Strategic Solar Initiatives & Policy Developments

Environment America released a new report recently that outlines the roadmap to meet 10 percent of the country's energy requirements with solar power by 2030. The study entitled "Building a Solar Future: Repowering America's Homes, Businesses and Industry with Solar Energy" evaluates at a variety of solar technologies including photovoltaics, concentrating solar power, solar water heaters, solar space heating, and passive solar design. However, many of the assertions noted in the Executive Summary have been repeated in similar reports; yet at least it emphasizes necessary basic roadmap initiatives.

The detailed roadmap for meeting increased solar power integration into the nation's energy supply is better suited for institutions like the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). NREL announced this month that it has established a new global institute, officially known as the Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis (JISEA) that will be focused on accelerating the transition to sustainable energy, globally. It will assemble joint institutional partners with leading engineering departments including: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Stanford University, the University of Colorado, Colorado School of Mines, and Colorado State University.

This Institute will take advantage of the best tools and most credible data to guide decisions on energy investment and policy made by legislators, utilities, energy companies, and investors. The Joint Institute partners will use their global networks to build project teams and request corporate sponsorship and involvement. Also, JISEA will sponsor research combining the talents of university scientists, industry engineers, financiers and other experts in the field. Moreover, resulting recommendations will be fed into the U.S. partnerships with China and India.

Without a doubt, federal policy such as the Solar Technology Roadmap proposed by Arizona U.S. House Democrat Gabrielle Giffords and Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Acts, which have essentially sat idle since December during the final charge for health care reform, will be critical for making the eventual recommendations a reality.

Another critical element for increased renewable energy deployment, in general, is the approval of tax credits for community-scale power projects. Senator Mark Udall (D-CO) rolled out the first of a package of clean energy job creation bills based on this notion. One in particular is based on a proposal from a company called Holy Cross Energy in Glenwood Springs, CO, which is grouping homeowners together to invest in solar panels located on a separate nearby plot of land, as opposed to installing them on their homes.

It is an emerging option for solar power, known as community-scale projects or local solar farms, but the model can be applied to other renewables such as wind and geothermal, albeit less extensively, due to various constraints. However, this idea is still subject to necessary integration with the local power grid, but assuming the projects are not in remote areas, as is the case for many utility-scale solar plants, then it will be less costly to link them via transmission lines to the power grid.

One of the barriers for pervasive growth in community-scale solar power projects is that the federal tax code has not been updated for many new trends in the industry. The current law offers homeowners an income tax credit for solar panels installed on their homes, but it does not allow the same credit for collaborative community-scale projects. Senator Udall's Solar Uniting Neighborhoods (SUN) Act of 2010 modernizes the tax code regarding solar energy, enabling homeowners who invest in community-scale solar projects to receive a 30 percent tax credit. Similar to other solar tax credits, it would expire in 2016 unless renewed or made permanent.

In any case, even with solar energy deployment reaching the highest level of industry expectations, it would still not seriously impact American's dependence on foreign oil; as this would require extensive conversion to (domestic) natural gas, biofuel, and/or electric-based vehicles.

"Photo credit- www.flickr.com: Sen. Udall (D-CO) at Clean Energy Rally"