Going Solar
by Denis Collet

A new ritual has taken over my mornings. I begin my day with the anticipation of my first cup of coffee. As I stand at the kitchen sink I scan the horizon for clouds, placing my bet on the patch of blue and the temperature, savoring the sound and tingling sensation of the running well water on my fingers, filling the carafe, and carefully measuring the organic coffee into the natural #4 cone filter. Now for my walk outside, cup in hand, past the nine poles arranged as a three-by-three matrix of stainless steel glass and aluminum. There they are: 1,000 square feet of photovoltaic panels (PV arrays) mounted on poles fastened to reinforced concrete pillars buried five feet underground. I continue my walk down to the electric meter situated some 75 feet from the house. Ah yes . . . it's 8:00 AM and the meter is turning backwards!

On my way back to the house, where I will log on to my computer and monitor my PV system's output real-time, I take a look over what some of my friends call our "modern sculpture garden." The presence of these slanting guardians of our future in our neglected, au natur field of poison ivy, burs and wild flowers seemed rather imposing at first. As time passes, however, the arrays have begun to blend into the landscape and take on an aesthetic of their own. As with the windmills of the Netherlands, I'm confident they will come to be accepted as a natural part of the landscape.

In December of 2004 I signed a contract with Hudson Valley Clean Energy to install a photovoltaic (solar) system in front of my family's home in upper Red Hook. When I told friends that the cost of the system I was installing was about $92,000, they were, at first, quite skeptical. Once I mentioned all the incentives and deductions available, which reduced the out of pocket investment cost to around $38,000, they started listening again.

My decision to forge ahead with this project was predicated on the convergence of a number of compelling facts. First, there were the social, political, moral, and national economic costs of relying on fossil fuels to deliver our energy needs. Second was the environmental cost: the destruction of the environment and the accelerated pace of global warming resulting from the CO2 emissions, which has increased the frequency and severity of weather extremes. Third was household economy. The price of fuel oil this winter is currently 37 percent higher than it was last year and it is expected to continue to rise depending on the demands resulting from a severe winter. Production of oil and gasoline is the lowest it has been since 1945. Fourth, there have been significant advancements in the solar industry over the past ten years that have reduced the cost and increased the reliability of photovoltaic technologies. Manufacturers are currently offering warranties for 20 and 25 years on their solar panels. Improvements in solar grade silicon wafer production techniques have resulted in higher efficiencies and electrical energy production per square foot, thus reducing the "footprint" required for mounting effective solar arrays. Fifth, government legislation adopted in the mid-90s requires public service utilities to allow residential customers to connect their solar systems into the grid as net-metered customers, allowing home solar systems to become suppliers of electrical energy to the grid during times when they generate more energy than they consume. Finally, the existence of several other, often poorly-publicized rebates, subsidies, and tax advantages substantially reduced the amount I would have to lay out to install the kind of system I desired: one that was likely to cover 100% of my electrical usage.

Despite all these reasons, my decision to invest in solar came with some trepidation. I felt a little like a pilot who is given a plane to fly with no further instruction than having skimmed through the Idiot's Guide to Flying. No hand holding, no training, no advance team to report back that this will work . . . just a belief that this was the right thing to do. I nearly drove my friends crazy at social gatherings where I would seize on any opportunity to whip out photos of the new addition to our family: the nine pole-mounted solar panels. "Don't they look great?, 10/10 on the Apgar Scale. . . ." As they tolerated my ranting and raving, I imagined they were conspiring in some cruel joke, humoring me by nodding understandingly, while knowing all the while that my undertaking would end in disaster, that I would spend countless hours mopping up the muddy boot tracks of an endless stream of technicians parading through the house to the basement in their vain attempt to fix problems with a system that would never work. Luckily, these fears never materialized and I have since learned that there is essentially no risk in investing in solar technology.

How It Works
The physics behind the production of electrical energy in a solar cell can be summed up as the absorption and direct conversion of light energy from photons produced by the sun's rays into electrical energy. The photovoltaic material in a solar cell absorbs the sunlight reaching it and converts it into electrical energy. "Inverters" are required to convert and condition electricity from the Direct Current (DC) produced by the solar panels to conform to the Alternating Current (AC) electricity required for use in the household and an inter-tie connection to the utility's grid. Notice that I describe the energy as being "converted," not "produced." This distinction is deliberate. Unlike the complex and wasteful process required to produce and generate electricity from fossil fuels, no chemical or mechanical processes are involved to convert sunlight into electricity. Very little energy is required to transform light into usable electrical energy... actually, this is not completely accurate. At the heart of the process is an enormous engine producing the energy we harvest--the sun.

Unsurprisingly, the amount of energy that can be converted depends on a combination of factors: the surface area of the exposed photovoltaic solar cells, as well as other environmental factors: ambient temperature, angle of the sun with respect to the position of the solar panel, time of year, average sunlight for latitude and longitude of the site, the shading of the PV arrays during the day and at different times of the year as the sun rises and sets on the horizon, etc. The real estate mantra, "location, location, location" is as important to making a decision to install a solar system as it is to purchasing a home.

Another question is whether to install a roof-mounted or ground mounted system. A roof-mounted solar array system is generally less expensive as well as less obtrusive on the landscape, but unless your roof happens to fall in a direction best-suited to pick up the sun's rays, efficiency can suffer.

The Bottom Line
My photovoltaic system has been producing energy since April 21 of this year. Over those 205 days--admittedly the longer days of the year--I produced an average of 51 kilowatt hours of electricity per day (enough electricity to run my refrigerator for almost three and a half months). My family's average daily usage during that same period has been about 44 kilowatt hours a day. This for a family of four with one of the breadwinners, yours truly, working from home and running central air conditioning during the hottest months of July and August (I subscribe to the notion that technology should improve our lives and have no intention of giving up air-conditioning in summer). So far, in other words, I have generated 116 percent of our total household usage. If we project the cost of electricity to rise at a modest rate of 4 percent per year, the system, which has a life expectancy of 30 to 40 years, will have paid for itself within 13.

The Impact of Burning Fossil Fuels
As the weeks and months click by, and the electric meter spins backward more than it does forward, my sleep is more restful. The discussions over dinner turn to the broader issue of a world seemingly out of control, of an energy crisis perpetuated by greed and globalization. If the arguments I've presented up to now are not reason enough to convince you to at least think about trying solar, think again of the 21 pounds of CO2 we pour into the atmosphere with every gallon of gasoline that we burn. Think of all the smelly, smoky, noisy gas guzzlers you've known in your life and compare that with the poles and panels in my front yard. We have abated the production of 16,000 pounds of CO2 by using solar to generate our electricity instead of relying on traditional coal fired generators which represent 60 percent of he US electrical energy production.

Standing there without sound or moving parts, my solar panels nearly deceive me into thinking they are nothing more than sculptural objects. After all, we are conditioned to expect noise and movement in the generation of energy. Where are the levers and gears or the rumble of the engines? Here, the only perceptible movement is an electric meter spinning backwards. Yet I see an image of my children's children enjoying the lakes and rivers without acid rain from coal burning plants. . .. I smell the fresh air free of smog and pollutants. . . I hear the thrumming sounds of progress without corrupt industries and governments profiteering on the world's limited natural resources, the elimination of a pretext for war. I see, reflected off the glint of sunshine on these panels' polished surfaces, a glimmer of hope for our life support system, our planet.