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Energy 360:<br />
The Solar State<br />
Tech breakthroughs are<br />
bringing solar power<br />
to the people, and rankling<br />
electric utilities.<br />
text by<br />
Patrick DiJusto<br />
illustrations by<br />
Raymond Biesinger<br />
It has been the “power source of the<br />
future” for at least the past 40 years. It’s<br />
one of the few things on which people<br />
agree across the entire political spectrum.<br />
And thanks to the development of<br />
more efficient and inexpensive solar<br />
panels and intelligent infrastructure<br />
like smart meters and inverters, it looks<br />
as though solar power’s time in the sun<br />
has finally arrived. The amount of solar<br />
photovoltaic power generated in the<br />
United States has increased from 16,000<br />
megawatt hours in 2007 to 15,874,000<br />
in 2014. That thousandfold increase<br />
has caused electric utilities across the<br />
country to either panic or seriously<br />
rethink their business model.<br />
The chief reason for the disruption<br />
is that, unlike most other renewable<br />
sources of energy, solar can be controlled<br />
at the homeowner level. Lennar<br />
Corporation, a major American ><br />
56 SEPTEMBER <strong>2015</strong> DWELL
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