Vote Solar: Leading the Solar Tribe

It's time to change our culture, time to change our strategies, time to change our thinking about solar power. There are so many ways that we, as a culture, can change the way we think about solar power. In the weeks and months ahead, I hope to dive into as many new ideas as I can. Your feedback is very important. We are all in this together. The best thing that has happened in blogging about the solar tribe, is meeting new friends and colleagues who are each thinking along the same lines. Please feel free to shoot me your questions and ideas. My email is roy@whole-solar.com

In the last blog, I described the how Berkeley is leading the way in the municipal space, but there are other communities who are attempting to break new ground in this area. We can't have a conversation about the emerging Solar Tribe efforts in the municipal space without talking about a non-profit organization known as the Vote Solar Initiative . Vote Solar's website is a virtual hub of information about the status of these various municipal programs. Vote Solar's mission is to stop global warming, foster economic development and increase energy independence by bringing solar energy into the mainstream. I couldn't have said it better myself. Put in my own words, Vote Solar is part of our Solar Tribe, having earned one of the lead positions.

Working closely with other organizations, such as Solarnation, Vote Solar "is working at the state level to implement the necessary policies to build robust solar markets — and pave the way for a transition to a renewable energy economy." In order to do this, they stay close to solar projects being developed and assist in identifying and removing roadblocks that stand in the way of the wide-scale adoption of solar energy.

Vote Solar has a great website, where you can become a member and financially support their vital work. One of the features of their site is that you can track the progress of various state and municipal solar projects. I'd like to briefly tell you about some of them.

There is no shortage of project in the San Francisco Bay area, In addition to Berkeley, Marin, San Francisco, Oakland and Richmond have all been getting in on the act and staking out success in their respective programs. Back 2001, San Francisco approved a $100 million bond initiative calling for the city to borrow money for solar panels and energy efficiency measures for public buildings. The money that would have gone to buy electricity from power plants instead goes to pay down the debt. Just last week, the City authorized a 10-year solar incentive program for city residents and businesses. Under the program, which is called GoSolarSF, the city offers incentives ranging from $3,000-6,000 for residential installations and up to $10,000 for commercial installations. Program funding is generated by revenues from public power generation sales. In Oakland, Vote Solar worked with the city council too prepare a request for proposal to purchase a megawatt of solar energy (Vote Solar has made available a lot of valuable resource material that other cities can use and not have to "reinvent the wheel").
This last March, Richmond City Council voted unanimously to support a goal of developing 5 megawatts of solar photovoltaics on municipal, commercial and residential buildings by 2010. In Marin, city officials put solar panel systems on their own buildings and have identified local business owners with solar-friendly roof-space, and are educating them about the benefits of solar. And that's just the Bay area!

San Diego, New Mexico, Hawaii and the California State university system each have initiatives calling for the installation of solar power. The point to all of this is that it is up to each one of us to become aware of the efforts and initiatives going on in our communities, use the resources available to the tribe and take the actions to push the progress forward. Solar makes sense in so many different ways and there is an army of us available to help in the push.