Go big or go small…what’s the point of using solar energy?

2. Everyone loves solar energy (they can’t see it). More than 10 million Americans live within three miles of a utility-scale solar project. Last year, researchers at the University of Berkeley conducted the first national survey of these households. The smallest projects (under 2 megawatts) had five times as many positive comments as negative ones. But As solar farms expand, this balance is reversed. People living near the largest solar panels (100 megawatts or more) were 12 times more likely to express negative attitudes than positive ones. These attitudes can easily translate into political action —At least 15% of U.S. counties have effectively halted new utility-scale solar installationswind or both, according to a February analysis by USA Today.

3. Solar energy can be contagious. On a neighborhood scale, solar panels spread like salmonella at a street party. Solar poisoning is the observation that Installing multiple panels has a noticeable impact on increasing adoption almost. Every panel installed means utilities need to generate and transmit less energy, which in turn supports the transition to a low-carbon economy even in places that still use fossil fuels. Increased demand causes prices to fall further, creating a virtuous feedback loop across the solar industry.

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What to look for

1. The biggest of the big ones. The world’s largest solar facility is currently the Bhadla Solar Park in the Thar Desert in Rajasthan, India. It covers 56 square kilometers and has a capacity of 2.2 gigawatts, as much as several typical nuclear power plants. Bigger and more powerful solar farms are planned, none more ambitious than the 20-gigawatt orbiting solar stations that the start-up Virtus Solis. But don’t get too excited. Read this sobering analysis in IEEE Spectrum to find out why. these concepts will likely remain strictly science fiction in the foreseeable future.

2. The smallest of the small. There’s plenty of space downstairs for solar-powered gadgets. Ultra-thin, flexible and transparent cells will soon appear, enabling the production of solar-powered clothing and windows. Further along the path to commercialization are new materials that should enable many low-power gadgets (think remotes and thermostats) to draw all their energy the power they need from ambient and interior lightingeven LEDs, and they never require battery replacement.

3. Are there no roofs? That may sound like a distant risk, but the scale of the energy transition is so vast that even if every eligible roof in the U.S. had solar panels installed, they would only provide 40% of the country’s energy needs. Despite the hand-wringing over vast solar farms replacing real agriculture, the situation there is far less serious. Just 1% of US farmland could provide up to 20% of the country’s electricityand that’s before considering many things benefits of agrivoltaicsthat combine energy production with crops or pastures, potentially increasing food production. Another win-win solution could be topping irrigation channels with solar panels, saving millions of cubic meters of fresh water and enabling farmers to gradually phase out old, dirty diesel-powered water pumps.