Distributed Energy, Smaller carbon footprint, locally sourced power. It all makes great sense.
But, there's a big debate about putting solar panels on your roof. Let's say you spend enough to offset all of your electricity use. That could happen if you stay on the grid, and you are compensated for energy you put into the grid, vs. what you take out. If you put up a large enough install, you can end up matching your usage, and eliminating your electric bill.
So, what about your neighbor who does not have a solar install? Both of us are hooked up to the same grid. Some of what we pay every month is for the installed grid, the wires and systems that provide electricity. All those trucks doing maintenance and repairs, and all that infrastructure, miles of copper wire, poles, towers, sub stations.
So, while I may be paying zero dollars because of my own power generation, I'm still hooked up to the grid. And when I'm running my air conditioning, I may be getting a lot of amps of the grid.
But, if I didn't get compensated for the energy I produce, it would be financially crazy to spend the $40,000 my solar install cost.
Here's a great discussion that hits on this topic from a Greentech Media forum held earlier this year ( GreenTech Media Solar Forum , Arizonia )
And here is their article on that forum: APS-Responds-to-Sunruns
It's not a simple issue when it hits the real world of for profit utilities, and solar.
In that way, it's like going to the farmers market. If we don't buy vegetables grown in South America, we save all the carbon footprint spent on transportation and storage.
For over 100 years, we have subsidized the oil industries with billions and billions of dollars. And before there were so many of us, combined with the passage of these years, this has served us well. But now with the gigatons of Co2 spewed into our thin precious atmosphere, we have to change.
But the bottom line is that somehow, the finances have to work out.
If everyone, or most people had solar on their houses we would become a
community of distributed power generation. This would save our utility
millions or even billions of dollars on infrastructure. You just
wouldn't need those hundreds of miles of high capacity power lines
bringing in all that power from remote giant power plants, dams, and
nuclear sites. And the price of solar panels is dropping like that of other electronics.
We are stupid if we don't figure out how to capture some of the nearly 1 kilowatt of energy the sun is giving us per meter all day. Let's figure this out, more on this later.
