N.C. solar energy keeps defying its obstacles

The Fayetteville Observer, N.C.

We saw it coming, but it's still a jolt to see it arrive so fast. Wasn't it yesterday that we were calling solar power the energy supply of the future?

And suddenly, today is the future -- or very nearly so.

As a story in The News & Observer reported this week, energy experts say North Carolina is moving close to "peak solar," the point of maximum solar-electric development.

As we've seen in this region, solar farms are already covering thousands of acres of what was largely unproductive farmland. This state ranks third in the nation in solar electricity production. Total solar output in North Carolina tops 2,000 megawatts -- as much as two nuclear-power plants.

And despite the General Assembly's revocation of the 35 percent renewable-energy tax credits that helped foster the solar industry's growth, that isn't stopping it. Plummeting costs and sharply increased efficiency of solar panels make solar power competitive with the cheapest of fossil-fuel-powered electric generation.

Despite all that success, it looks as if there will be a slowdown in solar development in the next three to five years. The problem is twofold: We're running out of suitable land for solar farms and many of Duke Energy's rural substations around the solar farms are nearing their maximum load and can't handle much more electricity. Adding capacity to those substations would be an expensive proposition and not one that utilities -- primarily Duke Energy -- are ready to tackle just yet.

Future solar developments, the energy experts say, are likely to be far fewer but even larger.

But all of that assumes that parity between solar and fossil-fuel generation costs will continue. In reality, it's more likely that solar panels will continue toward greater efficiency and lower costs, and that fossil fuel prices will begin to rise again in the next few years. That may cost-justify further expansion.

That, along with likely further restrictions on carbon emissions, will favor more development of solar power in the future. And it appears that the missing link in solar power -- storage to maintain power when the sun isn't shining -- will be coming along in a few years as innovative battery technology develops.

Solar still has its critics, including lawmakers who stubbornly continue their efforts to kill it. But as it becomes more established as a cleaner, cheaper way to produce electricity, simple economics will make it the energy source of choice.

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