A new study released by UCLA’s Luskin Center for Innovation shows that Los Angeles County homes are prime real estate for solar installations.In fact, they could potentially offer enough energy to power the wholecity—even on days where temperatures (and energy usage) is high.

The Los Angeles Solar Atlas highlights the findings, breaking downthe solar potential for this city and several others. It shows that theavailable roof space (mostly on single-family homes) could be used togenerate 19,000 megawatts of power.

To put this in perspective, on extremely hot days the city tends touse about 6,177 megawatts of power. On a normal day it rests somewherearound 5,500 megawatts.

While the findings seem promising,they don’t take a few variables into account, such as areas shaded bytrees, or homes that wouldn’t support solar installations. In truth,there is still much research to be done in the field.

Los Angeles, a nightmare city in terms of negative environmentalimpact, is attempting to wean itself off of nonrenewable energy sourcesby 2020, making it a prime candidate for more solar installations.

However, it should be noted that solar isn’t the singular solutionfor such a large issue. In fact, a city can’t rely just on solar forits energy needs because it’s not always reliable. To combat cloudydays, other energy sources must be used, like wind power.

But the findings are still positive. If Los Angeles begins to useeven a quarter of its available roof space for solar installations, theresult could be huge—even better than desert-destroying projects likethe 9,500-acre Blythe Solar Millennium project.

After all, if the structures are already there, why not use them to up LA’s renewable energy potential?

http://solar.calfinder.com/blog/category/solar-information/