Judee Burr
Policy Analyst
Which U.S. cities are leading the charge toward a solar-powered future? Our new report, Shining Cities: Harnessing the Benefits of Solar Energy in America, ranks U.S. cities for thier installed solar PV capacity and discusses the innovative policies that are moving cities up in the rankings.
Policy Analyst
What will cities of the future look like? If recent trends are any indication, clean, solar energy will become a prominent part of our city infrastructure. In our new report, Shining Cites: Harnessing the Benefits of Solar Energy in America, we rank 65 U.S. cities for their installed solar PV capacity and show that solar power is already transforming the way cities work.
Solar energy is a smart choice: it reduces air pollution, creates more sustainable electric grids, supports local jobs and helps cities fight global warming. Leading cities are recognizing that solar power is the way of the future – as of the end of 2014, the top 20 cities in our report made up 6.5 percent of U.S. solar PV capacity, while making up only 0.1 percent of U.S. land area. Our leading cities demonstrate that there are multiple pathways to creating a “solar friendly” city. City and state decision makers are implementing a variety of smart policies to promote the development of this clean energy source, thereby enabling city residents to “go solar.”
In many of our leading cities, local decision-makers set ambitious goals for solar energy adoption and implemented policies to help achieve them. City policies can streamline the solar permitting process, reduce costs by helping residents buy solar panels in bulk, reduce excess fees for permitting and installation, and remove red tape, like height restrictions, that can make installing solar panels a hassle. For example:
State-level policies that support solar development create a critical foundation that local leaders can build on to bring solar power to cities. These basic policies include: renewable energy standards that require electric utilities to invest in solar energy, strong net metering policies that allow customers to receive fair credit for the electricity that they send back to the grid, community solar policies that allow many people to invest in and reap the benefits of individual solar installations, policies that allow “third-party financing” of solar projects, and laws that allow the establishment of “PACE financing” districts to help residents and businesses finance solar projects.
These are just a few examples of policies that are allowing cities across the country to benefit from local clean energy development.
As I discussed in my lay of the land blog post on solar energy, a movement to change the way we produce electricity is underway. Now is the time for cities to join it. The most recent report from Solar Energy Industries Association and GTM Research on the state of the U.S. solar market shows that, in 2014, U.S. solar electric capacity grew 30 percent and was the second-highest source of new electricity generating capacity. The cost of solar panels has rapidly fallen and continues to plummet, and the solar industry is bringing jobs to town – with employment growing “nearly 20 times faster than the national average employment growth rate” between November 2013 and 2014. Government agencies, solar companies and non-profit groups continue to find ways to make solar energy easier to acquire, install, and use efficiently on homes, businesses, stadiums, and even roads. Transitioning away from polluting sources of electricity to clean renewable power is only becoming more urgent, and solar energy is one of the best and cleanest alternatives.
Policy Analyst