That's what I thought was so great about this article. Even if you
quadrupled the estimate of total rooftop solar, it is still just a drop in the bucket compared to the total energy generation needed. It's almost not worth talking about because it's such a minor amount of capacity.
I didn't read the paper, but from personal experience:
1. Rooftop solar depends on lots of individuals to make an investment to put solar on their houses. If you say "let the government subsidize it", that doesn't really make much sense because the government can get a much better return on each dollar spent by investing in more efficient technologies.
2. Many roofs are not suitable for solar. They are either facing the wrong way, at a bad angle, shaded, or, in my case, too "origami-like". Solar panels need to have minimum clearance fro ridge lines on a roof, which can drastically reduce the total coverable area.
I didn't read the paper, but from personal experience:
1. Rooftop solar depends on lots of individuals to make an investment to put solar on their houses. If you say "let the government subsidize it", that doesn't really make much sense because the government can get a much better return on each dollar spent by investing in more efficient technologies.
2. Many roofs are not suitable for solar. They are either facing the wrong way, at a bad angle, shaded, or, in my case, too "origami-like". Solar panels need to have minimum clearance fro ridge lines on a roof, which can drastically reduce the total coverable area.