Solar Panels and Power
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Solar is “the world’s most abundant resource” and it can help consumers be more environmentally friendly, but the high cost of installation keeps many away from investing in solar. The U.S. Department of Energy says that the entire world’s energy consumption could be powered by the sunlight that shines on Earth in about an hour and a half. Solar power is energy converted from the sun’s rays, and it is possible to harness this power with technology like photovoltaics, solar heating and cooling, and concentrating solar power. The most familiar form of solar energy is photovoltaics, which uses solar panels to capture the sun’s energy and then turn it into electricity. Solar heating and cooling, or solar thermal energy, allows us to use sunlight to heat and cool spaces. The final type of solar energy is concentration-solar-power, which uses mirrors to capture sunlight and store it for use later. Over the past decade, the solar industry has increased 42% every year in the U.S. and there are nearly 109 gigawatts of power installed in the U.S. (enough power for 18.9 million homes). Though solar panels cost a lot, they help reduce electrical bills and even allow owners to sell excess energy back to the power grid. It is also much more sustainable than traditional energy sources because it is both renewable and abundant (Gobler).
To find out how much you could save, go to PV Watts' Solar Panel Calculator by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
According to the Solar Energy Technologies Office, part of the U.S. Department of Energy, “Solar power is more affordable, accessible, and prevalent in the United States than ever before.” In 2008, the U.S. Solar capacity was just 0.34 GW (gigawatts) and now it is an estimated 97.2 GW, enough to power 18 million average homes in America. The cost of solar panels has also dropped almost 70% and markets are maturing rapidly. It is predicted that 1 in 7 homes will have a rooftop solar PV system by 2030. Solar’s potential in the U.S. is huge. Only 22,000 square miles, the size of Lake Michigan, of solar could supply enough power for the entire United States. The cost of Concentrating Solar-thermal power (CSP) fell more than 50% and by 2050 it could provide 158 GW to the US. As of now, there are more than 250,000 people working in the solar industry, which has increased by over 167% in the past decade (5 times faster than the overall job growth). Solar-based energy has not reached its full potential to provide energy to the US, but technological advances and innovative market solutions are still needed to increase efficiency, drive down costs, and enable utilities to rely on solar for baseload power (Solar Energy Technologies Office).
To learn more about how solar panels work, watch Richard Komp's TED Talk "How do Solar Panels Work?" It provides more information about the process of turning solar energy into electricity. As of 2021, the most efficient solar panels are closer to %50.
In October 2021, the International Energy Agency “declared solar the cheapest new form of electricity,” and in the best locations it is the “cheapest source of electricity in history.” Fossil fuels get more and more expensive as the amount available decreases and the closest available resources are deeper into the ground, whereas the cost of solar power decreases with the technologies that get cheaper as more are made. This creates a “flywheel:” clean energy becomes cheaper, we use more of it, so the manufacturing scale increases, and it becomes cheaper still. Jane Chase and her colleagues at BloombergNEF, an energy research firm, estimate that solar and wind energy will produce 56% of the world’s energy by 2050. The Ghawar oil field in Saudi Arabia, at 3,000 square miles is the largest convention oil field in the world, could produce almost 4 million barrels of oil a day or a petawatt-hour every year (a Petawatt-hour could fuel all of Japan for a year). But, if the oil extracting machinery was removed and replaced with solar panels, Kingsmill Bond, the energy strategist for Carbon Tracker Initiative, estimates that solar could produce more than a Petawatt-hour every year. Eventually, the oil under Ghawar will run out, the Sun won’t (Manjoo).
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