Following up on his “Solar for All” piece in the current issue of Sierra Magazine, Paul Rauber interviews his “solar guru,” ILSR Senior Researcher John Farrell, on the future of community solar. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQcIX3bGTBo]
Although only 0.1% of electricity is generated by solar power in 2012; within a decade, 300,000 MW of unsubsidized solar power will be at parity with retail electricity prices in most of the United States and more than 35 million buildings may be generating their own solar electricity sufficient to power almost 10% of the country.… Read More
ILSR Senior Researcher John Farrell is giving this presentation to a collaborative meeting of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the National Association of Regulatory Commissioners (NARUC) this weekend. It highlights the proven value of distributed solar to utility grid systems and the urgent need for regulators and utilities to incorporate this value into their … Read More
Does a Riverside County, CA, residential energy financing program put thousands of homeowners on a collision course with the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA)? In a proposed rule-making, the FHFA has suggested that Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) policies represent a threat to the safety and soundness of mortgages held by government-backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. … Read More
Update August 7, 2012: I’d like to this this qualifies as Friedman’s response to this column. In Thomas Friedman’s latest column, he praises Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts because he “took one for the country.” Friedman sees that “America today is poised for a great renewal” if only it can get some “big, centrist, statesmanlike … Read More
E&E News – Tuesday, June 19, 2012 While much of the renewable energy sector remains focused on extending federal tax credits for wind, solar and other alternative fuels, utilities and small-scale energy producers in more than a dozen states are forging ahead with programs that pay renewable energy producers a fixed rate for power they put … Read More
Energy and Environment News has a very long story on a new angle for the federal wind tax credit debate: a phaseout. This article raises several issues, apart from that policy strategy, that are worth a quick discussion. 1. Why Would Wind Compete with Natural Gas? The article waxes long about the trials of the wind … Read More
One of the reasons we so strongly support local, community owned broadband networks over European-like regulations on private companies is that large institutions regularly game the rules. We wrote about this last year, when Free Press called on the FCC to stop Verizon from ignoring the rules it agreed to for using certain spectrum. Senator Franken, … Read More
With the cost of solar power plunging and retail electric prices rising, 100 million Americans in the nation’s largest cities will be able to “go solar” for a lower price than grid electricity in the next ten years. Seizing this opportunity requires rethinking electricity policy and planning even while solar produces less than 1% of the … Read More
