Deploying Solar In California's Urban Areas Could Meet Demand Five Times Over

Lucas123 writes: About 8% of terrestrial surfaces in California have been developed, ranging from cities and buildings to park spaces. If photovoltaic panels, along with concentrating solar power, were more effectively deployed in and around those areas, it could meet between three and five times what California currently uses for electricity, according to a new study. The study from the Carnegie Institution for Science, found that using small- and utility-scale solar power in and around developed areas could generate up to 15,000 terawatt-hours of energy a year using photovoltaic technology, and 6,000 TWh of energy a year using concentrating solar power technology. "Integrating solar facilities into the urban and suburban environment causes the least amount of land-cover change and the lowest environmental impact," post-doctoral environmental earth scientist Rebecca Hernandez said.

Comments

Space for solar hasn't been much of a concern

[Firethorn]

The main concern for solar hasn't been one of the space necessary for a long time. Partially covering something like half the south-facing side of a roof has been sufficient to cover a home's needs for quite some time. A few more percent in panel efficiency would only decrease the coverage necessary.

Like for most things, the real killer has been cost. Smaller footprints are good, reduces cost and increases flexibility(you don't NEED to take down that one tree...). Today it's getting to the point that we need to work to make installs cheaper, including the inverter, which of the items that can fail, currently have the lowest warranty period as well. If you 'plan' on replacing it once it's out of warranty, you'll go through 3 inverters per replacement of the solar panels. Yes, both actually last longer than that, but it's an expense to be wary of.

Personally, in order to manage cost I like to propose 'dual use' applications - solar panels on a roof can act as a solar barrier and reduce the heat load in the house, reducing electricity needs for HVAC even as it supplies electricity for the very same HVAC. My latest 'idea', which is far from unique, is the 'solar car park'. We know people like parking in the shade, and solar panels are typically* strong enough that you can use them directly for roofing material as long as your roof is either small enough or you don't need it to be absolutely tight(like for a house). A few dribbles won't hurt a car but the shade certainly would be nice.

So you mount the panels up over your parking lot(or driveway), and you come out to a shaded, and therefore not blazing hot, car. You park at the store and again, don't come back to a blazing hot car. As a bonus, it'll even extend the life of your paint job and interior, as well as help protect any sensitive electronics that don't like baking in a hot vehicle.

*Some are, some aren't, but it's easy enough to specify/check.

Re:Space for solar hasn't been much of a concern

[jklovanc]

Partially covering something like half the south-facing side of a roof has been sufficient to cover a home's needs for quite some time.

Only true if there is something else to supply electricity at night. Net zero is not off the grid. The thing is that if cheap solar eats into the day production from conventional thermal then night power will become more expensive.

Re:Space for solar hasn't been much of a concern

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in Germany there are fears that the partial solar eclipse on friday will cause problems for the utilities as it will affect all panels at the same and in a relatively short time. There are hopes for a cloudy sky to reduce the effect.

But all in all I'm pro solar.

Re:Space for solar hasn't been much of a concern

[FlyHelicopters]

You could do it with a battery

I'm not sure why people keep saying this...

You're asking people to switch to a new type of lifestyle, one in which they may or may not have power to last through the night. Make your power during the day, charge your battery, then use it at night.

What if the weather is bad for a few days? No power?

This only works if you shut down the power plants, if they still have to exist, then this doesn't work because they have large fixed costs of existing that have to be paid for.

We often run our AC at night, it gets quite warm and without it it would be nearly impossible to sleep. Are you suggesting we would have a big enough battery to run the AC for several days of no solar power?

Do you have any idea how big that would have to be?

Re:Night

[mjgday]

Storage is today's big issue in the energy world.

Having said that, the cost of a storage system used to double the cost of a 3-4 kW (peak) PV system about 5 years ago. I expect since then the prices of PV has fallen more sharply than the price of lead acid batteries, meaning it may well now triple, but still it's hardly "very expensive".

It is cheaper, and more optimal electrically, to sell the power to the grid and then buy it back from another generator when you aren't generating. Of course that doesn't work if everyone is using the same kind of generators and there's no storage, which is why we need storage. As many storage technologies suffer from efficiencies of scale it probably makes more sense to at least partially centralise the storage.

What probably needs to happen (it certainly needs to happen in .uk) is the energy market needs to be restructured so as to make storing energy profitable, then companies will set up to do it.

Re:Without workers power

[silentcoder]

How about the anarcho-socialist brand, or council-communism or part-econ - all of which basically do socialism without any state or government at all.
Unlike, say, libertarianism at least one of those HAS actually been tried. Andalusia in Spain was anarcho socialist for about 20 years at the start of the 20th century, they were simultaneously at war with capitalists from the north and communists from the South. The capitalists hated their working socialism, the communists hated their working anarchism.

But despite the costs of those wars they were extremely successful. George Orwell visited Andalusia and described it as "the most egalitarian society I have ever seen -as close to perfection as civilization has gotten".
In many ways, it was Star Trek Next Generation without the science fiction - just done with the technology of a century ago, imagine what we could do with TODAY's technology ?

It wasn't perfect and there were some problems though they were making good progress towards solving them and, had they not ultimately lost the wars after 20 years, they probably would have since their track record strongly suggests it.

A key component was that the only kind of business they had were worker-owned cooperatives, but these cooperatives still competed in an open market. Worker-owned is all you need for the definition of "socialism" to apply, there is nothing that requires a state, or a government, or even the absence of markets.

That model works surprisingly well - right now worker owned cooperatives in the USA include one of the biggest industrial bakeries in California, one of the leading manufacturers of robotics in Texas (yes, high-tech companies work well this way too) and the largest carpet-maker on earth.