Not Your Mother's SOLAR POWER Anymore

Image Gallery Solar Plate on the roof of home

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Solar markets flee overseas and leave acurious legacy behind.

When photovoltaic (PV) energy panels were first developed at Bell Laboratories in the early 1950s, scientists envisioned them primarily as an onboard source of power for future spacecraft. The PV effect - or the process by which sunlight striking a layer of silicon or selenium produces a stream of electrons (electricity) - had actually been discovered a century earlier. Bell, however, was the first to join several PV cells into panels and commercialize the product as an extremely durable and dependable source of power. At $40,000 per watt of energy produced, these were a curiosity best left to governments with deep pockets. Fifteen years later, when MOTHER was set to publish its first issue, PV modules were just beginning to enter the homeowner marketplace. Though the promise of smokefree, power line-less electricity was alluring, systems were still so expensive ($50,000 to $75,000) that only the very wealthy could afford to plug in.

PV came of age just as the nation was experiencing the worst of the 1970s energy crisis. The government responded by investing in PV research programs, installing thousands of panels in federal buildings and offering considerable tax breaks to those who incorporated PV at home. System prices began to fall. At the same time, a wave of "back-to-the-landers" found their inspiration to seek a more simple life in the country and discovered that a PV system could make off-the-grid living an exponentially easier proposition. Compared with the back-breaking expense of extending grid power to a remote home, even a $20,000 PV system of panels, batteries and inverters could pay for itself as soon as it was switched on. Slowly (often far too slowly for our patience), costs continued to decrease, until we at last trumpeted the revolutionary $5 per watt panel in 1994.

Regrettably, prices have not fallen appreciably since then, and as a result the domestic solar electric industry is experiencing a midlife crisis as it approaches its 50th birthday. Even manufacturing gadflies will admit that PV is having a tough time finding a boom market in North America, primarily because the government is not getting involved. "The real PV business is overseas," reports Paul Maycock, President of PV Energy Systems in Warrenton, Virginia ( www.pvenergy.com ). "Over 100,000 systems were installed in the developing world just last year, and the large-scale investment that countries like Germany and Japan are making is really boosting business there. Currently, there is a worldwide shortage of solar panels because of all the buying that's going on."

"ONLY A FEW MILLION DOLLARS HAVE BEEN SPENT ON THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION'S 'MILLION SOLAR ROOFTOPS' INITIATIVE. IT WAS AN EMPTY GESTURE IN MANY WAYS."

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