RE: opcom
The largest building/complex with mostly one story I ever worked on was OP-1 & OP-2 in Pittsfield Mass at about 2M square feet, or about 93,000 square meters, about 5,100 panels, about 1,300 kW using your 250 W per 18 sqft panel.
The next largest building I worked on was the 7 story + basement Kaiser Sunset building at about 1M square feet - but with a roof about the size of a medium sized big-box store.
So I roughly guess a big box store could produce about 100kW at high noon with the sun directly overhead if my calcs are right. Almost 500kW if the drop-dead best solar technology was available on the market today.
Taking that into consideration, it is a shame we can't push the envelope on deploying the technology from the lab to the street (or roof) with push-me-pull-you incentives and corporate competitions and the like. Of course there'd be folks who wouldn't like that, but they better start moving out of the way or get ready to get hit by the bus coming down the street.
If the US could make ourselves the leanest meanest, most efficient, most renewable/sustainable economy on earth, we'd only be less exposed to the price shocks certain to come as the global economy heats-up out of this recession.
