November 26th, 2008

Innovative Municipal Solar Programs Coming Online

Posted by Jessica Jensen

Cities around the US are starting to embrace solar power in some pretty interesting ways.  Last week Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa unveiled an ambitious long-range plan for producing enough solar power to meet one-tenth of the city’s energy needs by 2020.  Villaraigosa is launching this initiative to help wean the city’s Department of Water and Power off of fossil fuels that contribute to global warming.

In the plan, the largest share of solar power, 500 megawatts, would come from generating facilities built by private-sector companies in the Mojave Desert.  An additional 380 megawatts would be achieved through smaller programs, including one that would help low-income residents add solar panels to their homes and another that would allow DWP customers to purchase shares of city-owned solar plants.

Read the full Los Angeles Times feature on the Mayor’s solar plan.

Further North in California the hyper-progressive City of San Francisco launched a strong solar incentive program this summer. The realized that fewer than 1000 rooftops in the city had solar panels and they needed to drive positive action to embrace solar power.  The city’s Solar Energy Incentive Program provides rebates to home- and business owners who install solar panels on their buildings. Individuals can receive up to $6,000; businesses can be granted $10,000. They also launched a one-year pilot program to provide funding for solar installations at low-income housing and buildings owned by nonprofits. According to Grist.org, San Francisco currently generates less than 5 megawatts of power from 770 solar-powered rooftops, but hopes to boost that to 55 mw from 15,000 rooftops within the next decade.  Learn more about the San Francisco program here.

Right across the Bay, The City of Berkeley is offering innovative loans to citizens to fund home solar installations. The program gives city-backed loans to property owners who install rooftop solar-power systems. The loans, which are likely to total up to $22,000 apiece, would be paid off over 20 years as part of the owners’ property-tax bills.  Learn more about the Berkeley program here.

And just to prove that solar isn’t only a “West Coast Thing” the City of Chicago has created a very impressive program called the Chicago Solar Partnership. The Chicago Solar Partnership (CSP) is a public-private consortium managed by the Illinois Solar Energy Association (ISEA), to advance the development of the solar energy industry in the Chicago metropolitan area. The website is excellent and provides great information on different solar system options, costs, and rebates. The State of Illinois provides rebates for up to 30% of the solar installation with a maximum rebate of $10,000. Not too shabby!

My only criticism of the Chicago program is that they don’t provide links to actual solar installers— you can click here to find a solar installer in your area anywhere across the United States.

And an excellent resource for learning about state and local solar incentives in your area is GreenMadeSimple.com. Check it out!

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