{"id":165,"date":"2013-01-28T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-28T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/01\/rooftop-solar-the-most-direct-route-to-clean-energy-industries.html"},"modified":"2013-01-28T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-01-28T13:00:00","slug":"rooftop-solar-the-most-direct-route-to-clean-energy-industries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/01\/rooftop-solar-the-most-direct-route-to-clean-energy-industries.html","title":{"rendered":"Rooftop solar: the most direct route to clean energy industries"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n
\n\"Austin<\/a>
\nAround here I hear local leaders say “we’ll never be Austin.”
\nWell, Austin may be letting San Antonio pass Austin as far as rooftop solar
\nand the jobs that generates.
\nIt’s not a matter of size or pre-existing advantages.
\nIt’s a matter of political will.
\nDo we have that will here?\n<\/p>\n

TexasVox<\/a>
\nwrote a white paper in February 2012,
\n
\nSolar Austin: Rooftop Solar & Job Creation,<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\n…the most direct route to attracting and encouraging the
\ndevelopment of clean energy industries is through the<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n
\nthe scale of future development will be orders of
\nmagnitude greater than what has occurred to date.
\n<\/strong>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

mass deployment of local rooftop solar, which is probably why solar has
\nby far the most significant presence of any clean energy generation
\ntechnology in Austin.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nBut the paper’s point is that Austin is falling short.
\nLook at the graph:
\nAustin seems to have settled for linear growth in solar power,
\nwhile San Antonio gets it about
\ncompound growth.<\/a>
\nAs San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro<\/a>
\nsaid in 2011, solar power is in\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\nthe nexus between sustainability and job creation.
\nEvery now and then, perhaps once in a generation, there presents itself
\na moment, an opportunity, for those cities that are willing to seize it,
\nto truly benefit the region for generations to come.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n\"Solar<\/a>
\nIt’s great that
\nour Industrial Authority has gone solar.<\/a>
\nThat’s a good start.
\nBut they can’t do it alone.
\nWhere are the solar panels on the City Hall Parking lots, on the county palace,
\non
\n
\nLowndes High School<\/a>
\nor on
\n
\nthe conference center<\/a>,
\nwhere all the world on I-75 can see them?
\nWhere is our bond-financed solar rooftop rebate program
\nto create local jobs?\n<\/p>\n

\nBack to the white paper:\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nAustin’s solar future: Turning hundreds of jobs into thousands
\n<\/h3>\n

\nThe success that has been achieved so far has come despite
\nsignificant technological obstacles which are quickly disappearing.
\nWhile rebates in 2004 started at $5.00\/watt, this now exceeds the
\ntotal installed cost of most photovoltaic systems. As a result, the
\nper-watt rebate has been cut in half, meaning every utility dollar
\ninvested goes twice as far. In the \u201cclean energy capital of
\nthe world\u201d one would expect that such dramatic cost decreases
\nwould be the harbinger of rapidly escalating deployment, but so far
\nthis has not been the case for Austin.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe chart at right comparing rooftop solar installations supported
\nby Austin Energy and San Antonio’s utility CPS tells two important
\nstories. The portion covering 2004 to 2008 tells the story of
\nAustin’s early success with pilot rooftop solar programs. The
\nportion since 2008 tells a very different story about how San
\nAntonio recognized that rooftop solar would soon break from its
\nniche and become a major energy resource and economic driver.\n<\/p>\n

\nShould Austin fail to make the same adjustments, it is unlikely that
\n
\n<\/a>
\nthe local solar industry could grow substantially in the near term.
\nThis chart implies that the economic development benefits to those
\ncities that remain ahead of the curve will be far greater than what
\nAustin and other first-movers have experienced so far. The reason is
\nsimple \u2014
\n
\nthe scale of future development will be orders of
\nmagnitude greater than what has occurred to date.
\n<\/strong>
\nEven as an early
\nleader Austin has only deployed a few megawatts of rooftop solar,
\nwhereas in the relatively near future we can anticipate hundreds or
\neven thousands of megawatts being deployed in those communities with
\nthe right policies and conditions.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nDo we want to be one of those “communities with the right policies and conditions”?\n<\/p>\n

\n-jsq<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Around here I hear local leaders say “we’ll never be Austin.” Well, Austin may be letting San Antonio pass Austin as far as rooftop solar and the jobs that generates. It’s not a matter of size or pre-existing advantages. It’s a matter of political will. Do we have that will here? TexasVox wrote a white […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,606,14,21,22,23,24,53],"tags":[236,801,8701,793,800,797,8702,12,7,798,799,794,637,795,8725,237,796,6],"class_list":["post-165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-austinenergy","category-economy","category-planning","category-politics","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","category-sustainability","tag-austin","tag-generations","tag-georgia","tag-industry","tag-job-creation","tag-julian-castro","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-nexus","tag-opportunity","tag-political-will","tag-rooftop","tag-san-antonio","tag-sustainability","tag-texas","tag-texasvox","tag-valdosta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}