April 27, 2016

Ten states have anti-solar power policies

Ecowatch - Some of the sunniest states in the country are actively blocking rooftop-solar development through overtly lacking and destructive policy landscapes, according to a Center for Biological Diversity report. “There’s room for improvement in solar policies across all 50 states, but it’s especially shameful to see the sunniest states fail to lead the transition from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy.”

The 10 states highlighted in Throwing Shade: 10 Sunny States Blocking Distributed Solar Development—Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin—account for more than 35 percent of the total rooftop-solar technical potential in the contiguous U.S., but less than 3 percent of total installed capacity.

The report assigned a policy grade to all 50 states based on the presence and strength of key policies that have aided solar expansion in the country’s leading solar markets, as well as policy and regulatory barriers that are used to hinder the distributed-solar industries. These grades, along with the technical potential for distributed-solar expansion in each state (based on the latest findings from National Renewable Energy Laboratory), determined which states were the country’s worst offenders.

2 comments:

Tom Puckett said...

Dominion Virginia Power has a pilot program which lasts another couple of years, at least, that buys solar power back from home generators at 15¢ per kWh. 28 panels at current efficiency levels are producing over 1 mWh per month...

Cheers, Tom

Unknown said...

We need to get busy. The longer we wait, the more its going to be painful.