Industry Insight
Is Renewable Energy a Solution for Our Environment and Health?
How fossil fuel pollution affects health and water, why solar and wind help, and what Ontario homeowners can do about it with rooftop solar.
How fossil fuel pollution affects health and water, why solar and wind help, and what Ontario homeowners can do about it with rooftop solar.
The COVID-19 pandemic pushed many people to think harder about health and about what shapes it, including the air we breathe. For Ontario homeowners, that raises a practical question: can the way we produce electricity make our communities healthier, and what can one household do about it? This piece looks at the link between energy, pollution and health, and where rooftop solar fits.
Research from institutions including Harvard has highlighted that air pollution is a serious public health issue. Health problems linked to air pollution include heart attacks, neurological damage, cancer and premature death, along with many other conditions. One often-quoted estimate put the life cycle and public health costs of coal in the United States in the tens of billions of dollars every year. Those figures are from earlier studies and vary by method, but the message is consistent: burning fossil fuels has costs that do not show up on an electricity bill.
The Union of Concerned Scientists and many other organizations link the accumulation of fossil fuel and other human-caused emissions to harmful effects such as drought, rising sea levels and loss of species. Tackling climate change means cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and electricity generation is one of the places to do it. Canadian climate and energy information is published by Natural Resources Canada.
Renewable sources like solar and wind release little to no emissions while they operate. Even when you count manufacturing, installation and operation across the full life cycle of a solar system, emissions are far lower than from burning coal or natural gas. That means cleaner air as well as lower carbon output.
Solar photovoltaic and wind generation do not need water to operate. Coal and gas power plants, by contrast, use large amounts of water for cooling, and mining and extraction affect water resources as well. Water saved can be left for drinking and agriculture.
Choosing to install solar on your home is a decision that affects more than your bill. It reduces how much power you pull from the grid, cuts the emissions associated with your electricity use and contributes to a cleaner local energy mix. The decision to adopt or reject renewable energy affects our budgets, our health, our environment and the prosperity of future generations. What will you decide?
If you want to explore it, start with our residential solar page, or find out whether solar is worth it in Ontario. To pair solar with backup power, see our battery storage option. When you are ready to talk, request a free site assessment, or call (877) 648-3323.
Solar panels produce electricity without burning fuel, so they release no air pollutants while operating. Manufacturing has some impact, but life-cycle emissions are much lower than those of coal or gas power.
Solar photovoltaic systems do not need water to generate electricity, aside from occasional cleaning, unlike thermal power plants that rely on water for cooling.
