SoCal Edison wants to cover California rooftops with solar panels

We've seen a few massive solar farms pop up out west, but it looks like Southern California Edison is taking a different approach: instead of cluttering up the desert, the company plans to build a distributed solar array on the rooftops of commercial buildings throughout SoCal. The plan is to spend $875M over five years to cover about two square miles of rooftop with the panels, which will alleviate stress on the grid by generating around 250 megawatts of juice, as much as a small power plant. That's enough to light up 162,000 homes, but it's still a little short of the record 280-megawatt Solana installation planned in Arizona -- come on, Cali, let's see a little fight.

[Bloobie Posted Mar 27th 2008 9:34PM]

What we need is a change in mentality, which will not happen anytime soon (especially with consumption as high as it is in the US). We need to emphasize energy conservation and encourage micro-power generation (at the home level), both of which would greatly decrease the load on full-scale commercial power generation facilities.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 27th 2008 6:59PM]

Just a note - Cali already won the fight.... FPL already has the largest solar power generating facility in the Mojave - SEGS generates 310 MW, covers more than 2000 acres, and uses over 900,000 mirrors to collect and concentrate sunlight.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 27th 2008 8:19PM]

Imagine if the trillions of dollars that will eventually be spent in Iraq ... was invested in solar infrastructure.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 28th 2008 2:08PM]

Better yet, imagine if the trillions of dollars that have already been spent on Welfare, Food Stamps, free lunch programs, public housing, etc., had been invested in solar infrastructure.

[MST Posted Mar 27th 2008 8:52PM]

To anyone familiar with California electric companies, I have a question. Are the power companies like SoCal Edison highly subsidized by tax payer dollars and that is the only way SoCal Edison would do this? Or do they expect to eventually start turning a profit from this enterprise?

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 28th 2008 4:48AM]

What a wonderful idea! I hope it is permitted to reach fruition by vested interest. The California Air Resources Board meets in Sacramento today to consider a plan to cut the number of pure electric vehicles that carmakers would be required to sell over the next few years from 25,000 to 2,500. So the initiatives which are in the interest of everyone, are sought to be stifled, lets hope the same is not true for the solar panel initiative.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 29th 2008 1:22AM]

Lot of you are just writing whats irrelevant, the topic was and is Solar energy!!!!
Wake up guys...
Talk about how the scientists need to create more power generating photo voltaic cells as they are trying to maximize power output per inch...or how the cells need to be more flexible so as to be used in many other places and also become easier to transport.
Or talk about the Fusion v/s Fission theory, which is being tried right now in many places in the world...
Fossil fuels are bad period. ask the people in bangladesh who have the rare distinction of leaving their homes and land as the sea rose thus becoming the first environmental displaced people...

Bye...