I sent the following letter to the local county Supervisors and Planning Commission. I live in a rural part of Sacramento Valley. There is becoming a strong push from forces outside of the County to install large (640 acres and above) solar systems. The Supervisors and Planning Commission are currently taking up the issue of zoning and permitting for these installations, which prompted me to write to them to express some of my concerns.
To Whom it May Concern,
I have a concern about the size of proposed solar installations in Yolo County. It is my opinion that the county should bias it’s permitting of future solar installations to promote systems that are designed to offset the applicant’s energy use at, or adjacent to, the installation site rather than large solar arrays that are intended to create an income stream via the sale of electrical power to utility (PG&E, SMUD or other).
There are a number of reasons that smaller, net-metering, type of installations are superior for the county, including:
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LOCAL INCOME AND EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES:
Large systems tend to be installed by contractors whose base of operations is outside of the county boundaries. Many of the workers (especially the higher paid ones) are brought in from outside of the County for the duration of the project. While these workers spend a small amount of money in the County, they take most of it home.
Smaller, net metering systems will usually be installed by local, contractors using local labor. This results in both the profits from the installation and the income to the workers remaining in the County – enhancing County tax revenues, County employment incomes, and increasing employment opportunities.
- FINANCIAL BENEFITS:
Large arrays tend to be financed and operated by large corporations that are located outside of the county (often by out of State or foreign corporations). The profits from the construction, and profits from the sale of power, are usually enjoyed by corporations located outside of the County (with possible exceptions where the landowner might lease land for the array and get a small income in return).
For smaller systems, the profits from the sales and installation of the arrays usually goes to local contractors, and the financial rewards associated with the reduction of power costs go directly to the users of the power. These users are located within the county and can help drive the economy of the county and region by having reduced energy costs, giving them more money to spend, save and invest within the county. This is advantageous to both the owner and the County. It provides a means for the people who use the power to invest in their own power needs, and benefit accordingly.
- ENVIRONMENTAL CONSIDERATIONS:
Large systems tend to have a large, negative, environmental impact. They take existing productive/useful land (either productive in terms of agriculture, habitat or both) out of production. The typical installation of these systems requires denuding the land within the boundaries of the array. This has to be done to minimize fire danger and minimize the need for expensive mechanical weed control. Often these areas are graveled and treated with herbicides to prevent plants or weeds from growing within the boundaries of the array.
Smaller systems are usually located on areas such as rooftops, backyards or parking lots where no additional land is impacted. In situations where ground mounting is preferable, vegetation is often allowed to grow under and between the solar modules where it can be controlled by mowing or grazing. Even when the ground is treated to prevent vegetation from growing under the panels, the area impacted is small and has little or no impact on the local habitat or environment.
- UTILITY GRID IMPACTS:
One of the unsolved problems faced by the utility grids is being able to accommodate large, short-term fluctuations in power production due to local shading. When a large array is shaded by a passing cloud the utility needs to adjust its other power production to accommodate the sudden change in grid power. These fluctuations can be on the order of a less than a minute. The current grid design can accommodate small fluctuations, but cannot do so for large ones. Small, distributed power systems will tend to minimize this impact because the effective size of the total PV power system is much larger, decreasing the short period fluctuations in power production – allowing the grid controls to more easily accommodate the changes without impacting service.
- UTILITY INFRASTRUCTURE:
Large solar arrays need access to high power transmission lines. In most cases, these lines are not currently available and will need to be brought to the location of the array. If power lines exist near the proposed installation, they are often undersized because they were designed for the local needs. Therefore, even though power lines, and maybe even a substation, are near the installation site they will often have to be upgraded, replaced or otherwise enhanced to accept the additional power.
By necessity, net metering arrays are already provided with power lines that are designed to handle the anticipated production because the power sent back to the utility cannot be greater than the service entrance required at that location. In most cases, the resulting power requirements for the local grid will go down, rather than increase, because the power being produced will be used at the site of production rather than transmitted via the utility grid. Even in situations where the power is placed on the grid instead of being immediately used, it is limited by regulation to 20% of the installed system. Thus a 100A service residential service can only have 20A of solar production. This results in a situation where the local power grid has much less solar power on the grid than the grid is designed to accommodate. No new power lines or utility infrastructure are needed.
- FUTURE BENEFITS:
Currently, there is more than enough space available in the County for small net metering systems to provide all of the electrical power required for the current uses within the county. This can be done by using the existing roof tops, parking lots, roadside areas and small parcels adjacent to productive farmland without the need for taking large areas of productive land out of service. If in the future, the electrical needs grow to the point where more aggressive installation of solar power production facilities is required; these can then be met by allowing larger systems to be installed. However, this option should be held until needed because there is a very good chance that option will never need to be used.
- UTILITY CAPABILITIES:
The capabilities of the utilities to accept solar is currently severely limited because of their need to provide 24 hour power and the difficulty they face in adjusting their production capabilities in response to the unplanned and unpredictable variations in power production by sources such as solar and wind. Currently, they are mandated to accept a given amount of power from these sustainable sources, but in California they are very close to reaching that mandated amount. The utilities seem to be planning on no longer accepting new solar production once that mandated level has been reached. Even if the State forces them into increasing that limit, they are getting close to what the current grid design will allow. Hence, allowing the larger systems to proliferate will reduce the capacity that can be provided for by small, locally used net metering systems. Currently, PG&E is very close to stopping accepting net metering connections because of this problem. Solar power production capabilities are a “zero sum game,” meaning that as more power is produced by very large arrays, less power can be produced by smaller, net-metering systems. This situation will continue to exist until such time as large scale means for storing excess solar or wind power are developed.
- Summary:
At the present time there is no physical or engineering need for large scale solar production facilities. There are more than enough small scale locations to provide all of electricity that can be handled by the utilities. The trade-off that exists seems to boil down to allowing large out of county corporations to make very large profits from the resources within our county, versus avoiding the negative impacts discussed above and reaping the financial rewards locally. It is my opinion that it is far better to avoid the environmental and infrastructure costs and keep the financial rewards local where they can benefit our citizens and the County government the most.
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