero upgrades to the grid. As a
matter of fact it greatly reduces load on the grid making it much more
dependable.
This system requires collectors on every house and building
along with batteries and some rewiring.
When there is no sun light you will still want to be on the grid for
backup. In most municipalities the local
utility is required to buy back your excess power so that is even an attractive
notion as well.
Back to the grid for a moment though. Think about a large neighborhood. Let’s say for discussion purposes that
exactly 25% of the houses face each of the four directions and they don’t want
to look at the ugly collectors on the roofs so they have to be placed on the
back of the house. During part of the
day you may not have a perfect angle but during the other part you will and
during some seasons it will be better for one house than another but they are
all right across the street from each other.
When your house is at the perfect angle you are creating
more than you need and your neighbor is getting the excess others generate or
at least a little sip from the grid if his is not at the right angle. In this model power does not have to be
transmitted across huge ugly lines from one end of the country to the other because
most of the poser is generated locally.
This is the solar model of the future.
