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computer servers to maintain uptime for websites and Internet service. A new range of
technologies built around solar plants that store heat for after the sun goes down will add
to the dynamic stability of this sunshine mesh. These colossal batteries or energy storage
systems are the equivalent to the new cell towers AT&T had to put in to deal with de-
mand and congestion in its network.
David Mills, founder of the solar-plus-storage company Ausra, has shown that by us-
ing storage you can easily correlate more than 90 percent hourly grid load and hourly
solar plant performance. Inother words,direct solar-thermal electricity solutions that are
almost market ready can supply most of the United States' electricity needs. I bet that's
why Areva—the French nuclear giant—bought Ausra (now called Areva Solar)! The
IEA says that solar power with storage is expected to be available to deliver competitive
electricity globally by about 2030. This means that the distinction between peak power
times and baseline power usage would become less relevant, as stored solar electricity
could at all times complement the fixed solar supply each day.
In summary, reliability is really a technical issue related to the grid and to scale, not
something innate in solar panels. And this is going to be our challenge. The solar-pan-
el technology works fine; day in and day out, it produces 15 percent efficient electricity
from the solar power falling on it, and it's ready now. What matters is how this tech-
nology is distributed to users and how power is stored for those periods when the sun
is not shining. We will have to rewire America to make this work, and energy-provid-
ing utilities will have to change their stripes—and therein lies the opportunity. While
this isn't easy stuff—making a thousand points of light work together to keep the lights
on—America's best have never before shrugged off something just because it was diffi-
cult.Onthecontrary,weembracechallengesandhavebeenleadersinsuchrevolutionary
achievements as organizing the world's information, beating back fascists, and conquer-
ing outer space.
This is why we need the upcoming corps of entrepreneurs to be our century's New
GreatestGeneration.Justaselectrificationwasthestandoutachievementofthetwentieth
century, according to Time magazine, clean electrification will be a significant achieve-
ment in the twenty-first century. The Rural Electrification Administration, which took
America from having just 15 percent of homes being electrified in 1935 to 85 percent by
1950, is a model for how we can do it. Low-cost loan support backed by the US gov-
ernment spread electricity across the country (thanks, President Roosevelt!). Andtherein
lies not just the opportunity but also the way that solar energy will become more and
moreaffordable:scaleandstandardizationthroughdeploymentsupportedbypositiveen-
ergy policies like the Renewable Portfolio Standard and net energy metering.
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