The photovoltaic panel is a wonderful invention; it makes electricity.  It can do work, drive electric motors.  A PV panel casting a shadow no larger than a man can do a man’s work in full sun.  No noise, no smell and a long life. I have used photovoltaic panels for years to pump our domestic water, for irrigation and to power an entire house. Of course, they are expensive.  I feel the same anguish seeing PV panels captured by subsidies and placed in town as I do spotting penned buffalos or ostriches.  Because of subsidies the valuable electricity from PV panels is wasted in the glut of power from power plants.  In many cases one could use the panel’s white back as a Reflector/Shade and get better value.  Such is our waste of electricity.

 If a panel’s power is going to electric lights, the white back side can bounce in more light through a window or skylight than the electricity from the panel can produce in a bulb – several times as much.

 When air conditioners are running the shadow cast by a panel over glazing is of greater value for cooling than the electricity sent to an A/C unit. A PV panel connected to a conventional A/C unit cannot pump out as much heat as strikes the panel.

 Believing that photovoltaic panels and wind generators that make electricity are the best uses of solar energy is like affirming that to diet one drinks diet cola, and to fight obesity requires huge subsidies to Coca Cola and Pepsi who manufacture diet colas.

Let us hope the public wakes up to the most cost effective uses of the sun;

natural lighting and heating, without first converting it to electricity.