Solar Panel Hosting, A Profitable Alternative
Photo credit: All Seasons Roofing
If you, as a business, parking lot, or large landowner, are not in the oft-luxurious position of funding your own solar power system, perhaps you’d be willing to host? This idea of hosting solar panels is catching on and it goes like this: a business or landowner has a large open area — be it an urban parking lot or a rural field — that is prime for solar; enter a local utility that is seeking out available space to build solar installations; the utility receives help in meeting renewable portfolio standards and the lot owner gets free energy.
It is a win-win situation for all parties involved. Some examples of solar hosting include an 862 kW system at the Padre Dam near San Diego and five JC Penney stores in New Jersey. In these cases the utility or solar company funds, builds, and maintains the system in exchange for use of the space and a drop in electricity costs. In the Padre Dam example, the solar system structure also provided 300 shaded RV parking spots. While JC Penney’s systems are rooftop installations, there’s nothing stopping acres of solar carports in American cities, graciously hosted by area businesses.
To illustrate how well the idea is catching on, the Arizona Solar Power Society recently held a free conference to discuss the advantages of hosting solar panels. This event, as with the solar hosting concept in general, is geared toward commercial business owners who are obviously more likely to have large rooftops or parking lots available for sizable solar installations.
The Arizona conference and similar events around the country are in large part a reaction to renewable energy funding coming soon from the federal government via President Obama’s stimulus plan. Arizona will receive in the neighborhood of $200 million to boost the state’s solar industry and energy efficiency in general, a move that will undoubtedly send utilities and solar developers on a search for solar land prospects.
The idea of hosting solar panels is also an alternative to the more remote approach involving using thousands of acres of desert land for huge concentrated solar farms. Such installations require miles of new transmission lines and are often opposed by local landowners and environmental groups who are leery of cutting through public lands with grid infrastructure.
Posted on April 8th in Solar Information by Dan.