Is Solyndra a Black Eye to the Green Initiative?

The press has been killing Solyndra lately, as they should be. It is pretty apparent that the public was duped once again.  Let’s face it, corruption in politics is as old as the Athenians.  Paybacks for donations using taxpayer money is same old, same old. I hate to say that but it’s the sad truth and neither party is immune.  

The point is, let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.  I hear pundits talking about how solar doesn’t work, there is no business or it’s some kind of scam.  That is simply not true.  Here on Long Island, solar is a booming industry and the customers are making out very well. It’s one of the only things that are working in this economy. I’m talking real jobs and real savings.  When people save money, that means more money can be spent in the economy.  More consumers mean more jobs and the cycle continues. Granted, this is small scale at this time, but it is positive. Not to mention the environmental aspect.  Who can argue that a clean environment and a reduction in the need for foreign oil is an important cause?

Opponents of solar energy and people who believe it isn’t working are thinking in the old paradigm of central generation.  Like a power plant generates electric for the city. In that model, solar is marginally effective and expensive.  To build a solar farm to generate as much power as a traditional, fossil fuel plant will require more real estate than is practical using today’s technology.

The only way to move the technology forward, without government grants, is to make the business profitable so there is money for research and development.  The way to make solar profitable is to create customers, lots of them.  Not in large scale “jigawatt” projects but in small scale, grid tied, residential and commercial arrays. This is what we call local generation. This model IS working.

It is a simple and effective plan.  The subsidies, (tax credits and LIPA rebates), are in place to make solar economically attractive to the middle market. Customers wishing to save money on their electric take advantage of the subsidies and projects get done. Companies earn money and hire people. This stimulates the economy and creates more jobs and therefore more tax payers.  As the market expands, solar manufacturers and installers get competitive and pricing comes down. Eventually the prices reduce to a point where the subsidies are no longer needed.  The rebates typically come down correspondent to the price drops and the tax credits are based on what you paid, so they automatically come down with pricing.

This is not a massive government bailout. It’s a just a tax credit.  Not much different than your child tax credit.  Why does LIPA participate in this? Simple, it is extremely more cost effective for LIPA to pay a portion of your system, than it is to build another power plant, like say, Shorham for instance. 

See what I mean? Local generation, small arrays on rooftops, a few here, a few there, next thing you know, one megawatt, two megawatts and so on.  This is the way economies come back.  Good ideas, small steps. Let’s get busy.