Solar installer rents rooftops to make megawatts

A photo illustration of a solar installation planned in Spain.

(Credit: ProLogis)

Recurrent Energy announced on Tuesday a deal in Spain to install 4.8 megawatts worth of solar panels on several rooftops leased from distribution company ProLogis.

In this model, Recurrent owns and operates the panels and sells the electricity the panels generate. ProLogis gets a one-time construction management fee and an annual rental payment.

This distributed solar model, where an outside company rents rooftop space and sells the panels' electricity, is being pursued in the U.S. as well by a handful of utilities. Southern California Edison, for example, said it plans to install as much as 250 megawatts worth of solar energy capacity on hundreds of commercial rooftops.

There's been a sharp uptick in interest in centralized solar power plants over the past five years. But financing those large plants and finding sites for them, often in environmentally sensitive protected land in the southwest U.S., has slowed deployment of those large-scale systems.

The combined output of Recurrent's installations in Spain, which are set to go online in 2010, is enough to power well over 1,000 homes. By contrast, a centralized solar plant would be built with enough capacity to power hundreds of thousands of homes.

Still, the model can be expanded, Recurrent Energy CEO Arno Harris said in a statement.

"We have over 500 MW of distributed-scale projects in development across North America and Europe, and what this project successfully demonstrates is the sizable role commercial and industrial rooftops can play in large-scale solar deployment," Harris said.

Spain is a hotbed for solar energy because it has a good sun resources and because it has a feed-in tariff for renewable energy production, as does Germany. With a feed-in tariff, project developers are ensured that electricity will be purchased at a certain rate over a fixed term, such as 20 years, which many experts say creates a predictable financial incentive.

[James Anderson Merritt]

I'm all for preserving as much desert land in its wild state as possible. But I am baffled when I see terms such as "environmentally sensitive" applied to the vast and mostly inhospitable deserts of our country's southwest. How sensitive does land need to be to preclude the installation of solar panels, heliostats, or other elements of solar power generation? And how affected would the entire desert region be by the appropriation of, say, 400 solar farms, each of size five miles square? That would be enough to offset a sizable portion of the nation's current electric consumption.

I like the idea of leasing commercial roofs for solar panel electricity generation, too. That resource is also fairly vast, and has the potential to make a good dent in our electric consumption also. But the idea that people are having trouble siting solar farms in the desert southwest on environmental grounds seems ludicrous to me. For the most part, a solar plant just sits on top of the land, requiring nowhere near the transformations necessary for other uses (such as farming or urbanization, say). It strikes me as one of the least ecologically intrusive approach to power generation, with a huge upside benefit to society in general. So who is standing in the way and why, really?

[mlamonica]

Environmental permitting is a serious barrier to siting large solar installations, both for the land they use and any new transmission lines that might be required. BrightSource Energy just pulled out of a site in Nevada because of opposition. (It found another one soon after.)

Here are two articles to look at on this topic:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112860913&ps=cprs
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_13404230?nclick_check=1

[SteveChicago]

I actually prefer the idea of solar panelling roof tops of industrial buildings. Like the FedEx facility in Oakland. They did it themselves and they sell back what they do not use.

The best thing about industrial buildings is that they are usually in industrial parks, a place of high energy use during the day. This removes the cost and waste of transmission lines.

Perhaps some of our struggling manufactures could look into this as a possible revenue stream.

[RMSorg]

I agree with your comment and think it's a great idea that would help to produce some much needed revenue for many businesses. It would also help with clean energy poduction, management and usage, which in turn will help the environment.

For more info on energy management visit - http://titanenergyworldwide.com/

Thanks!

[Get_Bent]

As a fringe benefit, the solar panels shade the roof, which reduces heat gain and air conditioner use.