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Brock Johnson
Mrs. Coco
English 1001
28 November 2016
Audience: My audience is a homeowner who is interested in the development and use of solar
energy in the United States today.
I am curious if this paper and my inquiry question work well together? I am also curious
if my audience works well for the paper or if I need to change it slightly. Lastly, I am curious if
the paper flows well and if it has too much detail or if it is a good amount.
If I had two more weeks to write my paper I would improve upon how much information
I have and the quality of that information. I would make sure that the background information I
had was helpful and useful and not suffocating the paper. From writing this inquiry research
paper I have learned more about solar energy production and the different ways to harness the
sun for energy. I have also learned how the power companies use politics to prevent solar energy
use in Florida and other states.
Solar Energy
Solar energy is easily one of the most easily attainable types of renewable energy on the
planet. The sun is the source for all this energy which is being constantly emitted in the form of
solar radiation. This solar radiation is then collected by humans and transformed into a usable
form of energy. Until the sun burns out, the solar radiation will continue to be given off. By
switching to solar energy, America could take advantage of the potential energy coming off of a
star. The only problem to switching to solar energy is that it would hurt all the existing major
power companies and the existing power grid. So, what would be the affect of solar energy on
the existing power grid?
Solar energy is becoming more popular today than it ever has been, due to several reason.
These reasons include the effectiveness of existing solar panels, the cost of these solar panels, the
grid parity, and the physical location in which these are installed. But there is also one big

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adversary to switching solar energy, and that is the power companies. The power companies
make money by selling energy to people and if people could produce their own energy, there
would not be as much of a need for the power companies. By using politics, the power
companies are able to block the increased use of solar energy.
Types of solar energy collectors and effectiveness
There are two different types of solar collectors available on the market. First is the
classic solar panel everyone imagines when you say solar energy. This solar energy collector is
actually made up of photovoltaic cells or PV cells for short. The United States National
Renewable Energy Laboratory (USNREL) says that the traditional PV cells are generally
efficient flat-plates made up of silicon. Unlike the newer second generation PV cells which are
called thin-film solar cells because they are made from amorphous silicon or nonsilicon materials
such as cadmium telluride (Solar Photovoltaic Technology Basics). According to USNREL, by
using several semiconducting layers of material these film solar cells are just millimeters thick.
This thin layer of cells can then also serve as facades on buildings, as rooftop shingles, or as a
film on skylights (Solar Photovoltaic Technology Basics). These cells are mounted on pivoting
points and placed on roofs so they can move with the sun to collect the most amount of potential
energy.
The second type of solar energy collectors is called a concentrating solar power system,
and it is made up of three different types. The three types are linear concentrator, dish/engine
systems, and power tower systems. The linear concentrator acquires the suns thermal energy
through a series of curved mirrors. According to the United States National Renewable Energy
Laboratory, this generates energy by tilting the mirrors to the sun, so that the light is focused on
the receivers that run the length of the mirrors (Concentrating Solar Power Basics). This

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thermal energy is used to heat up the fluid that flows in tubes. These tubes of hot fluid then travel
through water to boil it. The steam is then used for a conventional steam-turbine generator to
produce electricity (Concentrating Solar Power Basics).
The dish/engine system is used by arranging small mirrors like a giant satellite dish to
reflect the sunlight to a thermal receiver. The heat collected from the thermal receiver is
transferred to an engine generator, which uses pistons to produce electricity from a generator or
alternator through mechanical energy. While the power tower system uses sun tracking mirrors,
laid out on a large flat field to direct the sun to a tower with a thermal receiver on top. The
receiver then heats up the fluid inside and transforms it to steam in order to turn a turbine
generator and produce electricity (Concentrating Solar Power Basics).
These different types of receivers are helpful towards creating clean and renewable
energy. According to Papaefthimiou, solar energy has an estimated practical potential between
50 and 1,600 TW while the global primary energy consumption ranged from 16.5 TW to 18
TW (Papaefthimiou 263). This means that the potential energy that can be generated by this
source of energy is nearly three times the amount that is consumed by the entire world in a year.
Location of solar energy receptors
Even though solar energy can generate more electricity than humanity can use there is
one slight draw back of it which is the location and amount of space. Solar energy is best
captured in areas where one its sunny, two its relatively flat, and three somewhere that has a lot
of open space for the receptors. You need a place where the sun is always shining because thats
where you will get the most energy from. You want somewhere mostly flat so that the sun can be
collected easier. Also you want a place with a lot of flat open space due to the fact that solar
farms, which are areas where millions of solar cells are lined up collecting sun rays, are usually

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made of up several hundred to a few thousand solar panels. These panels require plenty of land
to be lined up and rows and still be able to move with the sun through sun tracking technology.
Cost of solar energy and grid parity
The cost of solar energy has gone down drastically since the first solar panels were
created. According to Daniel Kammen with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, since 2008 the
power output of an individual solar PV panel has gone up while the price per panel has dropped
by 75 percent (Kammen 45). The reduced cost of these solar receptors is due to government
incentives and through increased effectiveness of these devices. According to the USNREL the
PV systems are becoming cost effective for use by utilities and industry (Solar Photovoltaic
Technology Basics). The decrease in prices have allowed solar energy production to become a
more viable source for energy generation. The cost of these units for production has decreased by
over 80% in price. According to Rotman who is the editor of the MIT Technology Review, A
silicon solar module sold for $4 per watt in 2008; in 2014 it was 65 cents per watt (Rotman 91).
This shows the drastic cut in the cost and the increase of effectiveness in the devices for solar
energy use.
These incentives, which have kept cost low, have allowed solar energy to almost reach
grid parity. Grid parity is when an energy, solar in this case, reaches the same cost as energy
from the grid making it more reasonable to use at your home. Since grid parity has almost been
reached, power companies are not happy due to the fact that it will reduce the amount of
customers and harm their business.
Power companies and politics
Power companies are opposed to grid parity, because it would allow people to generate
their own energy. If people were able to generate their own energy, then they would not need to

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buy energy from the power companies. Also they would have to buy energy from those people
who generated their own and had excess. This is because of net metering. According to Karsten
Moran for The New York Times, net metering is:
When solar panels generate more power than a household uses, the excess kilowatts are
pushed back onto the electric grid. Net metering is the billing system that credits a
homeowner for the excess power on the homes future bills. This helps during the winter
months, when solar systems generate less power since the suns energy is weaker (Moran
paragraph 5).
Moran then says that home owners still have to pay a connection charge because they are
connected to the grid. But being connected to the grid is helpful since it allows the consumer to
be paid for excess energy, but it also helps during the winter months when they do not produce
as much energy (paragraph 5).
Between losing costumers and having to pay for energy they did not create, the energy
companies would not be able to maintain the existing power grid without raising their rates for
consumers. The companies would be forced to raise their rates in order to keep the grid working
and functional. But, by doing this, they would lose customers due to the fact that solar energy
would be the cheaper choice and the cycle would repeat itself.
Energy companies make money by supplying energy to consumers. This is a simple
business model to make and sell energy. The power companies do not want to lose their potential
income from these consumers generating their own energy. They also do not want to have to pay
the consumers for excess energy that they generate since that goes against their whole business
model of making energy and selling it to people. So, the power companies try to fight this
anyway that they can, one of the most popular ways, being politics.

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A majority of the power companies in Florida are investor-owned utilities (IOUs). For a
state know as the Sunshine State it is ranked only 16th in the nation in solar production
(Dickinson, Paragraph 3). The cause behind this low ranking is a result of the IOUs, which
control Florida legislature. Attributable to the lack of several laws and policies that are present
everywhere else in America, the only people who can afford solar energy in Florida according to
Dickinson are those who can afford the upfront expenses (Dickinson, Paragraph 14). So the
only way to generate energy from solar power in Florida is to be able to afford to pay the real
price of the unit, compared to the stand subsidized price that everyone else pays in America.
The situation in Florida shows the IOUs flexing their muscles in the faces of solar
energy advocators constantly. This shows how opposed the energy companies in Florida and
other states are to switching to this new method of power generation. The way that the power
companies fight solar energy so often makes you really wonder, what are the affects of solar
energy on the power grid? This is a question that haunts us today, but one day soon will be
answered whether as a nation we are ready for it or not.

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Works Cited
"Concentrating Solar Power Basics." National Renewable Energy Laboratory, United States
Government, Web. Accessed 3 Nov. 2016.
Dickinson, Tim. "THE DIRTY WAR ON SOLAR POWER. (Cover Story)." Rolling Stone 1255
(2016): 26-31. Academic Search Complete. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
Kammen, Daniel M. "Solar Energy Innovation And Silicon Valley." Bulletin Of The Atomic
Scientists 70.5 (2014): 45. MAS Ultra - School Edition. Web. 22 Nov. 2016.
Moran, Karsten. "What You Should Know Before Going Solar." The New York Times, Web. 30
Sept. 2016.
Papaefthimiou, Spiros, Manolis Souliotis, and Kostas Andriosopoulos. "Grid Parity Of Solar
Energy: Imminent Fact Or Future's Fiction?." Energy Journal 37.(2016): 263-276.
Academic Search Complete. Web. 27 Oct. 2016.
Rotman, David. "Paying For Solar Power." MIT Technology Review 118.5 (2015): 88-93.
Academic Search Complete. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
"Solar Photovoltaic Technology Basics." National Renewable Energy Laboratory, United States
Government, Web. 13 Aug. 2013. Accessed 3 Nov. 2016.

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