re: #214 marjoriemoon

Taking one person off the grid is not really a solution to the larger problem. The advantage to wide adoption of photovoltaic cells built into to roofs and windows is the supplemental energy to reduce peak loading of the electric power grid. Reduction of peak loads is good for the environment in that supplementary generators are typically older and less efficient. Also, you incur less transmission line losses in a more distributed system. I saw an article from the IEEE about a window pane with a thin photovoltaic film. It’s semi-transparent and tints the window and at the same time produces a small current. If you imagine every skyscraper in every city built with these, it is easy to envision a reduced load during peak electrical consumption around the middle of the day. However, the system is prohibitively expensive, because each window is a small voltage source and must be connected with every other window in the entire building, and all those must be connected to a system of inverters and other power electronics to condition the power to be fed into the mains. And even so, such distributed energy generation isn’t necessarily a solution to the problem. It increases efficiency, reduces losses, but it doesn’t eliminate the need for generating plants. We’re still going to need centralized generation for the foreseeable future.