TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

A Green Coal Baron?

NYT profile of James Rogers, C.E.O. of Duke Energy, is trying to “decarbonize” his company by 2050 through ideas like this:

The day we met, he was brimming with enthusiasm for a new approach to solar power. Solar is currently too expensive to make economic sense, according to Rogers, because the cost to put panels on a roof is greater than what a household would save on electricity. But what if Duke bought panels en masse, driving the price down, and installed them itself — free?

“So we have 500,000 solar units on the roofs of our customers,” he said. “We install them, we maintain them and we dispatch them, just like it was a power plant!” He did some quick math: he could get maybe 1,000 megawatts out of that system, enough to permanently shutter one of the company’s older power plants.

Absolutely fascinating idea, and an excellent article, too.