Solar electricity

Plugging into the Sun

Is it finally affordable?




Twenty years ago, when Ronald Reagan tore Jimmy Carter's solar water heater from the White House roof and then took away tax credits for renewable energy, the solar-energy industry plummeted faster than dot-coms in the new millennium.

Thousands of small solar businesses disappeared overnight, and only a few survived. In recent years, these surviving few have been joined by a new generation of solar-energy advocates who have the backing of state and federal energy departments and international companies like BP, Shell and Sharp, and are finding improved ways to put the sun to work.

One of the most promising forms of solar technology is photovoltaics, or PV for short, which converts sunlight into electricity without the problems associated with fossil fuels (see How a photovoltaic system works).

The technology is not new; the first practical applications powered satellites in the space program in the 1960s.
Since then, PV has powered everything from calculators and road signs to irrigation and telecommunications systems.

PV industry is growing 25% to 30% a year.

In the past, residential applications for PV have been largely limited to powering off-the-grid homes and rural vacation cabins.

That's because installing a PV system often costs much less than running utility lines, making remote, inexpensive land buildable.

Now PV is making inroads in suburbia as well. National and regional homebuilders are beginning to offer solar electric systems on the houses they sell.

The Home Depot also has joined in with pilot programs in California, New Jersey, Delaware and Long Island, New York, through which it finances, sells and installs systems on existing homes.