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Duke Energy wants to put a power plant on your house.

Over the next year, the utility plans to spend $50 million to plop a variety of photovoltaic panels on commercial buildings, the roofs of private homes, and other property in North Carolina.

Once installed, the 10 megawatts worth of solar panels are expected to produce enough alternating-current electricity to power 1,300 homes. But the utility’s main goals for the demonstration project are to gain experience with distributed generation—putting the power plant closer to the customer—and with integrating intermittent, renewable resources like sunshine into the grid.

Duke will own the solar panels and the electricity they produce. Property owners will get a nominal but so far undetermined rental fee, says Duke spokesman David Scanzoni. More than 500 businesses and homeowners have registered to be considered. “Very few are interested in it for the money,” he said. “No one will get rich doing this."

It’s the first time, as far as we know, that a utility has put part of its power-generating equipment on the homes of residential customers. A similar program in California places photovoltaic panels on commercial customers’ rooftops.

No word yet on how much the electricity generated this way will cost, though it will probably be more than the retail rate of 8 cents per kilowatt-hour in North Carolina.

Credit: ©iStockphoto.com / Jarek Szymanski

5 Comments

1. 1. TTLG 11:51 PM 5/13/09

   Sounds like a nice study. Much better than the one by FERC and Lawrence Berkeley mentioned in another article on this site. We already know that the system is not well-designed for distributed power generation. The only issue is how to adapt to it. Sounds like this study is a good step in that direction.

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2. 2. zweiter hauptsatz 08:24 AM 5/14/09

   Well, here we go again! Sloganeering is cheap!
   When it came to "Doing" he failed spectacularly and was swept out of office after just one term, leaving the economy reeling in stagnation and hyperinflation.
   And that was even without burdening the economy with hyper-expensive alternative power cost that even today can only be built with massive taxpayer subsidies. And please give me a break with all the "green jobs". Higher energy cost caused by a combination of cap-and-trade/taxation and higher alternative energy generation cost will make our economy uncompetitive and cost jobs. Look at Spain with its 17% unemployment rate for an example, where recent studies were published showing that every one (1) green job created ended up destroying 2.3 jobs in the rest of the economy.
   Every barrel of oil and every ton of coal displaced by wind and solar in the US will at a lower price end up in China and India. As a result it will amplify the competitive disadvantage of our economy even further. The reality is that independence comes at a very high cost because of inescapable interdependence.
   
   There is no doubt that we should be concerned about dwindling fossil fuel supplies and we should strive to become leaders in energy efficiency. But there is no need to commit economic suicide because of anthropogenic global warming scare tactics. We should add alternative energy to our system guided by economic realities and forget about such nonsense as carbon sequestration. It adds benefit only to those who get a cut from cap and trade fees. Worse, it actually wastes 25% of the energy produced in the process.
   
   
   
   
   

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3. 3. zweiter hauptsatz 08:46 AM 5/14/09

   My comment above applies to the "Jimmy Carter urges..." article.

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4. 4. Washington DC Roofing 03:01 AM 6/13/09

   Just wondering of its effect on human health? In Washington DC roofing is not just business, we consider the safety of homeowners.

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5. 5. Washington DC Roofing 03:02 AM 6/13/09

   We're not against it just curious about its effects to the health.
   
   Washington DC Roofing
   http://www.gilpainting.com/
   
   

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