Solar energy is, by far, the cheapest and most efficient way to generate electricity today. From personal experience, I can say that installing solar panels on a house is a sure way to save anything up to €3,000 a year, depending on whether or not the installation includes a heat pump and battery.
A recent study published in Nature estimates that the planet’s entire energy needs could be met by simply installing solar panels on half the world’s roofs, which is why more and more governments are encouraging people to do.
The problem is that most people in the world cannot install solar panels, either because they have no access to the roof of their house, live in rented accommodation, or because they live in apartments. One solution is community solar installations, which is enjoying a boom in the United States, where they are marketed as “the Netflix of solar”: users purchase or rent a portion of a solar installation located conveniently, and receive a credit on their monthly bill for the electricity generated by their part of that solar PV system, as if the system were located on their roof.
This approach not only saves money, but in many cases, domestic installations do not have the right characteristics in terms of shape or orientation, as well as requiring maintenance, very little, but potentially cumbersome. Furthermore, in countries with high levels of sunshine, it is now possible to install solar panels on farmland using agrivoltaic technologies that are only more productive, but also allow the industrialization and mechanization of many agricultural tasks thanks to the immediate availability of electricity right in the field.
The cost of making solar panels and batteries has fallen by 99% and 97% respectively in recent years, while their efficiency has increased markedly. Which is why it makes sense to invest in order to oversize your installation as much as possible and to supply as much demand as possible. Community solar energy is simply a way of trying to extend the savings generated by this energy source to those people who, in principle, ruled out its use because they did not have a roof available, but who can now use renewable energy generated by these panels located elsewhere.
(En español, aquí)
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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