Power Demand Will Be Booming
Power Demand Will Be Booming
“For the past two decades, demand for electricity across the United States has hardly increased. […] In the past year, estimates from U.S. utilities and grid operators of how much electricity demand will grow over the next five years have nearly doubled, jumping from 2.6 per cent to 4.7 per cent,
according to Grid Strategies’ analysis.” writes Canary Media, an independent, nonprofit newsroom covering the transition to clean energy and solutions to the climate crisis.
As homes electrify, our customers are doubling their power supply over their previous service. Our sales are a leading indicator of the coming demand explosion.
This rapid rise in electricity demand should hardly come as a surprise. EVs will continue to displace gasoline cars; heat pumps will replace furnaces, and stoves will become electric. Manufacturing is on a rebound. Then, there are data centers with a voracious appetite for electrons.
YouSolar is working with our customers to produce (and store) as much of the home’s energy locally as possible. The photo demonstrates solar panels mounted vertically and at 60 degrees (relative to the horizon) on a retaining wall. Vertical panels are easy to mount, but 60-degree panels are optimal. Ultimately, we chose a row of panels mounted vertically in landscape mode with two panels in portrait mode at 60 degrees below. This solution maximized solar production in the winter and fit the most solar on the retaining wall.
Of course, the whole point of electrifying our homes and businesses is to power them with renewable energy. But the coming demand explosion makes it even harder to achieve that goal.
North of Richmond, CA, a large solar is under construction. We drive by it on our way skiing or climbing in the Sierras. It is plastered over one of the last open spaces on the route north out of the Bay Area. California prairie is being replaced by black solar panels, creating a heat island.
We are for solar, but we must stop using open space for solar farms when hundreds of thousands of square miles of roofs or parking lots don’t have a single solar panel.
By producing and storing power where needed, long-distance transmission is also avoided.
Even with YouSolar customers who are grid-connected, we design solar arrays to cover as much of the energy demand as possible.
Recently, we worked with our customer to install solar panels at 60 degrees to optimize winter solar production from a retaining wall. This is what the “energy revolution” must look like: Creative solutions instead of easy ones.
Creating market mechanisms that create self-sufficiency and energy production will be critical. But people are problem solvers and very inventive.
The industry will be able to solve the world’s energy challenges, but it will need a tool. The PowerBloc is that tool. It is flexible, efficient, and powerful, and it can solve even the most complex energy challenges.
