Even though solar energy recently became one of the least expensive sources of electrical power [1], there’s still a large segment of the population who believe that solar doesn’t work. One such naysayer recently proclaimed that solar “hasn’t got a single thing going for it.”
That’s absolutely true! Because it has many things going for it. So many, in fact, the Columbia Gorge region would be disadvantaged, possibly in as little as two to five years, if construction of the Klickitat County utility-scale solar farms were cancelled or even substantially delayed. This would probably result in increasing your power bill!
To say that Klickitat County will receive none of the electricity generated from these solar farms is short-sighted and unlikely to be true, as the Bonneville Power Administration (Bonneville aka BPA) is already at generating capacity. Consequently, Bonneville has been purchasing power from outside providers to meet the needs of Pacific Northwest PUDs. [2]
Hence, Klickitat County could soon benefit from these solar farms. As population increases, without new sources of regionally generated power, Bonneville will need to purchase ever-more power from expensive out-of-region sources.
And that’s not all: More water is needed for agriculture to feed the increasing population. With reduced snow-packs due to climate change, less water will be available for hydroelectric power.
Plus, electric vehicles (EVs) are starting to increase. Each EV’s batteries need charging. This increases the load on the power grid. Within 5-10 years, EVs will be the majority of cars in use. The nation will consequently need more power, and regions will have less excess to sell to buyers such as Bonneville.
Soon, the BPA will not be able to meet regional power needs with hydroelectric and power purchased from other sources. Will the BPA build dirty coal-fired plants? No. Build costly nuclear power plants? Maybe. Build costly and polluting natural gas-fired generators? No.
Klickitat County is already preparing for this near future by building wind farms, solar farms, methane (from garbage) generators, and pumped-water generators. With increasing power demands, we will benefit from these clean-energy generators, especially with the completion of these utility-scale solar farms.
Helping meet the region’s clean-energy needs at continued low-cost is just one thing going for solar, of many.
Solar energy is clean energy. Solar farms are healthy for people and the environment. Unlike oil or fracked gas, solar farms don’t emit toxic or flammable fumes, and they don’t pollute the air or well water. Hence, the term, “clean energy.”
Solar panel production has toxic byproducts. These are captured and recycled at the manufacturing site. Yes, spent solar panels must be properly recycled, and this need will be met worldwide. [3]
Articles decrying the negative impact of solar panel manufacturing and recycling fail to compare the much greater negative health and environmental impact of fossil fuel production, transport, and use. Moreover, solar panel manufacturing effluents can be captured and recycled. Fossil fuel byproducts, such as CO2 emissions and plastics, generally accumulate in the environment.
Solar farms don’t necessarily destroy farm or ranch land. Before solar farms, good farm or ranch land was destroyed by oil wells, fracking sites, and dozens of pumps.
Without proper planning and assessment of prime agricultural land, could also become useless for farming or or ranch land. Because climate change is reducing the amount of land for agriculture—due to drought, flooding or excessively high temperatures—solar farms should be located or designed to preserve prime agricultural land.
Smart farmers and ranchers across the nation are making dual use of their land by adopting Agrivoltaics, which is preservation by design and also enables generating income from their crops or livestock—and from leasing their land for solar power generation. See:
Making Solar and Agriculture Work Together
Agrivoltaics: Solar Panels on Farms Could Be a Win-Win
The Effects Of Solar Farms On Local Biodiversity: A Comparative Study (2016)
Environmental Review Of Solar Farms In The Southeast U.S. (2017)
Pollinator-Friendly Solar Installations Benefit Wildlife, Farmers, Climate (2020)
Solar farms are often bad for biodiversity — but they don’t have to be
Solar farms don’t generate microwave energy or produce strong electromagnetic fields (EMF). The solar panels on solar farms produce DC or direct current power, just like a battery. The DC is converted by an inverter to AC for residential or commercial use via the grid. The inverter can produce low EMF levels. The inverter’s EMF is typically much less than that generated by home appliances, such as refrigerators or hair dryers. High-power electrical generators, including solar farms, are required by law to be enclosed by a security fence. A security fence that’s a minimum distance of 150-200 ft. from the inverter complex is quite likely to be too weak to affect anyone outside the security fence. If for any reason, it’s still affective, the inverters can be shielded from radiating any EMF field.
A solar farm is unlikely to cause Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EMH), which is induced by microwave energy, such as from cell phones, WiFi, or satellite TV or streaming transmissions, or even microwave ovens. Unlike the solar farm per se, the century-old high-power transmission lines do produce strong EMF and could affect an EMH person.
Solar farms won’t start electrical fires, when they’ve been properly installed. Yes, a fire could be started by a DC arc fault caused by an improper connection (extremely rare). Certainly, the Klickitat County solar farms will be installed and maintained by experienced and licensed solar electricians. Heat produced by operating panels is too low to ignite fires.
Klickitat County residents and businesses will benefit from local electricity generated. The power grid is a national network including all states, except Texas. Power might be, and often is, generated in one location and used somewhere else. Power is routed to where there’s demand. Utilities buy and sell power through Power Purchase Agreements (PPA). A PPA is contract between the seller (who generates electricity) and the buyer (who uses electricity). If, for example, California needs more power, a CA utility can buy it via a PPA from, say, BPA, and it’s then routed to CA via the power grid.
Another example: Klickitat PUD buys its power from BPA. Sometimes, there’s not extra power to buy/sell. Klickitat County’s utility-scale solar farms should produce excess power that BPA can sell at a profit with the net effect of keeping power bills low in the Columbia Gorge region.
One more benefit: Sometimes, to prevent brown-outs, expensive normally offline diesel-powered generators must be activated to meet the increased demand. These special-use generators are costly to maintain and dirty when in operation. They will almost certainly be decommissioned, thereby increasing the proportion of clean energy and reducing utility maintenance costs.
[ 1] National Public Utilities Council, Ranked: The Cheapest Sources of Electricity in the
U.S., August 2023, https://bit.ly/48wmjDR
[ 2] Northwest Power and Conservation Council, Bonneville Power
Administration: Electricity, 2024, https://bit.ly/3dKRHp3
[ 3] ScienceDaily, Strategies for recycling of solar panels, July 2020,
https://bit.ly/3sDbIC0.