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new report from The Massachusetts Institute of Technology

 says solar is an important source of renewable energy as the consequences of climate change become more urgent. 

But solar technology can be expensive and it's not being utilized as widely as it could be. How can Minnesota leverage the potential of solar?

 and MPR Meteorologist Paul Huttner for an hour-long Climate Cast. 

The MIT study looked at three broad areas that will determine the growth of solar energy: technology, economics of the sector, and the policies in place to support solar development, Francis O'Sullivan, director of research and analysis at the MIT Energy Initiative, said. 

"When we speak about solar, we could be speaking about an enormous utility scale solar farm, the type of ground-mounted systems that people often see when they see pictures of the desert and the southwest," O'Sullivan said. "That's one bookend and right at the other end is a unit sitting on your roof... Those paradigms have very different economics. It's significantly cheaper to develop those utility-scale facilities per watt of generating capacity than it is to put a system on the roof... In some settings in the United States today, it's true that the cost of putting your own system on the roof remains very high relative to the benefits you get, particularly in regions where the solar resources aren't very good."

Ellen Anderson, executive director of the Energy Transition Lab at the University of Minnesota, said 

 are a way for citizens to get involved, even if they don't have a good south-facing roof.


"The concept of a solar garden is that it's a shared solar project," Anderson said. "Under the law they can be up to 1 megawatt... The idea is that you put the project together, you build it and you have to have one anchor tenant that owns up to 40 percent of the solar capacity and the solar panels in the project. You can sell shares to other subscribers, so you can buy as little as one solar panel out of a larger project... When you buy a subscription you get a bill credit for the amount of electricity that's produced by your share. So on your monthly bill you'll see the benefits of being a solar owner."

For scale, a one megawatt community solar garden would provide electricity for about 150 to 160 homes, she said. 

"What you're looking for is regions with a lot of sunshine—it doesn't necessarily have to be very hot—in order to have a good solar resource," he said. "So here in the United States, for example, across the Midwest can be very cold during the winter, [but] you have a lot of sunshine. That contrast, for example, with northern Europe where it may not be as cold at all due to the moderating effects of the Gulf Stream, but you have a lot more cloud cover. Their solar resource is significantly worse than ours."

Using today's technology and typical efficiencies, the United States could generate the entire electricity demand using half the area we currently dedicate to growing corn-ethanol, O'Sullivan said. That would be about the size of Rhode Island. 

"That resource is really enormous and we can tap into a huge amount of solar energy without necessarily having a ubiquitous plastering of solar panels all over the country," he said. 

If you want solar panels on your residential property, you still need a lot of money up front for installation, but those prices are dropping, O'Sullivan said.

Emily Kaiser

Author

A new report from MIT says solar is an important source of renewable energy as the consequences of climate change become more urgent. How can Minnesota leverage the potential of solar?

A new report from MIT says solar is an important source of renewable energy as the consequences of climate change become more urgent. But solar technology can be expensive and it's not being utilized as widely as it could be. How can Minnesota leverage the potential of solar?

Future of Minnesota solar energy: What you need to know

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