Economies of Scale

Kauai Solar Farm. Photo from Tesla.

What would be cheaper in El Paso: to go off the electric grid or to have some solar and also depend upon the grid or to be a part of a community solar grid? I still haven't seen any hard and fast figures for each of these options. 

Check out this case study: Welcome to Paradise: Batteries Now Included. It begins by telling the story of Luke Evslin of Kauai, Hawaii, who, because of his desire to be as carbon-free as possible, went off the grid. What did he discover:

"Relying on personal power. . .is no way to power a community, let alone an island.

This became obvious to Evslin midway through his yurt experiment: Inefficiency is the ultimate downfall of any individual effort to address climate change."

“'Either you’re wasting electricity in a closed system, because it’s sunny and your batteries are full, or you don’t have enough power and you gotta run your generator,'” Evslin says. “'That’s not a bug in my system. That’s a feature of any off-grid system.'”

Kauai is quite a story. Mayor Bernard Cervalho led the charge for clean energy in keeping with the Paris Accords. The success on Kauai is notable and Evslin is a benefactor.

Bottom line:

"The economies of scale are such that Kauai’s utility cooperative can install a solar-and-storage unit for about half what it would cost a family to install the same amount on a house. Even when it comes to the island’s fossil fuel–generated power, the utility can produce more from a gallon of gasoline than someone with a $100 generator in their basement."

Read Welcome to Paradise. 

The Friday Video: Solar Power Works in America

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The Friday Video: Solar Power Works in Arizona -- So Why Do Utilities Want to Kill It?

The video above applies so well to El Paso right now. El Paso Electric Company wants to crush the solar industry and keep control of your supply of electricity. They falsely claim that solar users are not paying their fair share for the infrastructure. Yet, the rooftop solar industry means that there is less of a need for infrastructure which really means that there is no reason to raise anyone's rates. 

[By the way, if you receive elpasonaturally by email, the embedded video won't be displayed. Please go to www.elpasonaturally.blogspot.com to see it.]

El Paso Electric is part of a nationwide cabal of utilities (and big oil and gas) to destroy the rooftop solar industry. Read more HERE.

To save your choice for rooftop solar in El Paso, many groups are raising their voices against the rate hike proposals by EPEC. Eco-El Paso provides us, the ratepayers, with some action items against those hike proposals. Check it out.

Click on image to enlarge.

The Alliance for Solar Choice
The Alliance for Solar Choice Facebook
Citizens Against El Paso Electric's Attack on Solar

Living Green in the Southwest: Water and Solar Energy

The oil industry oligarchy and their supporters will tell you that natural gas and even coal use less water to produce electricity than solar power. They are half-right.

You have to distinguish between two types of solar energy: photovoltaics (the panels you put on your roof for example) and concentrating solar thermal - big mirrors that gather heat from sunlight to heat water to be used in a thermoelectric plant. As you might guess, concentrating solar thermal requires tons of water for steam for generating and for cooling - more so than natural gas or coal unless dry cooling is used which cuts water usage by 90% but also cuts efficiency and costs more.

On the other hand, photovoltaics require little water, the least of all in renewable energy except for wind powered generators. How much water? Enough to clean the dust (or smoke in some places) off the panels. My brother, Paul Tolbert, who lives in Upland, California installed solar panels on his home this past winter. Here is what he said about cleaning the panels:

"My installer estimated cleaning every 6 months. But it depends on where you live. EP may have less soot/smog than I have. My panels have been up 6 months (since mid Feb) and don’t need cleaning so far. I recently checked and my electricity generation has not dropped. (However, a couple of recent smoky days may change this). Google says to clean the surface of a solar panel much like you would clean your car -- with warm water and dishwashing soap to remove any accumulation of dirt and grime. I plan to use a long handled squeegee."

6 months and he is going on 7 now without a drop in generation! A bucket of soapy water, a squeegee (a jug of wine, a loaf of bread . . .) We aren't talking about much water. 

[Just a word about wind powered generation. Those spinning blades do kill birds but far less than my cat, Aristotle, and his feline friends from coast to coast do, and far less also than power lines, window panes, pesticides, automobiles and lighted communication towers. Tens of thousands by turbines versus millions by the other causes. Newer turbine technology is reducing the number even more. Sorry, oil industry cronies.]

The process for making the solar panels like all industrial processes requires some water. Still, panels use less water from production to installation to service than thermoelectric plants driven by gas, coal, concentrating solar thermal technology, nuclear, etc.

There are some nasty molecules involved in photovoltaics (as there are in the computer chips that make your smart phones and televisions, well, smart.) The industry (at least in the United States) is very careful about the proper disposal of these chemicals. (I won't get into rare earth metals here. We want quantum electronics for our convenience but we need rare earth metals to accomplish that. I don't know about you, but I don't like to be dependent on China so the trade-off is rare earth mining. More on that later.)

The technology that uses the least amount of water after wind turbines is photovoltaics. The best place to employ that technology is on your own home or business if you want to be part of a community that conserves water. Of course, at the present time, you don't use all of the electricity generated from your solar panels. Without batteries you have to sell that power back to the grid. The "grid" at least the El Paso Electric Company wants to increase substanially how much a solar user pays for a kWhr while buying back at $.03/kWhr. An Australian system uses the excess to heat water. If you own an electric car, you can recharge its batteries with your excess. Bottom line: getting off the grid (and thus the community's consumption of more scarce water) is the way to go.

More on passive solar next. - Jim Tolbert


For more information and references for above:

Water Use by Solar Projects Intensifies
Environmental Impacts of Solar Panels
How It Works: Water for Power Plant Cooling
Fact Check: How Much Water Does Solar Power Really Use?
Get more out of your solar power system by using water as a battery
Do wind turbines kill birds?


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Solar Power the Sun City

Whether it is the Texas Utility Commission or El Paso Electric, the Sun City gets a tiny fraction of its electrical energy from solar power.  The El Paso Times did a front page story yesterday that has caused some buzz: El Paso solar grid is one of Texas' weakest.  The story is based on an Environment Texas report, Reaching for the Sun.  You can download and read the full report here.

Austin and San Antonio combined use nearly 90% of utility-supported solar power in the state.  El Paso, the Sun City? 1.42%!  One point four two percent!  

The Times story yesterday was followed up today by David Burge of the Times about the first round of homes at Ft. Bliss with solar panels: Solar panels rise on Ft. Bliss homes: Step to energy self-sufficiency.

The above info should be set in the context of some really powerful trends: the decentralization of energy and going off the grid.  Read this post by David Roberts: The next big thing in energy: Decentralization.  Also read his Energy democracy: Three ways to bring solar to the masses.

This is a good time to get to know the El Paso Solar Energy Association or like them on Facebook. 

I'm not finger pointing at anyone.  However, I do want to see El Paso leap ahead with solar energy and energy self-sufficiency.  As windy as it gets around here this time of year, we still aren't really a windy city; but we are the Sun City.  Time to shine.