Isn't solar energy just amazing? The sustainable impact, job openings, and costs that are spared from millions of residential homes and commercial structures alike help prove the positive influence photovoltaics has left on the environmental and economic infrastructures'. I've met dozens of customers from the solar firm I'm currently employed at who can't thank us enough for installing their residential PV systems, bringing along their reduced electric bills. I mean bills going from $250.00 - $300.00, literally down to $10.00 - $20.00 in a matter of months!!
On June 26th of 1997, President Bill Clinton announced the launch of the Million Solar Roofs' Initiative (MSRI) to the United Nations' Session on Environment & Development in New York, claiming that our country "Will now work with businesses and communities to use the sun's energy to reduce our alliance on fossil fuels by installing solar panels on one million or more roofs around our nation by the year 2010." The implementation of this ambitious program has not only succeeded, but surpassed expectations, thus gaining the potential to provide jobs through a sustained effort well through the year 2035! Some other positive effects from the MSRI included job availabilities for thousands of individuals in highly-technological fields, mass improvements in reduced carbon and sulfur oxide emissions, and many companies and market forces within the country remaining stable, and competitive.
However, significant work in research, development, and public education still need to be done in the field of sustainable and renewable energy, particularly photovoltaics and solar thermal systems. It is up to the engineers, technicians, physicists, and political figures of this generation...OUR generation, to help preserve the world's atmosphere and ozone, save residents from harsh, heavy expenses, and to provide the next generation overall, better opportunities with a healthy planet to strive upon!
Source: Messenger & Ventre. "Photovoltaic Systems Engineering." CRC Press, Inc.
