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KASSY GEORGE
Beech Creek
This is in response to the April 12 letter to the editor by Jeff Johns. From my research, Germany has by far the highest capacity of solar photovoltaic power (PV) in the world at 32,411 GW (31 percent) at the end of 2012 (www.energyinformative.org). Newly connected PV systems worth 7.6 GW were added in 2014.
Germany's solar panels generated about 23 TWH (terawatt hours) of electricity in 2012, which is impressive, but still only covers 3 percent of the country's total electricity consumption. Market analysts believe this number will increase to 25 percent before 2050. Germany aims for a total capacity of 66 GW by 2030, with an annual growth of 2.5-3.5 GW. Germany is not a country with incredible amounts of solar energy - what they do have is an excellent, subsidizing framework, which ensures that solar power can compete on the market. With a well-developed, feed-in tariff scheme, small and large-scale solar PV systems can send excess electricity production to the utility grid for profit.
As of 2014, Germany was ranked first in solar energy production with 38,250 megawatts.
China is ranked second with 28,330 megawatts. Japan is ranked third with 23,409 megawatts. Italy is ranked fourth with 18,622 megawatts, and the United States is ranked fifth with 18,317 megawatts. What's surprising about this list is that relatively tiny countries are on it. Germany, Japan, Italy -- they all rank higher than the U.S., even though we have much more land. A megawatt is a unit of power equal to 1 million watts, especially as a measure of the output of a power station.
The total, current cumulative solar power capacity for the entire world was 177,003 megawatts -- enough to power over 29 million homes.
The fact is, Mr. Johns, by using renewable energy sources like solar energy, we reduce our dependence on fossil fuel gas and oil reserves, which are becoming more expensive and difficult to find. It also reduces our dependence on imported fossil fuels, improving our energy security. There is a current global need for clean and renewable energy sources. Fossil fuels are non-renewable and require finite resources, which are dwindling because of excessive cost and environmentally damaging retrieval techniques. So, the need for cheap and obtainable resources is greatly needed.
The reality is that solar power and other renewable energy sources is the answer if we want to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
We need to do something to save our planet. For more information on solar energy, do some research, Mr. Johns. Here is a great place to start: http://extension.psu.edu/natural-resources/energy/solar-energy and https://www.energystar.gov/about/federal--tax--credits.