SOLAR BACKUP FOR RESIDENTIAL USES

INTRODUCTION

As the world moves past the turn of the century, the emphasis placed on global warming and climate change has impressed upon companies the importance of lowering carbon emissions for the health of the planet. This has been further enhanced for electric utility companies, as their consumers express a need to lower their emissions profiles in response to regulatory or legal pressure from their respective governments. As a result, sources of renewable energy, such as solar farms, have been investigated and implemented with some success over the entire world, with more options being explored.

However, companies are not the only entities worried about their carbon emissions. Many consumers have expressed a desire to lower their own emissions by not consuming energy from a power plant that is run by coal or natural gas. As presented by Kennedy (2012), “On the subcontinent, Pakistan has passed the point where solar power is cheaper than a lot of electricity that comes from diesel generators, and India is upping its target from 20 to 33 gigawatts to be installed by 2020.” This was when solar panels affixed to a person’s home gained popularity and is the main topic of this paper. While there are other options for renewable energy sources, such as wind or geothermal, for the purposes of this research, the focus has been on solar as a potential windfall to lowering a consumer’s carbon footprint. According to Sangswang and Konghirun (2020), “While climate change threatens our environment on the one hand, and fossil fuel depletion threatens our economic system on the other, solar energy holds out the promise of protecting both of them.”

As opposed to electric utility companies and large industrial or commercial companies, residential customers also benefit from solar energy as a backup in cases of the main power supply from the electric grid being interrupted. This is felt most clearly in the southeastern portion of the United States, specifically the Gulf Coast, because of the increasingly powerful hurricanes that have swept the region over the past two years. For example, following the landfall of Hurricane Ida, there was a period of seven days during which most of the customers of the New Orleans Metro area, who are customers of the electric utility companies Entergy New Orleans and Entergy Louisiana, were without power. Having a ready-made backup power source that is capable of shielding customers’ homes during the peak hours of the day and allowing for some form of energy repository while work is being conducted to restore power would be beneficial to the consumer, as it can allow the homeowner to remain in place if their dwelling and energy system remain undamaged, regardless of the utility power being unavailable.

Cost savings regarding solar panel system installations can be realized through government incentives as well as through net metering, which will be discussed further in this article, to enhance the consumer’s experience with solar and to enhance the overall impact on the world’s climate.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The research was performed using Google Scholar and a search of the University of New Orleans Library website under the sciences database. The searches that were run included solar, renewable energy, residential, small-scale applications, and solar benefits as keywords. The research was limited to any publications following 2010 to ensure that only more relevant information was found regarding pricing and realized benefits and that the information would be accurate in today’s political and environmental climate. None of the material was explicitly excluded from the research.

Literature review was the main method used in gathering research data. No lab tests were run during this research. This paper is intended to be more informative, with only the author’s expressed opinion on the research being presented herein.

Solar Benefits

Cost savings for solar power installations have been a large focus among the key benefits of a solar system being installed on a house. Some electric utility companies employ a billing process called net metering. Net metering credits solar power system owners for electricity contributed to the power grid (Nasir, 2020). This means that during peak hours of the day, which is generally when the least amount of power is being used due to homeowners being at work with smart devices controlling the loads at their homes, the solar panels are having their “peak time”, and the load on the house is less than the performance of the solar panel energy production. As seen in Figure 1, this can correspond to cost savings and possible returns on an investment in solar power.

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As shown in Figure 1, the solar system produces more power than what the house needs to run. This excess can be sold back to the electric grid via net metering (Bauner & Crago, 2015). There are additional steps that can be taken to increase this benefit by adding a home energy management system that could affect the charging and discharging of the personal capacity of the residence back to the grid for the optimal usage of the available battery resources of the homeowner. A homeowner who has solar panels, a battery storage system, and an electric vehicle holds considerable production power during peak hours of the day. To correctly utilize these assets, a management system would optimize such a setup to send excess energy back to the grid or to the home in the correct time slots to increase the monetary benefits associated with producing power (Sangswang & Konghirun, 2020). This management system is important because electric utility companies can use time-of-use electricity rates, as opposed to flat rates, in certain regulatory markets to charge more for electricity at 7:00 p.m. than they would at 12:00 p.m., as more people are using electricity at 7:00 p.m. than at 12:00 p.m., as shown in Figure 1. Utilizing an energy management system would allow a homeowner to keep the charges from the peak sunlight and their vehicle and sell it back to the grid at 7:00 p.m. to make a potential profit (Durmaz et al., 2017). An example of a potential home energy management system is shown in Figure 2.

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Another benefit of solar power systems is that such systems improve the property value of the home. In some cases, it has been seen that buyers are willing to pay premiums of almost $15,000 dollars for a property that has a preinstalled solar system. Additionally, saving on the electric utility costs increases a home’s value. Solar panels are designed to last past their lifespan; the average solar panels are guaranteed for 25 to 30 years but can operate at 80% efficiency well past these times, as long as proper maintenance is performed on the panels to ensure no long-lasting damage to the panels (Nasir, 2020).

The environmental impact of producing their own power is a large benefit for most homeowners. Traditional electric plants include coal and natural gas, and they emit carbon dioxide as a byproduct of the production of electricity. With the emphasis placed on climate change in the current political climate, many younger homeowners are looking for ways to limit their carbon footprints to assist in this effort. While these benefits are not strictly monetary in nature, the goodwill of this, plus the tax incentives in certain areas, can help modify the electricity rates of the homeowner, which can translate to direct impacts on their own electricity rates (Brown & O’Sullivan, 2020; Ricci, 2013). As shown in Figure 3, the Gulf Coast has not heavily invested in solar power, but this can be profitable, as is shown by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) portions of the graphs, which describe the geographical area on which this paper is concentrated.

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While most of these benefits are specific to residences, within the geographical boundaries of this paper, there is a large portion of farmers and landowners who could benefit from solar power, as well, since they could lease their land to either electric utilities or private entities to increase their land’s value (Energy Monitor Worldwide, 2021). Additionally, it has been shown that building such solar farms is advantageous to the environment, as these farms remain untouched for decades, which allows wildlife populations to increase and promotes overall biodiversity by allowing soil and habitat to regenerate. As Louisiana is a large hunting state, this benefit cannot be overstated (Energy Monitor Worldwide, 2021; Salkin, 2012).

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the benefits of installing a solar capacity backup system for a residence outweigh the issues presented in this paper, provided that the homeowner can financially support such a system. The tax benefits of the current installations help with such a system, but the homeowner needs to be aware of when such benefits could change. As an added benefit, for the hurricane systems which have ravaged the Gulf Coast over the last few years, this system would allow for some relief, allow homeowners to weather storms with less reliance on electric utilities, and possibly assist the utilities with power restoration efforts if the grid were to be sufficiently saturated with these systems, which could assist if major transmission lines were damaged due to storms.