Visualizing California’s Booming Solar Market

Date: 15 Aug 2018 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

Today, California claims a whopping 750,000 unique solar projects — an order of magnitude more than the number that existed in the state a decade ago. We illustrate this impressive, rapid expansion of solar projects throughout California over time in a cool, new animated map.… Read More

An Open Letter to California Energy Commissioners on the Rooftop Solar Mandate

Date: 22 Jun 2018 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

The conventional wisdom in electricity generation is that scale matters. But this outdated notion rests on the assumption that electricity generators compete only in the wholesale market. California’s nearly 1 million solar roofs already producing power provide the factual counterpunch to this myth, but so does ample research on the economies of scale and the price of competition in the wind and solar markets.… Read More

Video: Is Bigger Best in Renewable Energy? Webinar

Date: 9 Dec 2016 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

On December 5th, John Farrell delivered a webinar presentation detailing the findings of our recent report, Is Bigger Best in Renewable Energy? In this presentation, Farrell discusses how conventional wisdom suggests that larger solar and wind projects deliver energy at lower costs, but that location matters, and that the point of delivery and ownership matter more. You can … Read More

Utility Solar May Cost Less, But It’s Also Worth Less

Date: 17 Jul 2015 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

A new report released this week asserts that utility-scale solar is much more economical than small-scale solar. The clear implication is that we should let incumbent utilities build or buy solar from large-scale arrays instead of allowing customers to generate their own power. There are several reasons to seriously question the mistaken assertion that big solar … Read More

Public Rooftop Revolution Report: Part 3, “The Featured Five”

Date: 3 Jun 2015 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

There are a lot of stories on residential rooftop solar but few if any on what cities are doing to make themselves energy self-reliant by using their own buildings and lands to generate power. In Public Rooftop Revolution, ILSR estimates that mid-sized cities could install as much as 5,000 megawatts of solar—as much as one-quarter of … Read More

Report: Public Rooftop Revolution

Date: 1 Jun 2015 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

There are a lot of stories on residential rooftop solar but few if any on what cities are doing to make themselves energy self-reliant by using their own buildings and lands to generate power. In Public Rooftop Revolution, ILSR estimates that mid-sized cities could install as much as 5,000 megawatts of solar—as much as one-quarter of … Read More

The Hole in Brian Potts’ WSJ Critique of the “Solar-Panel Craze.”

Date: 26 May 2015 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

In his Sunday Wall Street Journal commentary on May 17, Brian Potts suggests that cost is the bottom line in the electric customer shift to solar, and that rooftop solar costs too much. But his defense of the utility’s view of energy costs leaves a big hole in the big picture: the value of solar energy … Read More

Beyond Utility 2.0: Part 3 “The Future”

Date: 7 May 2015 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

Unfortunately for utilities, new technology and commercial opportunities in the coming years will only increase the threat to the 1.0 business model. Solar energy is growing exponentially as costs have fallen 28% per year from 2009-2013, and electricity from rooftops is approaching or passing parity with utility prices.63 This is the third of four parts of ILSR’s … Read More

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