This week in Democratic Energy: West Virginia governor signs bill slamming brakes on solar development Wal-mart’s support of a new North Carolina law should give regulators pause California could produce five times their energy needs from solar Utility titan plays harder as industry evolves by Bill Loveless, USA Today Of course Fanning says he doesn’t see utilities becoming … Read More
Arnie Arnesen interviewed ILSR’s Director of Democratic Energy John Farrell on WNHN’s The Attitude last week, seeking an answer to this question: can we expect electric utilities to embrace the energy sources of the future, like solar? Electric Utilities Play by the (Old) Rules Arnie and John discussed the hesitance of utilities to embrace innovation and … Read More
Can one state lead the way for others in sound, smart energy policy? New York is setting the stage. This week, Mother Jones, and others talked to John about getting what we want from the utility of the future. (Hint: utilities may soon be waiting-in-the-wings!) Read more stories from this week, below. New York Just Showed … Read More
The growth of solar has continued at a furious pace, with a new record of 6.2 gigawatts installed in the United States in 2014. But the bigger tale may be the persistent growth of small-scale solar, on residential and non-residential rooftops (and property). These projects, a megawatt or smaller, contributed 13% of new power plant capacity … Read More
Back in 2012, ILSR released a pair of reports on the solar Rooftop Revolution, noting that one-third of Americans would live in a metropolitan area where the cost of solar energy from their roof would be less than the cost of power from the utility by 2021. When combined with our analysis of non-residential property, we … Read More
Mother Jones, March 6, 2015 New York wants to get serious about solar power. The state has a goal to cut its greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, and it’s already among the nation’s solar leaders. New York ranks ninth overall for total installed solar, and in 2013 alone it added enough … Read More
A clean energy report looks at the tension between utilities and consumers, and we take a look at political crossover: how distributed energy and local control is becoming more of a bipartisan issue. Chris Mooney with the Washington Post leads the roundup with two articles on how solar energy plays in conservative parts of the nation. It doesn’t hurt that … Read More
See our March 2018 update affirming these findings In about half of U.S. states, an individual or business can have solar installed on their roof owned by someone else, and either buy the power or lease the array from that third party. These power purchase or lease models drastically simplify the process of going solar (at … Read More
A city in the sunny southwest, Tucson is wondering how it can maximize its use of cost-effective, economy-boosting solar power. Is a partnership with the electric utility, as seen in Minneapolis, the answer? ILSR’s Director of Democratic Energy gave this presentation to several audiences on a recent (delightful) visit to Tucson, Arizona, to explore the dissonance … Read More
