The exciting news at our St Sabina Stein Community Garden site is that we are getting a fabulous donation for new solar panels for the trellis!! As a result, the garden can now have useful clean energy for all the workshop and classroom needs, since it currently has no independent source of power. Of course it will take some significant re-designing & reinforcing to make the trellis stable enough for the new wind loaded configuration.
2019 is a unique moment in the history of energy production in the United States. For the first time ever, in April renewable energy surpassed energy generated by coal. A CNN report about a recent analysis by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEFFA), indicated that renewables were on track to surpass the roughly 2,000 to 2,200 thousand megawatt hours per day generated by coal. This ratio will drop off in the summer, but this is a good sign nonetheless. The cost to produce solar panels has dropped by about 70% in the last decade and production has doubled.
So, at SHED we thought it would be useful to do some research and get some facts down, so that we could provide informed support to our clients who are ahead of the curve in creating meaningful change towards carbon neutrality.
The biggest cost associated with solar is the upfront costs – the panels themselves, reinforcing the structure and installation costs. The more expensive panels can potentially produce cheaper power than the utilities. There is also a 30% federal solar tax credit that can offset your costs. So, once you have paid for the cost of the panels, all the electricity produced is free! You can even get an accurate estimate of how much each kw of power generated over the next 25 years can cost.
There are a myriad of solar panels on the market, and as is to be expected – the more expensive panels can produce more energy, are more durable, and deteriorate less over time. Mono-si (single cell crystalline solar panels) are the most expensive, but also have the greatest efficiency (15-20%). Poly crystalline solar panels are less expensive and the think-film solar panels are even more affordable and provide the lowest costs per rated power
Solar energy is an intermittent energy source: Sunshine is variable depending on the time of day, season and even weather. Excess solar energy can either be sold back to the grid or stored in Lithium-ion batteries. The batteries can be expensive, but are getting more popular and are now being installed even in grid-tied residential systems
Commercial and residential systems have minor differences. The commercial panels are a bit bigger and have about 20-22% efficiency vs 14-20% for residential. Commercial systems are also a bit easier to install and have more options.