The first and most important radical concept in SUTSO is to use the nation's high voltage Transmission Line Right-Of-Ways (TLROW’s) for PV deployment; this is a “revolutionary” new idea that will provide 10 million acres of no-cost land for this purpose, a savings to the American public of 1 Trillion dollars over a 20 year projected build-out to 1.2 terawatts, or approximately 30% of the nations projected electrical generating needs. SUTSO's success will be responsible for that impact, economically and ecologically.
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Since this land is already stretched along 135,000 linear miles of TLROW in the continental U.S. for possible deployment of PV arrays (of any design), a massively scalable, low cost infrastructure system designed to work under the Transmission Lines and in the Right-Of-Ways will lower land costs and land related costs in the current Ground Mount Array model from approximately $0.90 an installed watt to less than $0.05 an installed watt.
The second new concept/invention covered by this project is the use of a new deployment device for all PV modules in the SUTSO deployment model. The concept is to hang the PV arrays 20 feet in the air on PV Nets, a new provisional patent product invented by Karl Spain that employs a repeatable installation process, introduces the interchangeable parts concept to major componentry in the solar industry for the first time by utilizing cable and wire technology instead of rigid racks for holding the PV’s.
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The above chart shows the difference between Ground Mount Arrays the current state-of-the-art as opposed to the SUTSO alternative deployment model (SUTSO) with the PV Net invention and each incremental improvement by item and percentage.
SUTSO’s success will have a $100 billion minimum cost savings impact – just in land cost savings for the construction of 190MGW -- and a Trillion dollars over the 20 year build-out possible.
Since SUTSO and the PV Nets re-use an existing electrical industry resource, (the land under transmission infrastructure and the legal ROW’s) no new land will ever be needed to completely satisfy the nations electricity generating needs if this projects test metrics are demonstrated and repeatable.
The second part of SUTSO, the Shared Ownership or SO part; is equally vital to the model since it creates ultra-low (less than 0.01 installed watt) Customer Acquisition (CA) costs; a ubiquitous audience for ownership even in low insolation states and financing leverage that will make the projects expansion securitizable on Wall Street.
Shared Ownership of the PV generating panels is an important part of the SUTSO model and is also relatively new to the electricity generating industry; which is alternatively accustomed to big, expensive centralized generation plants/projects.
SUTSO means Universal or Ubiquitous Solar Opportunity -- Everybody can use solar in the SUTSO model; even in states where the sun shines so little PV is never expected to be economical, and even among populations of poor people that don’t own a southern facing roof or even a roof structure at all.
This is possible because inexpensive SUTSO arrays erected in southern states can legally sell that electricity to their meter holders through a PPA, but have been economically blocked. Renters can own SUTSO panels through the SUTSO investor program and offset their electrical usage through credits to a bank or investment account, even if they don’t get an electric bill at all.
Conclusion: This means the entire country will be eligible to purchase and use solar power rather than the 5% to 10% of the nation’s population currently eligible for solar.
The photovoltaic (PV) panels used in the SUTSO deployment model will be suspended at a minimum of 20 feet ground clearance -- leaving ample room for the electric transmission lines above, and clearance for fire and service vehicles below.
The drawing’s below gives you the idea, the PV Net shown in color on left is the small object in the lower left hand corner of the black and white graphic below.