“The energy industry is confronting a quickly evolving transition to renewable resources from carbon-based fuels,” said Keith Phillips, assistant vice president and senior economist in the San Antonio Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. The company sells and installs solar panels.įor Woods and others, including utilities, investors, businesses and government, now is a time of transition. The coal mine he left filed for bankruptcy two years later and now he is part owner of The Solar Guys in Cheyenne, Wyoming. At the time, he said the topic “was unheard of to me.”Īfter giving the speech, “I couldn’t stop reading about solar,” Woods said. In 2009, when Woods saw mines closing and miners losing jobs, he left Kentucky for Indiana where he enrolled in college to “find out what I wanted to do.” For speech class assignment, Woods, 50, chose “solar” from a list of topics. Two geothermal power plants, as well as natural gas-fired and hydroelectric generation provide the rest of the state’s electricity needs.Changes in the coal mining industry have led Ray Woods from the depths of shoveling coal to the heights of installing solar panels. The majority of Utah’s current electricity generation comes from coal-fired power plants, according to the DOE’s Energy Information Administration. Under the goal, 20 percent of a utility’s electric generation must come from qualifying sources by 2025. Qualifying generation includes renewables like wind and solar, and also nuclear energy, as well as some fossil fuel generation with carbon sequestration technologies. Under the goal, utilities must assess the cost-effectiveness of adding “qualifying electricity” that will generate electricity at the lowest reasonable costs. It was established under The Energy Resource and Carbon Emission Reduction Initiative, which passed in March 2008. The goal, while similar to a renewable portfolio standard, does not ultimately establish renewable generation requirements for utilities. The state adopted a voluntary renewable portfolio goal, under which utilities need to pursue renewable energy, only if it is cost-effective. To help people in the state adopt more PV, Utah offers net metering, solar tax credits, and the state and some Utah utilities offer rebates to residents that install photovoltaics (PVs) and other renewables on their homes and businesses. While that’s not indicative of the Utah market, it is telling.
Despite this rich resource, the state still has a long way to go in terms of adopting solar and renewable energy.įor instance, the Open PV project, a database of installed solar projects throughout the United States, reports only one PV installation in the state. The only states that get more overall sun are Arizona and Nevada. Parts of the state get upwards of 6.5 or more kilowatt hours of sunlight per square meter, and most of the state gets an average of 6.0 kWh of sunlight per square meter. And because of the climate, it is among the sunniest states in the country’s solar belt. But that sun also makes Utah an ideal state for solar energy development. Given the harsh desert climate, it’s hard for most things other than rock to retain color, as the pounding desert sun bleaches everything.
Utah is home to true wonders of nature: Arches National Park, Moab, Canyonlands, and the Great Salt Lake.
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