A Solar Future
The international solar community has moved forward in cost and manufacturing because of governmental subsidies and fewer regulations. However, the U.S. faces uncertainty with financial and tax incentives. The many different financial incentives for state and federal tax credits, along with creative power-purchase agreements, accelerated depreciation, tariffs, leasing, financing, and energy-efficiency loans and mortgages, are too numerous to mention here. For government and utility incentives, visit www.dsireusa.org.
These commercial and military building markets are also DOE targets for net-zero energy structures. The DOE “Sun Shot” program was launched to provide funding to accelerate solar energy innovation into the marketplace. The program focuses on advancements in solar-cell and -array technologies, installation, design and permitting, hardware, reductions in soft costs, and development of pilot manufacturing and production projects. Goodfellow AFB and the demonstration project are designed to prove these tenets and move toward reducing the cost of PV systems to $1 per installed watt or roughly 6 cents per kWh.
DOE’s vision would be for the cost of solar technologies to decrease by about 75 percent between now and 2020. DOE also would like solar energy to represent 14 percent of U.S. electric needs by 2030. Generating electricity onsite with rooftop PV systems will be a key part of that strategy and expectation.
Ongoing Series
This article is the second part in an ongoing series about the integrated metal roof retrofit assembly at Goodfellow Air Force Base, San Angelo, Texas. The first part in the series appeared in the September-October issue, “Military Snaps to Attention,” and was an overview about the project and individual components that came together to create the unique demonstration project. The third part of the series will appear in the January-February 2013 issue and will focus on the cool metal roofing platform used in the retrofit assembly.
Retrofit Materials
Thin-film photovoltaics with solar-thermal technology create building-integrated PV-thermal, or BIPV-T: Pfister Energy, www.pfisterenergy.com
PHOTOS: Goodfellow Air Force Base