North Carolina Becoming a Solar PV Leader
by RP Siegel
Today’s energy picture is a complex one, with many factors influencing the direction a given region might take in selecting the type of energy technology they want to move forward with.
Obviously, resource availability is a crucial concern. If you want to choose solar, you’ll want to have lots of sunshine. The same is true for wind, hydro, geothermal, or even coal, for that matter. But there are many other factors that come into play including policy, infrastructure, as well as the level of concern over issues that go well beyond the local area.
Take North Carolina, for example. The state has recently added a great deal of solar capacity last year, 335 MW to be precise. That’s all but 2% of the renewable power added. North Carolina ranked 18th in the nation for the total hours of sunshine per year.
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Image credit: Smaddy: Flickr Creative Commons
RP Siegel, author and inventor, shines a powerful light on numerous environmental and technological topics. He has been published in business and technical journals and has written three books. His third, co-authored with Roger Saillant, is Vapor Trails, an eco-thriller that is being adapted for the big screen. RP is a professional engineer – and a prolific inventor, with 50 patents, numerous awards, and several commercial products. He is president of Rain Mountain LLC and is an active environmental advocate in his hometown of Rochester, N.Y. In addition to Justmeans, he writes for Triple Pundit, ThomasNet News, and Energy Viewpoints, occasionally contributing to Mechanical Engineering, Strategy + Business, and Huffington Post. You can follow RP on Twitter, @RPSiegel.