Bright Future As Berkeley Starts Solar Program
March 1, 2009 by editor
Filed under Homes, Solar News
Homeowner Jeanne Pimentel shows off her new solar panels to Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates. She'll pay for them over 20 years in property taxes.
Two Berkeley homeowners received checks for their new solar panels on Friday, becoming the first to flip the switch on the city’s much-ballyhooed, closely watched solar financing program.
“I’m a guinea pig, but there’s no way I could have afforded solar otherwise,” said Jeanne Pimentel, an editor who has 11 solar panels on her Allston Way home. “Because of this, I can help solve our energy problem without putting any money up front.”
Berkeley’s program allows property owners to pay for solar panels through a 20-year assessment on their property taxes. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. rebates and new tax breaks guaranteed in the federal stimulus package reduce the cost further, so most homeowners begin saving on electric bills immediately.
Twelve states, including New York, Washington and Colorado, and 50 California cities, including San Francisco and San Diego, are following Berkeley’s model and are closely watching how the program unfolds.
With Aid From the State, Californians Warm to Rooftop Solar Power
December 27, 2008 by editor
Filed under Featured, Solar News, Solar Programs
Rebates and new financing models spur adoption despite the recession.
At a time when many investors are sticking money in their mattresses, Californians are putting it on their roofs.
Applications for state rebates to install solar panels hit their highest level ever in December, one of the few bright spots in an otherwise gloomy economy.
Residents filed a record 1,215 applications seeking solar subsidies this month, according to the California Public Utilities Commission. That’s the best showing in the program’s 24-month history, and December isn’t even finished. More than 18,000 California homeowners and businesses have applied for rebates over the last two years. Although not everyone who files this paperwork actually ends up installing solar, the figures are viewed as a reliable barometer of future demand.
A record 133 megawatts of solar photovoltaics have been installed in California so far this year, even as the state’s economy has stumbled.
California Governor Schwarzenegger’s Green Challenge
California Governor Says He’ll Stick To Environmental Plans, Despite Economic Crisis
President-elect Obama is 30 days from office. For a window on his future, turn west for a moment to a chief executive who is already up to his neck in the nation’s troubles.
This month, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger warned of financial Armageddon, as California faced a potential $40 billion deficit that threatened jobs, roads, schools and public safety. At the same time, he’s pushing some of the world’s toughest environmental laws to make California a leader on climate change.
California Utilities Commission Approves Disputed Sunrise Powerlink Solar Power Line
December 19, 2008 by admin
Filed under Solar News
Map of Sunrise Powerlink and protected natural lands - Click to enlarge image
The first skirmish in what promises to be a war of attrition between groups that want maximum supplies of renewable energy and groups that want maximum protections for landscapes and endangered wildlife ended Thursday when the California Public Utilities Commission, in a 4-to-1 vote, approved a 123-mile, $1.9 billion power line from El Centro to northwestern San Diego.
The line from the desert sands of the Imperial Valley would bring in enough energy - wind and solar energy, the commission expects - to power more than half a million homes and businesses in San Diego.
The Sunrise Powerlink Transmission Project proposed by San Diego Gas and Electric Co. provoked anger among local environmental groups, which were successful in persuading the commission not to allow the line to run through the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.
California Gives Green Light to Cap-and-Trade Action Plan
Regulators give final approval to wide ranging climate change package
The state of California has formally adopted the strictest environmental regulations anywhere in the US last week, committing to a package of measures designed to cut emissions 15 per cent by 2020.
Under the wide-ranging plans, the state will require utilities to generate a third of power from renewable sources by 2020 and will also introduce a raft of binding targets governing emissions from cars, oil refineries, buildings and landfill sites.
The primary mechanism for achieving the targets will be the adoption of a regional carbon cap-and-trade scheme, known as the Western Climate Initiative, as part of a wider coalition of western states and Canadian provinces designed to put a price on carbon emissions for the most polluting industries.
AB 32 Climate Change Scoping Plan Document
The Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32) requires ARB to prepare a Scoping Plan to achieve reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in California.
ARB approves Climate Change Scoping Plan at the December 11 Board Hearing!
December 11th Board Hearing Materials:
Proposed Scoping Plan Document (Approved on December 11, 2008)
Proposed Scoping Plan Errata (November 14th, 2008)
(Note: For Proposed Scoping Plan documents downloaded prior to October 15 at 4:30 pm PDT, please replace page 65 and 66 with this errata sheet.)
Appendices:
To view the Draft Scoping Plan (released June 2008)
To view the Supplemental Evaluations (released September 2008)
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California Environmental Protection Agency
California Adopts Tough Climate Plan Despite Economic Downturn
Solar panels have been built by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) surrounding the Rancho Seco nuclear power station near Sacramento, California. Local voters in 1989 elected to close the nuclear plant as it was similar to the ill fated Three Mile Island power plant in Pennsylvania.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - California on Thursday adopted the nation’s most sweeping plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions, issuing rules that could transform everything from the way factories operate to the appliances people buy and the fuel they put in their cars.
The Air Resources Board unanimously approved the plan despite warnings it will put costly new burdens on businesses at a time when the economy is in extreme crisis, with California forecasting a staggering budget gap of $41.8 billion through mid-2010.
Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he believes the regulations will spur the state’s economy and serve as a model for the rest of the country.
Wells Fargo Contributes $80,000 to GRID Alternatives
December 11, 2008 by admin
Filed under Green Collar
Supports Green Affordable Housing, Renewable Energy and Job Training
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 11, 2008 — Wells Fargo & Company contributed $80,000 to GRID Alternatives, a nonprofit that installs solar electricity systems for low-income homeowners, to expand its Solar Affordable Housing Program and build a model that can be replicated nationwide. The non-profit has installed over 200 solar electric systems for low-income homeowners that will generate $3.3 million in clean renewable power and reduce of greenhouse gas emissions by 10,000 tons a year.
California Strategies To Meet Climate Goals
Solar photovoltaic pumping installation on a California roof.
California air regulators this week are poised to adopt a global warming plan outlining how the state will cut its greenhouse gas emissions over the next 12 years. The Air Resources Board says emissions must be cut by nearly a third to meet the targets mandated in a 2006 law signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
If the plan is adopted, it will provide a broad outline for specific rules that state air regulators will consider in the coming years. The first requirements will take effect in 2012.
Here are some of the strategies for how California plans to cut emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, or roughly a third of current levels:
California Assembly Bill 811 Signed Into Law
Assembly Bill 811 (AB 811), is an environmental law in California, signed into law by Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger on July 21, 2008. AB 811 was authored by Assemblyman Lloyd Levin.
AB 811 would authorize all cities and counties in California to designate areas within which willing property owners could enter into contractual assessments to finance the installation of distributed renewable energy generation, as well as energy efficiency improvements, that are permanently fixed to the property owner’s residential, commercial, industrial, or other real property. These financing arrangements would allow property owners to finance renewable generation and energy efficiency improvements through low-interest loans that would be repaid as an item on the property owner’s property tax bill. The contractual assessments could not be used to finance the purchase or installation of appliances that are not permanently fixed to the real property.
Assembly Bill 811 helps California municipalities accomplish the goals outlined by Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.
The passage of AB 811 makes it more imperative to provide a energy efficiency community program. AB 811 states: “This act is an urgency statute…”. Cities and counties can now: (1) Make energy-efficiency and renewable energy affordable for California citizens (2) Increase property values (3) Improve the efficiency and indoor air quality of residential & commercial properties (4) Reduce the burning of dirty fuels and hence, pollution (5) Lower greenhouse gas emissions (6) Empower constituents with the fiscal security of distributed energy.
