Midwest Energy News – October 17, 2016
by Frank Jossi
In a time when hundreds of megawatts of large solar projects are underway in Minnesota, a new report suggests that smaller-scale solar projects could be just as good at delivering low-cost electricity.
Why? Farrell’s research suggests that with transmission costs from remote wind and solar farms, having the source closer to users begins to make sense.John Farrell, director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Energy Democracy Initiative, argues in a recent paper that smaller-scale solar — and to a lesser degree wind — can be just as effective as utility-scale projects.
“Power that’s delivered at the distribution level might have a different value than generic wholesale power generation that comes on to the transmission system,” said Farrell, a nationally known solar expert.
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