Sunny Days Ahead
Solar cells have been around for decades, but they havent gone mainstream. Thats because solar technology has been very expensive, making it hard to recoup costs via energy savings. But as often happens with technology, production costs are coming down.
As the cost of solar energy continues to go down, thats going to be a huge opportunity, says Steve Saunders, CEO of energy consultant US Eco Logic. He also thinks that the growing use of digital meters will incentivize solar. Digital meters mean that eventually we are going to time-of-use electricity pricing, and solar will have even higher economic value.
But Saunders thinks solar and other renewables will really take off when what we can do with energy efficiency wall width, insulation, HVAC systems, window quality and so forth reaches its max. Once youve done the building envelope and HVAC, what you have left is renewables.
However, he believes that government subsidies and incentives will be key to a true solar takeoff. Currently, qualified solar system expenditures can earn the 30 percent federal Residential Renewable Energy Tax Credit.
Its amazing to me that they do more solar in Germany than they do in Texas, Saunders says. But its all about incentives. We have a lot more sun in Texas than they do in Germany.
