Why I, a Clean Energy Writer, Don’t Use Rooftop Solar
How Oregon’s green electricity plan prioritizes efficient utility-scale solar and wind farms over a million tiny power plants.
“Your house is a good fit for rooftop solar,” he tells me, showing the satellite view of my property with the proposed solar panels sketched on the southeast corner of the roof in a cluster.
We’re sitting on lawn chairs in my open garage/gym reviewing his firm’s proposal for rooftop solar installation. He is an energy consultant for one of the largest residential solar installers in Oregon.
We each have a tablet and it’s obvious that I’m over-matched. Mine displays a disjointed collection of spreadsheets I’ve created over the years, sporadically analyzing my personal energy use, filling in unknowns with the best information on Reddit. For inexplicable reasons, all my electricity calculations use unorthodox units like gigacalories and cubic feet of gas equivalent. No one could ever make sense of any of it but me.
His tablet is open to the proposal that his firm generated based on my property geometry and energy use history. It’s polished with easy-to-read graphics, personalized stats, and explainers on different system components. He has a legitimate four-year degree in solar engineering. He answers my questions comprehensively and honestly (as far as I can verify). I have no doubt that he knows more about residential clean energy capabilities than I do.
As he discusses the panel capabilities and inverter efficiency (all top-of-the-line, by the way), I’m pretty sure this is a waste of time for both of us. His quote probably won’t be able to meet the maximum I’m willing to pay.
I’ve done my research and have a very reliable calculation to determine what rooftop panel installation should cost me:
$0.
Zero.
Nada.
My electricity provider is paying others to build solar arrays. Why not me?
I live in NW Oregon where Portland General Electric (PGE) provides electricity to me and 900,000 of my neighbors. Typical Willamette Valley weather means ample hydroelectric sources to provide some of the cheapest power in the country. Eastern Oregon is a high desert with lots of sun and reliable westerly winds.
Oregon seems to possess plentiful clean energy resources but most of PGE’s power is still derived from natural gas and coal.
This is changing. Power needs are growing across the globe and it’s become cheaper, easier, and less objectionable to add wind turbines and solar cells to support our burgeoning grid than fossil fuel plants. In most places, anyway. Everyone’s electricity will become cleaner, if only serendipitously.
Oregon’s legislature has chosen to accelerate the green transition, passing laws that require the utilities to provide 80% emissions-free electricity by 2030 and 100% by 2040. Funding is provided to the power companies to build out the infrastructure.
Therefore, PGE and other Oregon electric suppliers need to both increase the overall power while eliminating dirty sources leading to a clean energy scramble. Right now, PGE is reviewing bids for construction projects to add 362 MWa (average megawatts) over the next two years.
In other words, PGE is paying landowners and construction companies to install solar panels.
At the same time, Oregon has implemented several programs to incentivize customers to move to clean energy, quicker. I participate in a Community Solar program wherein I rent a few solar panels in a large field about 100 mi from my home and get to keep the electricity they generate. It not only makes my power clean, it also reduces my bill (very slightly).
Thanks to my solar farm subscription, my power is already 100% clean and about 3% cheaper than standard, dirty PGE electricity.
So to recap:
- My electricity provider needs lots of clean energy to both replace fossil fuels and meet growing demand.
- The utility is soliciting bids for profitable clean energy partnerships to meet that demand.
- I already have cheap, clean electricity. There’s little incentive to install panels.
- My home is a good fit for rooftop solar.
“The tree is already covering a panel!”
It’s a little past noon on a sunny day in October. My partner and I are standing in the backyard gawking at shadows on our roof. I’m trying to independently validate the quality of our roof and learning first-hand how a single tree on an adjacent property can tank a solar installation.
My initial idea to get on my roof with a protractor and laser pointer was vetoed so I’m using our trail camera to collect a time-lapse of the sun exposure throughout the day.
I don’t have the data to quantify the parabolic arcs of tree shadows, but estimate I’ll lose no more than 5% efficiency throughout the year, enough to set back a break-even point by months or even years.
Oh wait, Trees keep growing. I hadn’t considered that. Looks like I’ll spend my evening researching the growth rates of blue spruce and Douglas firs.
I’m beginning to suspect that my roof is only an adequate fit for solar…
PGE is considering bids from solar projects with at least 3 MW of capacity. My roof can support a farm of about 0.1% of that size. A few dozen acres in the Alvord desert can generate more electricity for less cost than me and my 1000 best friends put together.
Maybe it was a mistake to take a state that’s mostly sunny and cram all the major population centers in the one cloudy corner.
I read (skimmed) over PGE’s 700-page clean energy plan. Every mention of residential solar treats it as a blip that they need to work around, not an activity to encourage and especially not a keystone business objective.
I’m beginning to see why. We don’t grow our own food. Digging a well or installing a propane tank are usually regarded as a sign of limited infrastructure, not a victory for self-sufficiency.
I’m intrigued by the concept of personal energy independence but the more I think about it, the more out-of-step it feels compared to how every other basic resource is supplied. It draws uncomfortable parallels to the backyard steel furnaces of China’s Great Leap Forward.
Several millennia ago, our species learned that key resources are most efficiently produced when centralized and optimized. It seems incongruous to treat clean electricity as a special case.
Many homes already have solar arrays in my neighborhood, but these may be relics that reflect a previous era (pre-2021). At that time, if you were environmentally conscious, rooftop solar was the best path to zero emissions (lucrative, now-expired, tax incentives helped). These cases could be regarded as an infrastructural failure. Now that the power companies have taken on the burden of going green, they seem to be in a better position to deliver quickly and effectively.
It makes sense that there aren’t a lot of incentives available to me: Oregon’s best path to clean energy is a few large centrally managed solar arrays in ideal locations, not rooftop solar. My utility company is going to bring me clean energy no matter what. The best path to completion does not involve me bolting anything onto my roof. They will not reimburse me if I do.
It’s been about a week since I met with the solar consultant in my garage. The quote after rebates is about $17,000. I’ve spent $4,400 on electricity, in total, over the past twelve years. (I keep good logs).
I’d break even in just a few decades. (Ignores Loss of Opportunity, Depreciation, and Degradation, each push the break-even out further).
I didn’t seriously expect them to pay me but roughly $4,200 (a 6–8 year recoup period) would have been reasonable. I already have zero-emissions electricity. The only benefit to me would be cost. I tell him as much, leading to his final message: “You have to decide how you want to spend the money you have to spend. You’re going to pay for it either way.”
He’s right: clean energy infrastructure isn’t free. If I don’t choose to pay for a small sun factory on my roof, I’m choosing to stick with the public utilities as rates likely increase to fund the transition (17% hike in 2024).
I know the bid I received was probably outrageously high. I’d want to solicit more bids from several contractors, not the first one to knock on my door. A quick web search indicates I may be able to find a quote for closer to $7,000 (still too high). The intractable gulf between our price points suggests I’d be wasting everyone’s time.
From where I’m standing, it seems cheaper, easier, and ultimately more efficient to put my faith in the electric companies to go green on my behalf. I can always change my mind next year.
Thousands of local governments and power companies across the globe are all developing action plans, sometimes with disparate priorities. While I’m focused on energy policies in Oregon, the same analysis can lead to different conclusions: no two places are the same.
At least two other writers on The New Climate went through similar investigations into rooftop solar but in their cases, subsidies and support made the project both practical and profitable. Whole countries have adopted rooftop solar mandates. While my state is pursuing economies of scale, governing bodies in other locations have found it more advantageous to produce power at the point of use to forego associated infrastructure like high-voltage lines.
The decision to install rooftop solar isn’t up to you, the homeowner. Local governments evaluate current resources and capabilities to determine the most effective solution then incentivize accordingly.
When I started, I was pretty enthusiastic about doing my part to convert Oregon to solar electricity. It’s pretty disappointing to realize that while the solution will take time, no direct intervention is needed from me. There are, however, several important steps that all of us should be taking:
1) Control energy consumption. Our current power needs are the #1 thing holding back an all-clean grid, especially as we electrify everything. My electricity use doubled in the past year since I upgraded to a heat pump and plug-in vehicle.
Surprisingly, I still only need about 45% of the power of the average PGE customer. If everyone used my level of electricity, PGE could permanently shutter a natural gas plant, today.
I’m not suggesting anyone change anything because I don’t really know how I’m using so much less. I don’t think I’m doing anything special. I suspect most of us don’t really know how we’re using our power but it seems like there may be room to improve.
My advice: study your electricity bill and see how many kWh you use per month. Buy a $20 wattmeter and use it to measure every device you plug in and keep notes on how often you do energy-intensive activities. You may be able to make changes that reduce waste without disrupting your lifestyle. The impact on your footprint and your wallet may be profound.
2) Learn about the clean energy policy in your area. No one was willing to come out and say to me “Home solar is not encouraged in your area”. It would have saved me a lot of time. Instead, look for indicators like the number of recent solar projects around you. Incentives from local governments are also a good sign of how you can best focus your efforts.
In my area, there is little aid for residential rooftop solar, but there are many subsidies for electrified appliances including EVs, Heat pumps, and water heaters. It’s possible to install electrified appliances for free, a good sign that my role in Oregon’s energy transition is to upgrade my appliances.
3) Support leaders that pursue sensible clean energy agendas. Oregon’s clean electricity initiative is only possible because the leaders were committed to finding the best possible path to zero emissions. The decision on how to transition to green electricity needs to be made by local governments and your advocacy may be the most impactful step you can take.
In the end, I’m left with cheap, clean energy from a field I can’t visit instead of expensive energy from a rectangle glued to my shingles. Instead, I’ll pursue electrifying my water heater and range to do my part to help Oregon go green.
I’ll stay prepared in case the situation evolves. Everyone in the world is muddling toward clean electricity and course corrections are inevitable. For example, PGE has a clear path to 80% clean but the road to 100% is less certain and may require emerging technologies and alternative solutions, possibly involving a protracted collaboration between my roof and some photovoltaic cells.
PGE’s literature also indicates that they expect rooftop solar to become more affordable over the next ten years. In conjunction with rising utility costs, a solar installation could still make financial sense, someday.
I’m holding out hope that my electric company will put solar panels on my roof for free, but it won’t be today.
If you 1) are a Portland General Electric customer, 2) got rooftop solar installed since 2021, and 3) at a cost of less than $6000, I would like to hear from you! Please highlight some text in this article and private message me with the name of the contractor you used.
