Environmental Benefits of Solar
In California
The environmental benefits of switching to solar are many, and their cumulative effects are great. In 2018 solar supplied 14.4% of California's electricity, including 3% from residential solar.* Renewables, including solar, wind, hydroelectric, and others, produced 32% of California's electricity. The law's goal of 60% by 2030 seems well within reach.
The Five Areas of Environmental Benefits and Savings
A detailed analysis** of just the economic benefits to California, finished in September 2015, conservatively calculated that each kiloWatt-hour (kWh) produced by solar-PV systems saves at least 10¢ in costs that California would otherwise have to pay for damages caused by power plants.
- Climate: The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) calculates that each kWh of solar production saves 3¢ by lowering carbon emissions, which cause climate warming, leading to loss of Sierra snowpack and more extreme wildfires in California.
- Clean Air: EPA calculates that each kWh of solar production saves 2¢ by reducing particulates and nitrous oxide produced by power plants that pollute the air, raising health costs. California has the five worst-air-quality cities in the U. S. and some of the highest asthma rates. Its children miss about 1.47 million school days per year.
- Water Conservation: Natural gas power plants use a great deal of water. Each kWh of solar production saves 1¢ in what it would cost to retrofit them to avoid this water usage, or replacing the lost water through desalinization.
- Open-Space Preservation: Reclaiming land presently occupied by power plants, or avoiding having to purchase land to expand them, is worth at least 2¢ per kWh of solar energy produced.
- Savings on Repairs and Replacements of the Power Grid: Higher temperatures decrease power-plant efficiency, requiring more fuel to generate the same amount of power. Dwindling snowpack reduces output from hydro-electric plants. More wildfires and rising sea levels damage existing facilities. Each kWh that PV systems produce will save 2¢ of these costs.
How Much Money Is Solar Saving California?
California had 30,759 MW of renewable-energy installed power-capacity as of December 31, 2018.** Residential solar made up 5,377 MW of this total.
These 5,377 MW of residential solar produced 9,205,590 MWh (9,205 GWh) of electric energy in 2018 .*** This is 21% of California's solar energy production, 9.5% of its renewable energy production, and 3% of its total energy production for 2018.
At the savings rate of 10¢ per kWh from the study, that means residential solar alone saved California over $920,559,000 in environmental costs in 2018. Over the next ten years, that would be over $9 billion saved, just from present solar installations. But total installations are expected to grow by about 6% per year,*** so cost-savings should be over $15 billion over the next decade. That's in addition to the money saved by the owners of the residential and commercial PV systems.
These 5,377 MW of residential solar produced 9,205,590 MWh (9,205 GWh) of electric energy in 2018 .*** This is 21% of California's solar energy production, 9.5% of its renewable energy production, and 3% of its total energy production for 2018.
At the savings rate of 10¢ per kWh from the study, that means residential solar alone saved California over $920,559,000 in environmental costs in 2018. Over the next ten years, that would be over $9 billion saved, just from present solar installations. But total installations are expected to grow by about 6% per year,*** so cost-savings should be over $15 billion over the next decade. That's in addition to the money saved by the owners of the residential and commercial PV systems.
In the U. S.
An August 2017 study**** by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory gives staggering estimates of the money the U. S. has saved due to the health and climate benefits of wind and solar replacing fossil-fuel energy production - from 10GW in 2007 to 100GW in 2015.
Over a nine-year period (2007-2015), between 3,000 and 12,700 deaths have been avoided (depending on models used), saving the U. S. between $30B and $113B (billions), not to mention the human suffering and tragedy associated with these deaths.
Over the same nine-year period, wind and solar have increased agricultural productivity, cut energy costs, reduced the number and severity of disasters, and increased human health (reducing incidences of lung cancer, asthma, heart damage, developmental and reproductive harm). These benefits are estimated have saved the U. S. between $5B and $107B (depending on models used).
These two sources of savings for the U.S. total $35B to $220B in nine years.
Over a nine-year period (2007-2015), between 3,000 and 12,700 deaths have been avoided (depending on models used), saving the U. S. between $30B and $113B (billions), not to mention the human suffering and tragedy associated with these deaths.
Over the same nine-year period, wind and solar have increased agricultural productivity, cut energy costs, reduced the number and severity of disasters, and increased human health (reducing incidences of lung cancer, asthma, heart damage, developmental and reproductive harm). These benefits are estimated have saved the U. S. between $5B and $107B (depending on models used).
These two sources of savings for the U.S. total $35B to $220B in nine years.
Other Environmental Benefits of Solar
Besides these quantifiable cost-savings, there are many other hard-to-quantify, but no less valuable, benefits of less extreme climate, cleaner air, better health, more available water, more open-space land, and a more reliable electricity system.
* Hales, Roy L., "Residential Solar Installation Costs in America's Battleground State," The ECOreport, 10/7/17.
** "Valuing the Invaluable: The Societal Benefits of Rooftop Solar," Sierra Club, Sept. 2015.
*** "Tracking Progress," California Energy Commission, December 31, 2018.
**** Millstein, Weiser, Bolinger, Barbose, "The Climate and Air-Quality Benefits of Wind and Solar Power in the United States," Nature Publishing Group, Aug. 14, 2017.
