212 local Philadelphia citizens are part of a small but growing number of Pennsylvanians who should be proud of their solar installations according to the National Renewable Energy Labs' PV Open Project which records successful solar installations on a nationwide basis. NREL, located in Golden, CO., is a major US Department of Energy research and information center on solar energy.
The US now has more than 73,000 operating solar systems with Pennsylvania having 804 solar installations and greater Philadelphia accounting for 212 of the state's total. The combined electric power being generated by our state's installations represents 11.305MW as in eleven million three hundred thousand and five watts of clean and carbon free electricity. Nationally, the 73,000 installations generate more than 835 million watts of electricity, enough to power about 835,000 homes.
For our area, here is the number of installations showing the amount of clean electricity being generated by these systems by local county. MW stands for one million watts of electricity while kW stands for one thousand kilowatts of electricity.
1. Bucks County with 68 installations contributing 3.67MWs
2. Chester County with 97 installations contributing 1.294MWs
3. Delaware County with 26 installations contributing 86kW
4. Philadelphia County with 21 installations contributing 8kW
Not exactly a local "solar revolution" but one has to start somewhere. Is this small band of our fellow citizens visionaries, prophets or simply crazy?
For the 212 local residents who have now gone solar they have fixed their cost of electricity over a 25 plus year lifetime of the solar system while being able to earn income through the sales of the renewable energy credits they receive from the electricity produced by their solar systems.
Given PECO's recently announced 10% to 20% electricity rate price increase effective January 1, 2011, it's safe to say most of these solar free thinkers believe they made the right decision regarding their future electricity costs.
According to NREL, our next door neighbors in New Jersey have a total of 5,275 solar installations producing more than 116MW of electricity while California has 55,000 installations producing more than 510MW of electricity.
Critics of the industry say solar is too expensive and too small a part of our overall energy mix to make a difference. It's interesting to note it took more than 60 years before central air conditioning would go from being a considered a luxury upgrade to a standard feature in the majority of today's homes and businesses.
To learn how solar electricity works, go to: http://www.ases.org
To learn if solar right for you, go to: http://www.grosolar.com
Please note, this writer has no financial arrangements or interests with or in grosolar.com.
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