solar panels, solar pv After waking up this morning to the California sun shining through my curtains, I pulled the laptop onto my chest and started to read random news articles. After catching up on what country is leading in the Olympic medal count (America) and browsing over random music blog posts, I came to an inhabitat.com article titled California Adopts Bill Letting Homeowners Sell Excess Solar Energy. The gist of the article was a bill to allow homeowners creating more solar PV power then they can use could have more of an opportunity to sell it back to power companies passed on Thursday and is expected to be signed by Governor Schwarzenegger according to SFGate. The old law stated the power company could only buy up to 2.5 percent of their solar power energy from homeowners. The new bill allows the power company to buy 5 percent of their energy from customers. This is fantastic news for solar panels.

California again is spearheading how to deal with the growing need and want for solar panels. Websites like American National Solar at http://www.americannationalsolar.com/ could not be happier to read news articles like this. Living in Southern California for over a year now, there is more sun per year then I expected. It really doesn’t rain much more here then it does in the Southwest, there are just more cloudy days. With the millions of residents just in the southern part of the state, power companies now have an opportunity to pull serious power from solar panels. If we can figure out a way to take this extra solar PV energy and give it to regions who can use it, the price of power could go way down in the future. One of the most annoying monthly bills I have definitely goes to electricity. It always seems to be more then I expect.

The fact that the legislation mentioned above is even on the governor’s table is a testament to solar panels. If the state wants the power companies to have more room to buy customer energy that means there is already an excess of unused solar PV energy. Free electricity sounds like a fairy tale but in 50 years possibly when I’m an old man it could be a reality as more places become warmer. Solar panels are here to stay and I can’t wait to be a homeowner with them sitting on the roof. Our country needs more legislation like this in all sunny states.