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Solar Energy

Jobs, Justice, and the Clean-Energy Future

September 25, 2016 Jeremy Brecher, www.dollarsandsense.org , , , ,
By Jeremy Brecher for Dollars & Sense. A series of reports by the Labor Network for Sustainability (LNS), and partners provides good news: The U.S. can meet the targets for greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction that climate scientists say are necessary while also creating half-a-million jobs annually and reducing the cost of energy to consumers. The reports, gathered in the LNS Climate, Jobs, and Justice Project, also show that protecting the climate in a way that maximizes the benefit for working people and discriminated-against groups will take deliberate public policies and action by unions and their social movement allies. The Clean Energy Future will create a substantial number of new jobs. The increase in jobs created, compared to the business-as-usual scenario, will start around 200,000 per year in 2016–2020 and rise to 800,000 a year in 2046–2050. The average job gain compared to business-as-usual scenario is 550,000 per year for the entire period.

Corbyn: Toward A Green Industrial Revolution

September 14, 2016 Jeremy Corbyn, www.counterpunch.org , ,
By Jeremy Corbyn for Counter Punch - In 2015 the world came together to agree the landmark Paris Climate Agreement aimed at keeping global temperature rises to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. And just in time: we are facing a climate crisis. 2016 is set to be the hottest year on record and greenhouse gas emissions globally are still not falling. We are seeing the impacts of climate change much earlier than anyone predicted – around the world and at home.

Colorado Agrees To Pay Solar Owners Higher Rates For Peak Power

August 25, 2016 Bob Berwyn, www.insideclimatenews.org ,
By Bob Berwyn for Inside Climate News - After proposing higher fixed charges, Colorado's biggest electricity utility worked with solar advocates on a compromise, following deals in other states. Colorado's largest electricity provider, Xcel Energy, reached a rate settlement that will pay homeowners with rooftop solar systems a premium price for power they produce when demand is highest. The deal still needs approval from the state's Public Utilities Commission, but it came after widespread opposition to its previously proposed fixed charges that many said would stifle growth of rooftop solar systems.

California Fast Tracks Solar Permits

July 31, 2016 Zahra Hirji, www.insideclimatenews.org , , ,
By Zahra Hirji for Inside Climate News. California cities are leading the nation in eliminating one of the biggest hurdles to the growth of residential solar: lengthy and confusing permitting. Spurred by a recent state law, hundreds of California communities have streamlined their permit process for small residential solar systems over the past year, some bringing it down to a single day. Some cities have also fast-tracked inspections to within a few days of permit approvals. The outcome? The state's biggest cities are now processing and signing off on hundreds of these solar projects each month. San Jose, for example, streamlined its permit review and approval process last August and has since approved more than 4,500 residential rooftop solar permits. That's a nearly 600 percent increase over the previous year, when San Jose, California's third-largest city, permitted a mere 661.

“Solar for All”: How Utilities Can Increase Access To Solar Energy

June 27, 2016 John Rogers, www.blog.ucsusa.org ,
By John Rogers for USCUSA - A new report looks at what utilities can do to “bring solar within reach” for a broader swath of U.S. households, particularly in lower-income areas and communities of color. The answer: a lot. Solar for All is a product of the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), thePartnership for Southern Equity, and the South Carolina Association for Community Economic Development, and is supported by more than a dozen other state and regional organizations.

Chile Producing So Much Solar Energy It’s Giving Electricity Away For Free

June 7, 2016 Lorraine Chow, www.ecowatch.com ,
By Lorraine Chow for Eco Watch - In a new Bloomberg report, Chile Has So Much Solar Energy It’s Giving It Away for Free, solar capacity from the country’s central grid has increased four fold to 770 megawatts since 2013. Another 1.4 gigawatts will be added this year with many solar power projects under development. Thanks to an economic boost from increased mining production, Chile now has 29 solar farms and another 15 in the pipeline.

Storing The Sun’s Energy Just Got A Whole Lot Cheaper

May 26, 2016 Joe Romm, www.thinkprogress.org ,
By Joe Romm for Think Progress - With prices dropping rapidly for both renewables and battery storage, the economics of decarbonizing the grid are changing faster than most policymakers, journalists, and others realize. So, as part of my ongoing series, “Almost Everything You Know About Climate Change Solutions Is Outdated,” I will highlight individual case studies of this real-time revolution. My Monday post discussed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) report that in the first quarter, the U.S. grid added 18 megawatts of new natural gas generating capacity, but 1,291 MW of new renewables.

Disrupting Solar

May 9, 2016 Peter Diamandis, www.huffingtonpost.com ,
By Peter Diamandis for The Huffington Post - In the next 20 years, between 50 percent to 100 percent of the world’s energy production could come from solar. Today, the global oil and natural gas industry is about a $4 trillion business. It’s big money, and in the U.S., 67 percent of the electricity generated in 2015 was from fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, and petroleum). This is about to change.

New Record Set For World’s Cheapest Solar

May 7, 2016 Lorraine Chow, www.ecowatch.com
By Lorraine Chow for Eco Watch - The price of solar power dipped to another record low on May 1 when five international companies bid as little as 2.99 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) to develop the latest phase of work at Dubai’s enormous Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum solar park, which will be one of Earth’s largest solar plants when complete. At less than 3 cents per kWh, that’s 15 percent lower than the previous record-low bid of 3.5 cents per kWh from Italy’s Enel Green Power for a solar project in Mexico, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

10 States Blocking The Power Of The Sun

May 2, 2016 Staff, www.ecowatch.com ,
By Staff of Center for Biological Diversity - 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 only 6 percent of total installed capacity. “Thanks to weak and nonexistent policies, the distributed-solar markets in these states have never been given a chance to shine,”

Newsletter: Ending The Political Charade

April 23, 2016 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.PopularResistance , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese. This week, on Earth Day, representatives from 130 countries gathered at the United Nations in New York City to sign the climate treaty agreed upon in Paris last December. As they smiled for the camera and promised to do their best to hold the temperature down, climate activists posted an open letter stating that it is too late, the climate emergency is already here. Leading up to the signing of the Paris Treaty this week were actions to stop the advance of fossil fuels and nuclear energy. Many events to mark the one year anniversary are taking place this week and the next in Baltimore to remember the uprising. Erica Chenoweth, the author of "How Civil Resistance Works", writes that elections both locally and globally are being shaped by nonviolent resistance. In the US, no matter who is elected president in the November election, it will be critical for those who have been activated to continue to organize and visibly protest.

San Francisco Becomes First Big US City Requiring Solar Panels On New Buildings

April 22, 2016 Biz Carson, www.businessinsider.com , ,
By Biz Carson for Business Insider - San Francisco may be known for its fog, but the city wants to turn the sunny days it does get into power for its buildings. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously passed legislation that would require new construction that is shorter than 10 floors to install solar panels or solar water heaters on top of both new residential and commercial buildings.

40% Of U.S. Electricity Could Come From Rooftop Solar

April 18, 2016 S.E. Smith, www.care2.com ,
By S.E. Smith for Care 2 - With rooftop solar arrays becoming more common, the Department of Energy decided to do some exploring to quantify exactly how much energy Americans could generate if they installed photovoltaic systems efficiently and extensively. What they found was startling: The country could meet 39 percent of its energy needs through rooftop photovoltaics, and, surprisingly, small structures like private homes are likely to return the best results.

Duke Energy Versus Solar Energy

March 13, 2016 Alex Kotch, www.desmogblog.com , , ,
By Alex Kotch of DeSmog Blog. Around the nation, big utility companies are successfully lobbying lawmakers and regulators to restrict individual and corporate access to solar power, denying people significant savings on electricity bills and the opportunity to take part in the growing green energy economy. In third-party solar financing, a non-utility company installs solar panels on a customer’s property at little or no up-front cost, sometimes selling the solar energy back to the customer at rates typically lower than a utility would charge. Duke Energy, the largest utility in the U.S., has so far succeeded in keeping third-party solar illegal in North Carolina, but conservative and liberal factions alike are trying to change that, in different ways. At least four states—Florida, Kentucky, Oklahoma and North Carolina—currently ban third-party sales of solar energy.

Newsletter: The Times Are A-Changing

March 12, 2016 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.popularresistance.org , , , , , , , ,
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers. Sometimes, when in the midst of transformational change, it is difficult to recognize that it is happening. We are in a transformational moment now. The new political culture that erupted with the occupy movement in 2011, but which has roots going back decades, and its evolution into activism on key fronts of struggle such as wages, racism, trade, militarism, capitalism and other issues, has grown to be so impactful that it is fracturing the two corporate political parties. A lot of change is occurring on many fronts. That should encourage all of us to keep building the movement of movements so we can create the transformation we need.
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