Thoughts on Solar

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If you spend anytime at all reading information about solar energy on the Internet you will have come across one of those ads:

“Do it Yourself Solar!”
“Build Solar Panels at Home!" 
“Go Green and Save Green!”

and on and on. Sounds enticing - after all, who wouldn’t like to green up their life while saving money? But the scammers have you squarely in their sights and their do-it-yourself kits are a ripoff of your hard earned money.

At a minimum, there are at least three good reasons why solar is not a DIY project: 1) DC isn’t AC, 2) Safety, and 3) Utilities.

Let’s look at each one of these in turn.

DC isn’t AC - Solar panels produce direct current (DC), just like your car battery.  But the energy in your home is alternating current (AC) which reverses polarity 60 times a second.  Now a very few of the loads in your home won’t care - an incandescent light bulb will burn just fine with either AC or DC.  But your air conditioning system won’t.  Nor will your TV, your computer, your refrigerator, or nearly anything else that you own.  All of them are designed to operate on AC and running them on DC will either damage them, or do nothing at all.  Yet those are the things that drive your utility bill.  A $200, DIY solar panel (assuming for the sake of argument that such a thing can even be built) will do nothing to lower those bills.  So right off the bat, the huge $$$ savings promised are just that - a “pie-crust” promise - easily made, easily broken.

Safety - Quality solar panels sold in the United States are approved by Underwriters Laboratory (i.e., “UL Approved") for safety.  Since even a single solar panel can generate dangerous amounts of electricity, that approval provides peace of mind that the solar panels sitting on your roof will operate safely for the 25 years that you will own them.  Can the same be said for a DIY solar panel?  What if the unthinkable happens and your DIY solar panel malfunctions and starts a fire.  Will your homeowner’s insurance cover the loss after they learn that you placed solar panels on your roof that weren’t UL approved?  Is that a risk you want to take?

Utilities - If you are looking to lower your utility costs, you will need to connect your DIY system to the utility grid.  Before you can legally do that, your system has to have an inverter that meets not only UL approval but also the IEEE standard to prevent “islanding”.  The “anti-islanding” feature of a modern inverter is extremely important - here’s why.  A residential grid-tied solar power system is a small power plant connected remotely from the utility’s other power plants.  If a power line goes down, the utility will dispatch a crew to repair the break.  Before doing so, they will isolate that portion of the grid so that the lines are de-energized, allowing the workers to handle them safely.  But wait - they cannot isolate your mini power plant down the street which is acting as a power-generating island all unto itself.  That means the downed power line is still hot - and deadly.  To prevent such situations, “anti-islanding” technology is built into every grid-tied inverter sold in the U.S.  Building such an inverter is definitely not a DIY project, unless you are an electrical engineer.

Funny, but those ads never seem to talk about any of this.

Sure, we have a vested interest - we are in the business of installing high-quality, safe and reliable solar power systems.  But we aren’t worried here about losing a few sales.  Rather, we are worried about solar getting a bad reputation from hucksters and scammers souring people who were excited about the possibility of going solar, but got mislead and wasted their money and their time.

We believe - and have blogged about - the absolute right of consumers to be treated ethically by the solar industry.  We will continue to write about risks to that ethical standard, whether from conventional installers doing shoddy work (see here) or from rip-off artists and scammers like these.

Keeping the best and most important Right for last, SEIA’s Solar Bill of Rights concludes with Right # 8:

8.      Americans have the right, and should expect, the highest ethical treatment from the solar industry.

Beyond a shadow of a doubt, this is the most important Solar Right of all if we are to build an industry that is respected and trusted by consumers throughout this country.  This should almost go without saying - and yet, saying it, and living it, is extremely important.

As we have seen time and again, there are many solar installers out there who care way more about making a sale than they do about building a reliable system that will meet the customer’s needs for the next 25 years.  (As you can see here.)

But what does ethical treatment really mean?  We think there are some very important elements that together constitute this Right, including:

• Systems should be sold to meet the consumer’s needs - not the installer’s revenue requirements.
• Not all sites are appropriate for solar and installers must tell consumers when their site is just not right.
  • Sometimes that means turning down an available job because the installer knows it will never perform properly.
• Solar power systems, while technical, are not rocket science and consumers are entitled to have all of their questions answered.
• Solar power systems should be installed by qualified electricians - not plumbers, roofers or the handyman down-the- block.
  • Installations should make the site look better; solar should not be an eyesore.
  • Installations should work better than advertised.
  • Installations should be safe and reliable for their entire projected lifetime - none of what you see here.
• Rebate processing is complicated and confusing; installers should bear that burden, not consumers.
• In all of our dealings with consumers, utilities and inspectors, installers must be scrupulously honest.

These are reasonable requests for consumers (and America in general) to make of the solar industry.  As professionals in a rapidly expanding field, we need to hold ourselves to the highest standards, and hold others in our field accountable when they do not measure up.  Otherwise, all of us will be diminished by the acts of the fly-by-night artists and scammers – and the entire nation will suffer.

The last two of the eight Rights in the Solar Bill of Rights once again focus on the rights of consumers.  Here is number Seven:

7.      Americans have the right to buy solar electricity from their utility.

As utilities operate under Renewable Portfolio Standards they are required to purchase increasing amounts of renewable energy.  Utility customers should be allowed to purchase the renewable energy of their choosing, thereby voting with their dollars for the energy source that they prefer.

Some utilities, such as Pasadena Water & Power, have a “Green Energy” option that allows customers to purchase some or all of their electricity from renewables, but it does not allow them to choose solar specifically (and right now that appears to be all wind power).  By allowing consumers a choice, utilities would receive a premium for providing solar energy which can then be used to fund incentives for adding solar, thereby increasing the supply.  It would also let consumers proclaim their desire to avoid using coal-fired electricity.

The next Rights set forth in SEIA’s Solar Bill of Rights, concern those rights specific to the solar industry itself.  
In particular:

4. The solar industry has the right to a fair competitive environment.

5. The solar industry has the right to equal access to public lands.

6. The solar industry has the right to interconnect and build new transmission lines.

Let’s take these one at a time…

What does it mean for the solar industry to have a “fair competitive environment” in which to operate?  After all, isn’t solar already heavily subsidized through rebates and tax credits?  It is true that over the past few years, particularly in California, we have seen more favorable treatment for solar than in the past.  And yet, these subsidies are but a tiny fraction of the billions of dollars that the fossil fuel industries have received for decades.

According to Scientific American (citing a study by the Environmental Law Institute and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars), between 2002 and 2008, the fossil fuel industry received approximately $72 billion.  In contrast, all renewables received just $29 billion, but more than half of that - $16.8 billion - went to pay for ethanol from corn, a poor environmental choice.  Solar’s share?  Less than $1 billion.

A similar concern arises over access to public lands.  For years, fossil fuel producers have had nearly unfettered access to federal lands with the government getting a very poor return on its investment.  (For example, see this listing of Bush-era actions to open up public lands to the fossil fuel industry.)  For utility scale solar to succeed, access to public lands in an environmentally sensitive way is crucial.

Likewise, to get clean solar energy to the demand centers around the country that need it, the solar industry and others will need to construct, and interconnect into, new, smarter transmission systems.  These too will need access to public lands to make them affordable.

These rights will go a long way to leveling the playing field for the solar industry and hasten the day when a substantial percentage of the nation’s energy can be supplied by clean solar power systems.