ABC News / AP story on Solar Electric Systems [RE-wrenches]

[Christopher Freitas --- OutBack Power]

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I was forwarded the following article regarding solar electric system
performance and economics.  It is unfortunate that they used the
experience from systems installed in 1985 as being representative of
today's technology... 

I am not impressed with the article and would like to see other's take
on it as well.  

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/ap20040605_579.html

Christopher Freitas
OutBack Power Systems
cfreitas at outbackpower.com 

************************************************************************
*******************************************

Community Works With Solar Power
Pioneering Community in Massachusetts Works With Solar Power Energy

The Associated Press

GARDNER, Mass. June 5, 2004 - This old mill city built prosperity from
the force of its waterways. So there was a legacy of renewable energy
when the local electrical utility sought to thrust Gardner into the age
of inexhaustible sun power, ahead of everyone. 
On a summery evening in June 1985, Massachusetts Electric Co. dispatched
three managers, two engineers, and an analyst to demystify photovoltaic
power for about 70 mostly working-class locals gathered in a college
auditorium.

Panels that convert sunlight into electricity had been powering
satellites. Now they could electrify Gardner's homes, not to mention its
library and even the Burger King. They would help the country save oil
and coal used by utilities to make electricity.

People listened politely. But what got them excited and helped launch
the first photovoltaics test on a community scale was a question:

How would you like to save up to 40 percent on your electric bills?

Sun-catching panels soon covered rooftops of 30 homes and five other
buildings around town. The experiment is still running today, almost 20
years later.

Has solar power worked here? Has it worked around the country? Can it
help us get beyond our dependence on fossil fuels?

Yes and no, to all three questions.

Solar electric power, the industry says, has reached as many as 20,000
American rooftops, where it has proved it can supplement electrical
grids and trim bills.

But its contribution so far is meager.

Despite technological progress, it hasn't worked reliably enough or
economically enough to expand beyond a small fraction of 1 percent of
the country's power generation.

Paul Maycock, who once ran the federal program in photovoltaics, sees
its long-range potential as 15 percent, at best. In other words, in the
coming age of whatever-replaces-petroleum, it can help greatly but even
its boosters say it can't carry the load.

It's not cause for panic. While still a heavy polluter, the coal
industry has made environmental strides and can deliver energy for
perhaps another 250 years. Photovoltaics and wind power are forecast as
the growth leaders among alternative electricity sources for the next 20
years, but other renewables will certainly generate power, produce heat,
and run cars. They include solar and geothermal heat, methane gas from
garbage, crop-derived gasoline substitutes, and even older methods like
burning wood.

Yet 20 years from now, renewable energy will amount to less than 7
percent of Americans' fuel, the Department of Energy predicts. The
dominant 40 percent share will come from that 20th century standby can
you guess? petroleum.

"Renewable energy will not solve the problem of increasing energy demand
by a booming world population, but it does offer a bridge of hope until
a replacement energy source for nonrenewable fossil fuels can be
developed," writes geophysicist Dohn Riley. A paid-for opinion from some
oil executive? Not at all. He was commenting as director of the
Alternative Energy Institute in Tahoe City, Calif.

Gardner's solar pioneers discovered the limits of alternative energy the
hard way by trying it.

In theory, photovoltaics is sheer simplicity: When silicon, extracted
from sand and superpurified, is struck by sunlight, it gives off
electric current. No generators, turbines or toil.

In a real building, unfortunately, the system isn't so simple.

First, a solar cell's direct current won't run a normal household's
appliances. It must be converted to alternating current by a box called
an inverter. At sites far from power lines, a battery bank is also
needed to store electricity for times when the sun isn't shining. With
acid and hydrogen gas, batteries are heavy, expensive and potentially
dangerous.

That's why in Gardner and most other places, photovoltaics are installed
in tandem with the existing power grid. The grid handles the load at
most times: when the sun sets, clouds thicken or appliances suck more
juice than the solar cells can pump.

When the sun comes out, the solar panels take over and send any surplus
into the power line for use in the grid. The electric meter spins
backward to credit the contribution.

Gardner, a central Massachusetts city of about 20,000, was eager to
trail-blaze this new technology.

Like much of hilly New England, its advantage had long been plentiful
water power. With coal and oil dominating hydropower in the 20th
century, most of Gardner's busy furniture mills eventually cranked to a
halt. Manufacturing and wealth slipped south and west.

When the solar experiment was proposed, some wondered about the choice
of a site in New England, which captures a third less solar energy than
the Southwest. Still, backers figured, if it worked here, that would
prove its versatility.

The 4-by-6-foot solar panels started going up in the waning light of
autumn 1985. Leon Rice, a supermarket meat cutter, got one of the first
systems.

Studying the inverter and gauges splayed on his cellar wall like the
controls of a nuclear submarine, he saw that, sure enough, when the sky
brightened, red lights blinked to life. The inverter softly hummed.

He looked forward to the savings. And yet as his monthly electric bills
arrived, Rice didn't see much change perhaps $5 saved in the best
months, he says.

About a year into the experiment, the inverter broke down and needed to
be replaced. Rice didn't worry. Massachusetts Electric, which had paid
to install the $19,000 system and guaranteed upkeep, fixed the inverter.

But later, as the inverter's lights again went dark, Rice climbed to his
roof to check his 10 panels. Water, he discovered, had wicked inside,
where it can corrode the cells.

This time when Rice again called the utility, it seemed reluctant to
help. Nothing happened for months, until Rice decided to replace his
roof shingles. The utility sent workers who unscrewed the 90-pound
panels, eased them down by rope, and piled them against the backyard
fence to remount later.

There, beneath a tarp, they waited. A project manager at Massachusetts
Electric was hoping to find spares somewhere. Weeks passed.

"So I gave them an ultimatum," Rice says. "I'll give you a week. Either
they're outta here, or I'm going to have my son throw them in the
rubbish."

Two men came by in a truck and hauled them away, forever.

Today's photovoltaic panels are at least 50 percent better at wringing
electricity from sunlight and tougher in resisting nature's assaults.
Some come with 25-year guarantees.

They still hog considerable roof space, though. Compared to coal or
petroleum, the sun's energy is dilute. That means it must be harvested
by big collectors.

The inverters are still temperamental, solar advocates acknowledge. They
chug along well enough for five or six years, then often conk out.

If Gardner had a solar zealot, it was an affable steelworker named Roger
Charest, who was happy to help the country cut down on fossil fuels and
generate more of its own energy.

In 1985, a $6,500 liquid-heating solar system on his house roof a
simpler technology already gave him hot water, thanks to a tax credit.
So the free photovoltaics went up on his garage. He had a tall maple
tree felled to let in more sunlight.

Tax breaks lured thousands of other Americans to try solar heating and
power in those years. But the energy crunch subsided, tax benefits
disappeared in the mid-1980s and never fully returned, and electricity
stayed cheaper than predicted. Solar power never took off.

"It really did look like something of a breakthrough" about 25 years
ago, says Joe Broyles, a New Hampshire state energy planner. "Most of
the buzz you saw did not include the cost."

By industry estimates, up to 20,000 solar electricity units and 100,000
heaters have been installed in the United States diminutive numbers
compared to the country's 70 million single-family houses. Most solar
units are in the sunny West and Southwest. Some can supply half of a
home's electricity.

Photovoltaic production has doubled over the past five years. The
federal government has a goal of 1 million rooftop photovoltaic and
heating solar systems by 2010. For now, it gives solar tax breaks only
to businesses, not homeowners.

For them, systems now cost $12,000 or more for typical homes and can
take more than 15 years to pay for themselves. Tapping into a power line
on the street can cost as little as $100.

A dozen states, including California and New York, are again trying to
help by subsidizing photovoltaic systems. The Massachusetts Renewable
Energy Trust Fund says about 200 sites have been approved for subsidies
in this state.

In Gardner, which was usually overlooked by tourists en route to the
Berkshire Mountains, nearly everyone seemed to enjoy the national
visibility the test brought at first. Engineers from Europe, Japan, and
Australia came. They ate fries at the photovoltaic Burger King.

Japan, with initially heavy government funding, now has close to 200,000
photovoltaic systems. It is the biggest single force behind a fivefold
rise in world production since 1998, as reported by the Solar Energy
Industries Association. Germany has more than 100,000 units. India and
parts of Africa rely on battery-equipped photovoltaics for power in many
remote places.

Gardner's experiment, meanwhile, had mixed results.

Project engineers quickly declared the experiment a technical success.
It was the economics, even with free systems and upkeep, that proved
underwhelming. Average annual electric bill savings were less than $200,
one consultant estimated.

With that kind of return, the units needed to operate with virtual
perfection for many years. They didn't and still can't.

Massachusetts Electric once hoped to transfer responsibility for the
units entirely to the homes, and it is trying again this year to
extricate itself from the upkeep. But if the utility stopped caring for
the systems, many homeowners say they would get rid of them.

Market deregulation has turned many utilities, including Massachusetts
Electric, into distributors with little direct stake in how the
electricity is generated. "That's not really part of our mission at this
point," says Richard Sergel, chairman of parent National Grid USA.

Massachusetts Electric was hoping to interest the state in taking over
the project in Gardner, where, so far, only four homes have given back
their equipment. Rob Pratt, director of the state's Renewable Energy
Trust, said he's willing to talk about it.

Rice, the meat cutter, has moved to Maine and given up on photovoltaics.
"If your goal is to save money, you're not going to do it. If your goal
is to save fossil fuel, that's fine but I'm a working guy," he says.

"If I had it to do over, I think I'd get a windmill."


NEXT: Wind as an alternative power source?

 

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