Solar Energy Forecast: Only Partly Sunny

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Evidence shows solar power use in homes declines, but future prospects still appear bright.

Now that summer has officially arrived, marked by the long Memorial Day weekend, you'd think that solar power advocates are happily basking in the warm rays of the sun, soaking up energy in rooftop photovoltaic panels or heating household water with solar-thermal systems. Instead, solar supporters are seeing some dark clouds forming over the horizon, as evidenced by the latest round of US Census data.

Of the 22 states included in the most recent Census profile, 19 reported a distinct decline in solar-heated homes during the 1990s. In the three states that posted gains, the boost in numbers was modest at best. In the often-cloudy Northwest, Oregon's number of homes primarily using solar energy for heat dropped by nearly one-third, while Washington saw its total of solar-heated homes fall by half between during the decade. Other states -- even in places like sun-rich Nevada, where the count was down 42 percent -- reported similar losses.

Solar industry observers are scratching their heads in wonderment at the new data, because by all accounts, the industry is the healthiest it's been in three decades. A flush of activity in solar power research, combined with the blossoming green building industry, is causing big companies, city governments, and others to jump on the solar bandwagon.

Here's some examples: San Francisco voters last year approved two measures that call for the city to spend $100 million on renewable energy, including solar. Chicago is on track to become the largest purchaser of green power in the nation. Global oil giant British Petroleum is investing massive amounts of money into solar power research. Even folks living off-the-grid are tapping into solar power's advantages. And Portland -- as we'll see later in this article -- is looking to solar to help complete a growing 'green power' niche for the city, which began when Portland landed the coveted US headquarters for Vestas Wind Systems, a leading wind power turbine maker.

Largely, solar power advocates are dismissing the negative Census data, preferring to point instead to the positive stories of solar's spread. And by all accounts they can do so justifiably, because homes that rely primarily on solar heat make up just a small share of the total households utilizing solar in some way -- including heating outdoor pools or household water, and creating electricity. In California, one of the few states that saw a small rise in solar-heated homes and by far the leader among the states, boasts 13,508 homes, according to the Census.

Even though California is far above Oregon and Washington, with just 476 and 374 homes, respectively, those 13,508 homes still make up just a tiny number of the total homes in the state. It's that prospective future growth -- millions of homes that can still employ solar as an option -- that has solar industry watchers feeling good about their prospects, despite the Census numbers.

The long-running 'One Million Solar Roofs' program by the US Department of Energy has helped publicize the capacity of residential solar energy production, and smaller programs, such as the 'One Hundred Solar Roofs' plan in San Diego, are running in conjunction with the nationwide effort, just on a smaller scale. "It's incredible that the entire County of San Diego has only four hundred or so solar power systems contributing to the power grid at any one time, when there are probably four million eligible rooftops here," said Peter Duchon of ASAP POWER! in a solaraccess.com article. "Actually, the number of paralleled grid contributing systems could easily be doubled, from the efforts of a single well focused campaign."

Those "eligible rooftops" are the key for a real boom in residential solar power use -- all those rooftops just absorbing heat with nothing to show for it could be turned into electricity-producing operations that could ease an increasingly strained energy grid. But harnessing that power has proven more difficult than originally thought. In 2000, Los Angeles proclaimed it would become "the Solar Capital of the World" with 100,000 roofs covered with solar electric panels by 2010. As of the Washington Post's 2001 article, only 40 photovoltaic panel roof packages had been installed, leaving a whopping 99,960 rooftops to go.

Portland, by contrast, is taking a different approach toward solar power, an approach that reflects the simple fact that the sun is obscured by clouds in this corner of the country more days than not. Rather than throw solar panels on rooftops, thought city leaders, why not establish Portland as a major manufacturing center for photovoltaic solar cells? Notwithstanding the region's cloudy weather, the idea begins to make even more sense when one considers that the Portland area is already bursting with expertise in something closely akin to making photovoltaic cells: silicon wafers and semiconductors.

Making the two products is surprisingly similar. Both involve microscopically thin films on silicon and some other material, slicing the material razor-thin and using 'clean rooms' and robots during production, explained officials with IDC, an international design and construction firm based in Portland, to the Oregonian. "The manufacture of solar and the use of solar are two distinct things," said Michael O'Halloran, IDC's director of technology. "Using solar is more favorable if there's lots of sunlight and high power costs. But the manufacturing requires low power costs and semi-conductor-like infrastructure, and that's what we have."

IDC, along with city officials, are lobbying hard to raise funding for a 'Center for Solar Excellence' at Portland State University to serve as the cornerstone for building the region's solar cell manufacturing capacity. The idea would hire a leading solar energy professor to head a lab focused on solar photovoltaic cell research. From there, incoming solar industry would build around the Center's research work. "The center is an integral first step. The center would work on state-of-the-art silicon wafer technologies for photovoltaics, which is a first step toward showing the industry we're serious," said Dan Saltzman, a Portland City Commissioner and booster for the project. "The next step is attracting manufacturers."

With the region's silicon wafer industry already in place, attracting solar cell producers might not prove too difficult. Although only one-fourth of global photovoltaic production is presently housed on US soil, Portland has already demonstrated it's capable of attracting industry from overseas with the Vestas move. The city is also on a major shipping international route with the Columbia River. And in addition, solar chip sales are thought to increase by as much as 30 percent per year during the coming decade.

In the end, the solar industry presents an interesting juxtaposition. In most of the nation, including those areas with the most potential for solar power production, a few clouds -- in the form of slow or stagnant residential solar use -- are causing the industry to take some pause. But here in the rainiest and cloudiest corner of the country, the possibility exists for a much-needed jump-start for the solar energy industry, one that could come not from the sky, but from the ground up.