Clarkson to seek state aid for thermal plan

POTSDAM — It's going to be difficult to convince the state to invest millions of dollars into solar thermal research, but Clarkson University staff plans to try anyway.

Clarkson is part of a consortium that has spent the past six months writing a plan to develop the state's thermal energy industry.

The plan aims to have 2,000 megawatts of power coming from the sun in the next 10 years. Currently, the state's solar capacity is about 6 megawatts, according to the plan.

That much power requires a $130 million investment, according to Douglas G. Bohl, assistant professor of mechanical and aeronautical engineering at Clarkson and one of the plan's main authors.

"We're in a tough financial situation, and I don't know how much support, monetarily, we're going to get from the state," Mr. Bohl said. "It's a matter of whether or not they can make that sort of investment now."

The quantity of power is not the main point of the map; instead, it serves as a projection point for numbers and amounts, he said.

Two thousand megawatts of power is enough to power 500,000 residential systems. Those systems consist of solar panels with a fluid similar to antifreeze underneath them. The fluid heats up under the sun's rays and travels down to heat water for use in a home or business.

The consortium will present the plan to state government officials, as well as academics and industry personnel today at a solar conference in Albany.

And despite the cold, dark winters in the north country, they can work.

"We're still getting some kinks worked out," said Mr. Bohl, who installed a solar thermal system on his house last year. "Since March, it's been making a lot of hot water."

In cold places like Poland, Germany and Canada, governments are investing in solar heat and finding it works, according to the plan.

"It seems almost counterintuitive for this region, but it's not," Clarkson University president Anthony G. Collins said. "Heating a building is about 40 percent of energy use and domestic hot water or industrial hot water; they're big energy consumers."

Mr. Bohl said that in the U.S., Hawaii is leading solar thermal development because energy costs are much higher there than on the mainland. The state accounts for a quarter of the solar thermal systems in the country, but less than 1 percent of the nation's population.

If the plan is adopted, it could create thousands of jobs, at least some of them located near Clarkson in the north country, where the plan was in part developed and research is going on.

Solar thermal systems are not going to solve the nation's energy crisis, but they will help.

"We've got oil, gas, wind and waves, but the sun is by far the biggest source" of energy," Mr. Collins said. "The way we're going to solve our energy crisis is to develop all of them and they will all make a small contribution and thereby reduce our dependence on fossil fuels."