According to a recent piece by CNN, 2/3s of the rooftops in New York City are suitable for solar power. With one million rooftops, well, you can figure out that math. It’s a lot of kilowatts. So much, in fact, that it could power half the city, which would do wonders for the elimination of heat wave brownouts and blackouts.
The city is slowly wading into this one, however, partially due to the shortcomings in solar technology that still make it challenging to store the power that’s collected during the day.
The city has taken some promising steps towards great solar power presence, however, including the creation of a “hyper-accurate map of the city that is designed to gauge solar’s potential building-by-building” and putting together a plan to construct solar farms on top of landfills.
I’d be curious to know how the city’s pollution affects a solar panel’s capacity to generate power on a sunny day. I can’t imagine it helps.
At any rate, even these small advances have to be welcomed news for the city residents, who have seen their fair share of grid failures and blackouts brought on by a million AC units cranking on full at the same time.
Credit: CNN
