ASK DEAN
"WHY WOULD I WANT TO SPEND MONEY PUTTING SOLAR PANELS ON MY HOUSE?"
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Put your questions about the local environment and issues to Dean Gallea, our co-chair, for our new section, "Ask Dean". He'll dig up the answers so you don't have to! Send your questions to info@tarrytownenvironmental.com
Q: “A few years ago, Tarrytown joined Westchester Power’s Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) with the ‘green’ option, so almost all of us residents are already getting our electricity from renewable sources, right? So, why would I want to spend money putting solar panels on my house?”
A: The answer depends on your priorities and those of NY State. Yes, the CCA gets power from non-carbon-fueled sources, mostly hydroelectric (dams such as at Niagara Falls), purchased through RECs (Renewable Energy Certificates, a brokerage for bulk electricity purchases) from the NY Power Authority. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz5GI88kpA0
But our buying power from existing renewable sources doesn’t directly expand the earth’s non-carbon generating capacity, which we need to do as a society to slow down climate change and meet NY State’s lofty goal of 50% renewable electricity in the next decade. https://energyplan.ny.gov/
Keep in mind that utilities like ConEdison do not themselves generate the electricity they distribute to our homes. ConEd, by default, delivers power from Constellation New Energy (formerly ConEd Solutions). Our utility bills break out the charges for both supply and delivery, though both are based on our usage in kilowatt-hours (kWh), as measured by our electric meters.
If we add solar (photovoltaic) panels to our homes, businesses, and civic infrastructure, we can directly reduce the need for power producers to build new generating capacity, most of which is still powered by carbon-based fuels.
If you haven’t tried it already, check out your electric usage chart, a perk we get from having a smart meter: go to https://www.coned.com/en/accounts-billing/dashboard, click Billing and Usage, and then Usage. Here’s mine on a sunny, not-too-warm day last month, showing my house’s kWh in 15-min intervals. Those blue peaks are, where my air-conditioning came on. But, see that little negative dip just before noon? That’s where my small solar panel system produced more energy than I was using at the time. If I had been able to fit a larger solar system, there would be many more negative dips.
Even without dips below zero, you can see how more sun (evidenced by the temperature graph) produced less energy use. Our solar energy production is counted by ConEd as a direct subtraction from the energy we use, a system called “net metering”. It’s what makes it economically sensible to spend up-front money on a solar system, since it will pay you back over only a few years in reduced energy usage.
Even putting aside the advantage of increasing our state’s portfolio of renewable production, there are some other advantages of having solar panels. Consider that they effectively shade our roofs from the sun’s direct rays, reducing cooling needs in summer, and from winter winds reducing heating needs in winter. And, the summer air-conditioning months, when regional energy needs peak, are also the times when solar production peaks; the offsetting effect reduces the need for energy suppliers to buy expensive and environmentally-harmful diesel- or gas-fueled electricity from “peakers”, big engines that start up to avoid brownouts.
I believe every rooftop that qualifies - fairly new, not too shaded, facing south or east/west - should be covered with clean, economical solar-generation systems. As of March this year, only 125 homes in 10591 had them (see this interesting stats page: https://infogram.com/solar-in-westchester-county-ny-as-of-3312020-1g6qo2qjzoyvp78.) And there is much more potential when you add in the big commercial and municipal rooftops, and even parking lots that can be covered with solar canopies.
Be part of the solution: That’s my two cents!
