[00:00:00] If you do a little bit of research into solar, it's clear that utility scale projects are much more cost effective than residential installations because of their scale. So is solar something that you should really consider for your home?
[00:00:13] Welcome to the your Energy Footprint podcast, where we cover easy ways to lower your energy bill and other ways to make your home more sustainable, with a few energy industry highlights sprinkled in.
Hi, I'm Robin Saidov, and I've been in the energy industry for the past 20 years in both utilities and power generation, and I'll explain everything you need to know for some quick wins in your home to become more sustainable and save some money. Now let's dig in.
For anyone who's a new listener, just to be clear, your energy footprint is not affiliated with any solar installers.
The purpose of this podcast is to give you, as a homeowner, information about your options for residential solar that is actually unbiased and not the start of a sales funnel.
If you're not a homeowner, you may still find this episode interesting because I plan to touch on the bigger picture of residential solar as one of the pieces of the puzzle to address climate change. So let's get into it.
[00:01:07] When I requested a solar proposal for my house for the first time, it was because of a conversation with a coworker. I was working at Pepco, the utility for DC and the surrounding area, sitting next to our parent company's corporate strategy team that was, and I'm sure still is, working on ways for the company to address climate change.
[00:01:25] We were discussing residential solar, which I was against with my experience developing utility scale generation projects, and the conclusion was basically that I shouldn't knock it till I tried it.
[00:01:36] At that point, I had worked in developing new power plants for a few years, supporting developers with technical analysis, calculating the financial returns, and preparing the business case for each investment.
[00:01:47] I knew that the cost to install residential solar was significantly higher than it would be to produce solar at utility scale. Also, I knew that the utility was getting free benefits from homeowners by lowering pressure on the distribution system.
Long story short, the first residential solar proposals I got in 2017 did not change my mind at all. But it did pique my curiosity when I moved again in 2019, I got a few more quotes that similarly did not make sense, and in 2022, I repeated the exercise when we moved into our current home. Our solar panels were installed in January 2024.
So what changed my mind? Why do I now think that there are solid benefits for homeowners? Well, first, I got many quotes over the past seven years and I found that I actually am saving money by getting solar for my own house. I'll cover that in a few weeks, though, so you can learn more about how to think about getting solar as a solar developer would.
For today, I wanted to talk through the benefits from a more macro perspective.
[00:02:49] First, the timeline to address climate change: The faster we can move, the better, right?
In a utility scale solar installation leasing the right plot of land and getting permits in order can take years. You need to file an application to connect to the grid at a high voltage level and hope that the electrical studies don't require tens of millions in upgrades.
Then, there's the environmental impact: You need to get environmental permits and impact the habitat of the wildlife in the area. It is standard practice for utility scale solar projects to be surrounded by a fence, so as a recent New York Times article pointed out, I'll put the link in the show notes. The path of wildlife through an area is cut off. There are fence designs that are better for endangered species, but implementing solutions add cost to the developer and may make operating the sites more difficult or may make the project not financially viable.
It's not a surprise that developers are resistant to these changes, and with the patchwork permitting oversight, they're probably able to resist in many areas of the country.
[00:03:55] I saw this myself with golden eagles, an endangered species, and how they were treated differently on wind projects in different states developed at different times.
One pretty obvious thought is to develop renewable projects on land that has already been used for power generation, but there are issues here also. Existing fossil fuel power generation or industrial sites are known as brownfield sites and may already have unknown chemicals in the soil. This isn't great for anyone, of course, but responsibility should fall to the company that owned the power plant. Cleanup requirements do vary by jurisdiction and the time that original plant was developed. Developing a new project on the site is often too complicated from a liability perspective, which prevents new development.
[00:04:41] Also, retired fossil generators are more energy dense, which means that you can't produce anywhere near the same amount of electricity from either wind or solar as you could from the coal plant, let's say on the acreage of a retired coal plant.
It is much more straightforward to reuse existing solar and wind sites, and those projects are already moving forward. Because the technology has improved significantly in the past 20 to 40 years, they may very well produce more electricity than they did historically.
While renewable development at the utility scale will continue as it should, the more homeowners that are willing and able to install solar and/or implement energy efficiency in their homes, the faster we can get to the levels we need with less environmental impact. Just think about it. Your home is already built, and adding solar to your roof will have a minimal impact on any wildlife near your home.
If you're concerned about waste created by residential solar, definitely click follow in your favorite podcast app. I'll be covering that in episode #12 that will be released at the end of April.
[00:05:47] We'll also be covering other options using renewable energy at your home in other upcoming episodes.
That's it for today. Are you curious now if solar might be right for you?
Check the show notes for the link to the New York Times article on the environmental impact of utility-scale solar. If there are any topics you'd like me to cover in a future episode, please reach out, and let me know. You can email me directly at
[email protected] or find me on Instagram at @yourenergyfootprint.
On next week's episode, we'll talk about the benefits of residential solar, so be.
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[00:06:30] Speaker C: Our mission at your energy footprint is to educate consumers on ways you can be more energy efficient at home, as.
[00:06:37] Speaker A: Well as how to make significant investments like solar while saving money.
[00:06:41] Speaker C: You can find more information on our.
[00:06:43] Speaker A: Courses for homeowners interested in installing rooftop solar on our website, yourenergyfootprint.com. All of our information is unbiased and.
[00:06:52] Speaker C: Based on my 20 years of experience.
[00:06:54] Speaker A: Working for utilities and as a renewable developer, we are not affiliated with any installers you.
