The Environmental Benefits of Solar

Solar energy is a gift from the sun that is continually raining down upon the Earth. It is the power that drives our entire planetary lifecycle. The sun is responsible for everything we eat and almost all the power we use. If green plants didn't harness the sun's energy there would only be a handful of very simple organisms on our planet huddled around deep sea volcanic vents for warmth and food.

Given this plentiful, free, renewable resource, it is only natural to want to harness its power directly. This is exactly what we do with photovoltaic (PV) panels. When a PV panel is exposed to the sunlight, it produces electricity. There are no moving parts, no pollution, and no green house gasses, just electricity.

Production of Solar Panels

Like anything, there is a cost associated with producing a solar panel. The silicon in its cells must be melted and purified and extruded under exacting conditions. The glass that protects the cells is likewise the product of intense heat and power. Everything that goes into the cell requires energy to make. There is so much energy required to make a panel that it is a common urban myth that a PV panel will never produce enough energy to pay back the energy of its production.


The average home uses 8,000 kilowatt hours per year. A coal power plant producing that much electricity emits about 18,000 pounds of CO2 per year. With hundreds of thousands of homes in Colorado, plus all the other buildings, you can get an idea of the volume of CO2 being sent into the atmosphere.

Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, some of the panels we carry, the Evergreen Solar panels, will generate enough power in 18 months to offset the energy required to make the panel. After this, over the next 50 years or more, the energy provided by the panels is truly free. The energy to make a panel is only 4% of the total output of the panel. To put it another way, a solar panel can produce over 26 times the amount of energy used.

Contrast this with biofuels such as corn ethanol. Studies in Science Magazine released January 2006 showed that while such fuels did produce more energy than they consumed, they only reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 13%.

Solar, or PV, is one of the greenest sources of electricity. It compares well with geothermal and wind but is small enough that it can be placed directly on people's homes. This makes it a good choice for homes and businesses because there are no power line losses in the transmission of the power to the home or business.

Your Home Helping the Planet

So what exactly does putting a solar panel system on your home do? First off it replaces the need for more coal or natural gas derived electricity. Coal mining is an ecological disaster. On top of that, most existing coal plants release many different toxins directly into the air we breath, from sulfur to lead and mercury. Even the newer plants coming on line, which reduce the toxic pollutants dramatically, still produce massive quantities of CO2, a greenhouse gas and a direct cause of global warming. Natural gas is far more benign but still produces large quantities of CO2 when used to produce electricity. From http://greentagusa.org, an average American produces about 35,000 lbs of CO2 per year for their energy needs.

So by using solar panels, you replace dirty electricity from coal and gas with clean electricity from the sun. A 5 kilowatt system will prevent the release of nearly 10,400 pounds of CO2 every year for the life of the system. That is a large impact, and comes just from powering your home with solar. And this could be just the beginning.

An Environmental Defense study called "Global warming on the road (pdf 2.4 mb) " states that carbon dioxide emissions from personal vehicles in the United States equaled 314 million metric tons in 2004. From http://greentagusa.org, an average car in the US puts out 10878 pounds of CO2 per year.

How can solar affect this? If people were to replace their cars with high mileage plug-in hybrids that could go 60 miles on a battery charge, it would reduce fuel consumption by 2/3 (reference, pdf 250 kb). If this car's batteries were charged by PV panels, then you would get a direct reduction in green house gas emissions of 66%. Since the average US car only gets 21MPG and hybrids get more like 35 to 45MPG, using a solar charged hybrid plug in will save nearly 8600 pounds of CO2 production per year.

Along with adding more insulation and converting to fluorescent bulbs, solar electricity could drop a person's green house gas emissions by 60 or 70%. If even half the US were to do this it would substantially reduce our impact on our planet.

Investment in the Future

The more solar is used, the more it will help our environment. By investing in solar today you are investing in your future and your children's future. Also, by purchasing photovoltaic systems now you will help invigorate the industry. More money in the industry means not only new jobs for American workers but also more research and development. This in turn will produce more efficient panels and which will, in turn, produce even less green house gasses.

Be a part of this change and make a difference to your world. Install Solar today.