The Futures Foundation

Reports of a visionary proposal to install 10m solar rooftop panels in the US are significant not only for their own news value, but as a further indicator that the green revolution is bursting onto centre stage in a polity long dominated by fossil fuel interests.  And it is certainly "a good start", as one advocate for renewable energy put it -- perhaps wryly.

“It’s a brilliant and visionary idea to put solar energy into the middle of the discussion on energy,” said Arjun Makhijani, the president of the Institute of Energy and Environmental Research. “A goal like that is very important because it will mean the solar manufacturing industry will have certainty that there will be a demand at the other end."

Makhijani was responding to a local newspaper, the Battleboro Reformer (03 07 08), with comments on a proposal from Vermont Senator, Bernard Sanders to  encourage the installation of 10 million rooftop solar units on homes and businesses over the course of 10 years. At one kilowatt-hour a unit, that could supply up to 10,000 megawatts of energy, or approximately the output of 13 nuclear reactors.

But according to some experts, if 70 per cent of the approximately 102 million homes in the United States were equipped with solar panels they could supply 70 per cent of peak U.S. energy demands during summer months, according to the Sanders press release announcing the proposed “10 Million Solar Roofs Act of 2008.”

“Transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels can be a tremendous boon for the United States economy and create millions of good-paying jobs,” he stated.

To finance the project, the federal government would offer rebates covering up to half the cost of the systems, which cost about $20,000 each. The average rooftop installation can provide up to one-half the electricity needed to power the typical American home. And in order to qualify for the federal rebates, the homes and businesses would have to meet stringent energy efficiency standards.

“In my view, there is huge potential both in solar thermal plants in the southwestern part of this country and in photovoltaic panels in Vermont and throughout this nation in helping us become energy independent and breaking our dependence on fossil fuels,” stated Sanders in his press release.

But Sanders’ vision for energy independence doesn’t stop on America’s rooftops. He would like to see a combination of “large-scale solar power generating plants in the sun-soaked southwestern United States with an aggressive program promoting private solar panels in Vermont and other states.”

Makhijani defused the debate over whether solar power could be a true source of baseload power supplying constant power when needed the most, such as is done with nuclear and coal-fired power plants.

An ambitious project such as the one suggested by Sanders with 10 million rooftops, won’t be plagued by intermittency problems, he said. While solar and wind power can’t supply a baseload power supply 24 hours a day, by distributing solar panels and wind turbines around the country, using energy storage systems and relying on natural-gas fired plants to meet peak demands, baseload power can be supplied without relying on nuclear energy or coal, he said.

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