PV panels should, in theory, create no more waste heat than asphalt or any other black surface. There is already quite a bit of useful data about heat islanding in large cities to show that it can be a problem.

The point is that using solar energy creates much less waste heat than the fossil fuel alternative.

“Electricity production in the United States is about 32% efficient. Therefore, that 19.35 kWh if purchased from the power company, would have produced 13.16 KW of waste heat”

If electricity production is 32% efficient that means that only 1/3 of the “heat content” of burning fossil fuel is converted to electricity. Or put more plainly, the plant produces 2x more heat than power.

Therefore the plant generating 19.35 kWh would produce roughly 40kWh of waste heat, or 3x the 13kW you estimate…right?

The claim that solar panels increase global warming is absurd on its face, considering the alternative method of supplying electricity is removing mountaintops and shipping coal across the country to burn in furnaces that waste 2/3 of the energy they generate.

Will solar panels “heat up” in the sun? Yes, of course. Will that heat be transmitted to the “local surroundings”? Yes.

The question should be how much more do PV panels heat up their “local area” (do solar panels absorb more heat than the surroundings? i.e. change the albedo by 5%? 25%? or 50%? this depends on location, but in ALL cases it will be less than 100%) than power plants heat up thier “local area” which includes all the heat transferred to water they generally use to cool their plants.