SMUD's photovoltaic panels are part of a large-scale effort to make solar power a reality. By 2000, the utility plans to supply renewable electricity to 375,000 homes.
Courtesy of SMUD, Sacramento Municipal Utility District.
In a decision that could revolutionize the market for solar electricity, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) announced that it would buy enough solar panels to make 10 million watts of electricity. That's enough to power about 3,000 customers during the day, when the sun is shining, and when the utility faces its peak demand.
Solar cells that make electricity -- photovoltaics, which we'll shorten to PVs-- have been around for decades. But until very recently, they've been way too expensive to compete with conventional sources of electricity. SMUD's plan, said Donald Osborn, the utility's solar manager, is to create a predictable, regular market for PV manufacturers, and thus spark them to ramp up production and cut prices.
SMUD predicts that the total cost of the first installations, during 1998, will come to about $5 per watt, a dollar below today's prices. But by 2002, when the new contract expires, the price should be under $3 per watt. (Panels are rated by their ability to produce a peak electric current, in watts. Electricity is sold in kilowatt hours -- a thousand watts supplied for one hour.)
Selling the sun
To electric utilities, $3 per watt is the golden number, says Robert Gibson of the Utility PhotoVoltaic Group, a non-profit consultancy in Washington. "In very general terms, PV would be break-even with power from most coal or gas plants at about $3 per watt installed." In just the past 10 years, Gibson adds, the installed cost of PV has dropped from $20 to $6 per watt. Since 1972, the price has fallen a hundred-fold.
What's so great about PV, and why should we care whether it lives or dies? Because solar panels are almost an ideal source of electricity, which is the most versatile form of energy. PV causes neither acid rain nor carbon dioxide emissions (a key cause of greenhouse warming). And while its manufacture can cause (containable) pollution, it does not cause strip mines, nuclear waste, or oil spills. As electricity consumption continues to rise around the world, a power source with these advantages could ameliorate the environmental toll of industrialization.
But can SMUD actually reach the $3 price threshold just by buying 10 megawatts' worth of panels? Apparently, although the SMUD contract is just one in a rising tide of demand that is stimulating more production and cutting prices. "I believe [$3 by 2002] is a realistic number," says John Thornton, team leader for PV applications at the National Renewable Energy Lab in Colorado. "Many things have to happen ... and if there's a huge boom in the world market, prices could stay higher than that. But technically it's possible." (To repeat, $3 per watt is the sweet spot that would allow PV to compete head-to-head with conventional generating systems.)
So is PV going to save the day for renewable energy?
The Why Files Staff: Terry Devitt, editor; Darrell Schulte, webmaster; Dave Tenenbaum, feature writer; Susan Trebach, team leader
