Sin City Goes Solar

Las Vegas city officials just announced a new plan to install solar panels on dozens of carports throughout the city as part of a solar initiative funded by stimulus money. Of the $11 million in question, a little over $1 million is from the Community Development Block Grant, a HUD program intended to create economic opportunity (“jobs”, in English) and improve living conditions for moderate or low-income populations. The first 34 carports will be installed at a Vegas community center next year.

Maybe Las Vegas has gone this long without major solar power because so much of the city’s action happens in darkness. It’s certainly as good a site for solar panels as any you’ll come across: high electric usage, lots of space, lots of flat roofs just sitting around waiting for something to do. With relatively low electricity rates–residential customers of NV Energy in Vegas pay about 11 cents per kilowatt-hour–solar has been slow to take off in the state. It’s just hard to make solar cost-competitive with traditional energy at that price.

Not to say that Nevada has let solar pass it by entirely up til this point. The state is home to the massive solar panel installation at Nellis AFB, a 14 MW system that provides a quarter of the base’s operating power, and several other large projects. And there’s even a decent solar rebate that offers homeowners up to $10,500 off the cost of their system, while public sector and nonprofit buildings can receive over $160,000. Still, the state favors wind energy, offering residential rebates nearly five times as high as the one for solar. Wind is much cheaper per watt than solar energy–it can be installed for $2-4/watt, as opposed to solar’s $8-10.

Yet wind is difficult to deploy in many areas, especially in cities, where even if the wind is perfect, space and zoning restrictions limit the number and size of the turbines that can be installed. Huge solar farms are appealing sources of clean energy–but solar’s versatility is what makes it so valuable to homeowners across the country.