To think big about solar, think small

Danny Thompson

Monday, April 13, 2009 | 2 a.m.

In Nevada, where the sun shines more often than not, imagine this:

A company installs a solar panel on your roof and sells you the solar energy at a reduced, affordable price.

It’s similar to the set-up for satellite TV — you don’t buy the satellite dish; you pay a fee for the satellite TV service that the dish brings to your house.

In our scenario you get cleaner, cheaper energy at no out-of-pocket start-up cost, instead of installing solar panels on your roof that could cost $40,000 or more. And you’re still hooked into the power grid, so on the few cloudy days — or at night — you could draw from the same power supply you do now.

When we talk about harnessing Nevada’s vast solar energy potential, we have two options. One is to build large-scale solar plants — fields of solar panels in the desert capturing energy that is then sent over a power grid to your home or business.

This is often a good option, and is in the works in Nevada. NV Energy just announced plans to build another solar plant in Nye County.

The other option is to install solar panels on the roofs of homes and businesses to harness solar energy.

In other words, the power user is the power provider. This model would replace the 20th century model of the vast national grid of large-scale generating stations built away from population centers and transmitting power hundreds, or even thousands, of miles over transmission lines. Although it has served us well, we’re now discovering that it wasn’t always the most efficient way to produce and distribute energy.

A distributed generation system, on the other hand, creates energy from many small and more-efficient sources. It provides incentives for many economic sectors to get up and running. If just 20 percent of Nevada’s homes employed solar, the increased economic impact from the manufacturing chain to wholesale, then from contracting to retail to the tax base, would be staggering.

Workers on the ground are needed to supply, deliver and maintain these smaller solar energy systems on roofs in your community. As our neighbors in Arizona and California can attest, the job opportunity in this market is soaring, and it was one of the strongest business sectors in 2008.

In fact, distributive solar generation creates more jobs per megawatt than any other type of energy source.

Based on analysis from the Vote Solar Initiative, if Nevada used solar to meet an increased renewable energy target of 30 percent by 2020 — including 5 percent coming just from rooftop solar panels and small-scale commercial solar projects — the state could expect to create 10,000 new jobs in the next 10 years. That includes employment opportunities at nearly every education level and salary requirement, with a significant portion coming from the construction phase.

Considering unemployment in Nevada reached 10 percent last month, and that the building trades have been particularly hard hit — half of union construction workers in Reno can’t find work right now — I think 10,000 jobs is an outcome worth investing in.

On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will hold a town hall meeting on clean energy in Las Vegas. Sen. Reid has been one of the nation’s leading advocates of a clean energy economy that creates jobs, cuts our energy bills and reduces our dependence on foreign oil. Already his support has spurred energy projects in Nevada that will create jobs.

The town hall meeting will be held at the IBEW Training and Apprenticeship Facility, where apprentices are learning how to install and maintain solar panels, among other skills. You can watch the town hall live at reid.senate.gov.

Working toward a clean-energy economy is not a sprint; it is a marathon. Even in this tough economic climate, we cannot afford to lose sight of what is at stake — the creation of a new clean energy economy that we will use to rebuild America, slow down global warming and reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources.

And, most important, put Nevadans back to work.

Danny Thompson is executive secretary-treasurer of the Nevada State AFL-CIO.