from the Panhandle through Wich- ita Falls and the Abilene area. “We concentrated more in the
rural and remote areas of Texas,” Starcher says. “Those data showed that there was signifi cant wind re- source and solar resource for that entire region making us, combined, one of the more reliable renewable resource states in all the United States.” According to the report, Tex-
as has access to 250,000 trillion Btu of solar energy per year. Just one “quad,” the report claims, is “enough to meet the annual needs of about 3 million people.” Some of that energy is intentionally taken up, of course, by the state’s vast agricultural acreage. “Every good plant is a tiny solar collector,” says Starcher, “doing photosynthesis to convert sunlight and whatever’s in the soil into a crop of cotton or
peanuts or alfalfa.” However, the use of solar power
directly as a secondary resource, converting it into heat or hot water or electricity, has been done in only limited areas, and primarily for crop drying and water pumping. Although it’s possible to pro-
duce enough solar energy to sell it, Starcher says, “The economies of scale or the return on investment have been very poor until recently. What we’ve seen in the last 2 to 5 years has been a signifi cant drop in the per-watt installed costs of most solar systems, both hot water and PV.” Those solar panel prices are ap-
proaching costs per kilowatt-hour equivalent to those of a utility so that, he says, the cost at which the utility would sell power to you is about the same as your cost of gen- erating your own.
Ranger Gate Co.
Yoakum, Texas 800-722-1299
www.rangergate.com sales@rangergate.com
Calf Creep Feeders
Custom work no problem …
Let us help you “feed-em-right.”
Contact Your Local Authorized Ranger Gate Dealer or Contact Us For a Dealer in Your Area
If you make it, where will you store it? But it’s not enough just to make
it. You would also need to have the power on hand for when you need it. That would require a battery, and Starcher says that doubles the cost of a home- or a ranch-sized solar system. “You’re putting your own money
into your own utility when you put in batteries,” he says, but it also gives you independence during those times when there’s no sun or a utility power outage. “As long as you keep those bat-
teries charged up with your system and don’t drain them completely to zero every time you use energy from the battery, it should give you 3 to 5 days of completely independent storage if you keep doing every- thing as normal on your ranch or farm,” he says.
tscra.org
June 2013 The Cattleman 83
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