By Tom Norton

From that nascent moment when Benjamin Franklin’s discovered electricity in 1757 to September 1882 when Thomas Edison went online with his first power dynamo to generate it, the transformative power (pun intended) of electricity on society is evident everywhere. So common and everyday that we don’t even imagine the world we live in without electricity. Perhaps next to the discovery of fire, the harnessing of electricity is one of the greatest leaps in the advancement of civilization, completely transforming the personal lives of everyone on the planet.

But it wasn’t until the burgeoning environmental movement of the 1960s and 1970s that the primary means of powering the generators to make the world’s electricity came under closer scrutiny. Air and water pollution from coal fired power plants and the early accidents with nuclear power inspired and drove science to continue to look for other means of generating electricity. By far one of the biggest contributors to airborne pollution, coal-fired power plants were on track to only increase their output; both of electricity and pollution, as the earth’s population grew and demand exponentially increased.

A key question is how does that sort of information filter down to the average business or home?  WKTV Community Media here in Wyoming, Michigan, has taken the plunge into renewable energy and spent the last three months converting the power needs of a full fledged television station over to solar power. For a television station like WKTV, the power needs are significant. At any one time, full use of television and media production happening in the media facility consumes as much as 15,000 – 25,000 watts of electricity.  There are the lights, cameras, a control room and in addition to productions there are offices, editing bays, master control, a newsroom with its own studio needs and remote vehicles plugged in to the main building when not on the road and all of it operating from 9 a.m. until 10 p.m. each day. It all adds up to hefty and expensive electrical use.

During the past 12 years, WKTV’s monthly electrical bill has tripled. Even taking into account rate increases, which have been relatively constant, that’s a dramatic increase and reflects facility growth. Realizing this was a financial issue as much as an environmental one, WKTV sought to discover how they could reduce this significant expense.

Getting By With a Little Help from Our Friends

There’s the familiar and sometimes sarcastic saying of “Your tax dollars at work” and perhaps for once it’s become a truism. With NASA’s now nearly 60-year history of scientific and tech innovation playing out in the marketplace, the benefits are being felt at WKTV.

   

In 1954, American scientists at Bell Labs created the very first photovoltaic cell, converting sunlight into electrical current. At the time, the efficiency of that first cell was only 4 percent, but the early space program instantly recognized this capability of solar power to provide current to everything early NASA researchers and scientists were dreaming of putting up into space. In fact, one of the most rewarding partnerships between government and private enterprise is found in NASA’s sharing of scientific knowledge with the private sector in hopes of picking up the pace of technological developments. NASA has devoted an entire division, called Advanced Energy Photovoltaics, for the last several decades to this ongoing collaboration with American private enterprise.

 

So if some wonder what this means to the average home or average-sized business, the answer is “plenty.” The technological advancements made at NASA in the last 60 plus years extend way beyond Velcro and cordless drills. If someone considers the advancements in solar necessary for the Mars Rovers to successfully operate on the red planet, where incidentally the power of the sun is significantly weaker; then a person can appreciate how this can translate to real practical advancements here on Earth.

When WKTV initially inquired about solar power for its facility, there was an initial assumption that it would be expensive and only moderately effective, but there was a feeling that it was worth at least an inquiry. After submitting months of electrical usage reports to multiple companies for analysis on the effectiveness of a solar array, the prospects were encouraging. On average, the prognosis that came in was that by switching to solar, WKTV could see a reduction of 90-95 percent in its annual electrical costs.

In other words, it was no longer your grandfather’s solar. Solar had come a long way increasing the ratio of light converted to electricity. And with a payback schedule of 13 years for an array of 252 panels spread over a 10,000 square-foot roof, the numbers did work in WKTV’s favor. The operating principle for solar operation is relatively simple: once sunlight is converted into electricity on the roof, an array of inverters installed inside the facility distribute that power to the facility. Any unused portion of solar electricity is then sent onto the grid where Consumer’s Energy will apply it to its own power generation needs and that will then generate a credit toward the facility’s power costs. This method is what reduces the annual electric costs by as much as 95 percent. With 252 panels so efficient they can even generate small amounts electricity in moonlight, it’s looking brighter for solar (again, pun intended.)

The Green Equation

While everyone knows that pollution is bad both for the planet and all of us living here, the debate lies in how to handle it. Since coal is now one of the most expensive means of generating electricity, some projections are that coal will be completely retired from power generation in just ten more years. Already coal accounts for just 22 percent of America’s energy sourcing. Much of this is because the costs of renewable energy sourcing is dropping dramatically. While coal fired plants continue to go offline annually, here in Michigan companies like Consumer’s Energy know that incentivizing customers to use less electricity by subsidizing customers with the latest power saving tech is far cheaper than building a new power plant.  In a 2019 USA Today article, Mike O’Boyle, Director of Electricity Policy for Energy Innovation, a research non-profit group that is focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, stated that the U.S. should be open to a multitude of solutions. He said that innovation is going to find ways to keep the system running at lower costs, adding that if the market sets the agenda technology areas increasingly lean toward more cost efficient carbon neutral solutions.

 

Judging from the fact that several years ago, the idea of going completely solar at WKTV was something not even on the facility’s radar screen to becoming a reality shows that it’s dangerous to say “never.”

 

So starting in late September 2020, WKTV will throw the switch and begin generating daily electricity needs from the star at the center of our solar system. Here on what’s referred to as the “third rock from the sun,” one organization’s leap into solar may only add up to one step for a small business, but still is a giant leap forward for much lower utility bills.

Tom Norton is the General Manager of WKTV Community Media and writes for the WKTV Journal on science, technology and communications issues.