Homeowners in Golden, CO, look forward to using solar energy technologies to mitigate their electric costs and use the free and affordable sun-driven power source. While it’s great that many household find solar panel technologies an ideal alternative to traditional electric sources, it isn’t a perfectly clean source of energy. Here are three major solar energy issues that we face today.
End-Use Disposal
Solar panel manufacturing are increasing in adoption and helps reduce many households’ carbon footprints and electric bills. In this light, recycling solar panels can produce a bottleneck in production, potentially raising prices temporarily until recycled supplies arrive.
Refitting Existing Electric Grid Technologies
With mass adoption of renewable solar energy panels, power companies utilize existing grids to generate electricity. However, fluctuations, regulations, and changes in the electricity’s nature all play a huge role in the challenges facing existing electric grid refitting that exists today.
Oversupply
With demand sharply increasing as more people become aware of renewable energy benefits for the environment and finances, manufacturers are investing heavily into mass-producing solar panels, lowering acquisition costs, and addressing local consumer demand. However, the sharp fall in demand in the near future can cause a solar panel oversupply, which can affect its prices and technological progress further into the future.
Save On Energy has a detailed explanation on the difficulties current solar energy technologies face. Read more below.
Grid infrastructure in the U.S. and your utility company
The power grid has remained largely unchanged over the past century. Now, as Americans try to go greener, grid infrastructure must be retrofitted to handle the influx of renewable energy.
A large part of President Joe Biden’s energy plan involves a major power grid overhaul as the U.S. inches towards clean energy. This feat is a nearly insurmountable challenge.
According to Forbes, Biden will have to “overhaul a sprawling electrical network that relies on tens of thousands of generators that are owned by more than 3,000 different electricity providers, a group that includes investor-owned utilities, publicly owned utilities, cooperatives, power marketers, and federal power agencies,
But with so much revenue at stake in the power and electricity industries, utility companies aren’t likely to just quietly go away. The U.S. electric power industry generated 401.7 billion dollars in 2019, according to Statista.
However, the utility companies are feeling the pressure of a renewable energy revolution. According to Grist, “Solar power and other distributed renewable energy technologies could lay waste to U.S. power utilities and burn the utility business model, which has remained virtually unchanged for a century, to the ground.”
You see, electricity isn’t stored. Once it’s been generated, it’s transmitted to the grid, where it flows through power lines to meet the supply and demand of the nation. If demand is higher than expected, the power in your home might flicker or go out completely. However, if demand is lower than anticipated, energy is wasted. To keep that from happening, there has to be the right balance between energy generation and consumption.
Throwing renewable energy into the mix makes the process even more complicated. The amount of renewable energy generated on any given day can be unpredictable. You never know when a cloud will cover the sun or when the wind will stop blowing.
However, as more people become energy-independent through the use of residential solar power, the reliance on traditional power companies could dwindle dramatically.
Former Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers recognized this fact nearly a decade ago when he remarked that the rooftop solar panel market could threaten the traditional energy business, especially if the cost of solar panels and installation continued to decrease. In other words, if home solar users are able to generate enough power independently, they could essentially turn the power grid into a backup energy option. (Continue reading here)
You can always trust Roper Roofing & Solar to provide you with the best solar panel installations in Golden, CO. Contact us today to learn more about our services.
