The US Gets Excited About Solar Power
With Obama elected to the White House it seems all the talk is about solar power, green electricity and other renewables. This can only be good news for the industry as the US tries to catch up on lost ground to its competitors.
Whilst the likes of Germany and Spain have solar panels adorning the roofs of many homes and warehouses, the US has been somewhat left behind. However, if one day these solar panels become as common on the rooftops of US homes as they are in Europe, it may be because the financing technique that gave Europe an early lead in renewable energy is starting to cross the Atlantic. Basically, the idea is to pay homeowners and businesses top dollar for producing green electricity via solar panels. In Germany, a homeowner with rooftop solar panels can be paid 4 times more to produce green electricity than the rate paid to a coal-fired power plant.
The US catch on Recently, Gainesville in Florida became the first city in the United States to introduce higher payments for solar power, which is otherwise too expensive for many families or businesses to install. City leaders approved the payments after studying Germany’s solar policies. "I’m seeing it with my own eyes — it’s really having a good effect on our local economy, particularly in these hard times,” said Edward J. Regan, the assistant general manager for strategic planning at Gainesville Regional Utilities in Florida. He said he had received phone calls from other cities and states since announcing the policy. The new payment method is referred to as a "feed-in tariff" in Europe. It shifts the cost of subsidizing green electricity from taxpayers, as is common in the United States, to electricity ratepayers. And the technique includes assurances that a utility will pay the high rates for a long period, often 15 to 25 years. The surge of interest in the "feed-in tariff" means that despite large solar incentives, the US still lags far behind Europe in solar power. People are starting to get excited about solar power! Germany, where feed-in tariffs have been in place since 1991, has about 5 times as many photovoltaic panels installed as the United States, all generating green electricity.
A better way Requiring utility companies to pay extra for green electricity does have a direct impact on ratepayers. Homeowners’ electricity bills will rise 74 cents a month in Gainesville. But most people believe 74 cents a month is a price worth paying to produce clean and green electricity. For more information about solar power. To return to our Florida solar energy page. To return to our solar energy home page.
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