A big thanks to over 100 friends and family members who sponsored me for the 2012 San Francisco Bay Area Solarthon! Thanks to your help, I was the top individual fundraiser for the third year in a row and broke my own record at a fab $4,800! Excuse all the exclamation marks, but it’s exciting to me.
Oil use related to driving cars has led to profound economic, health, and environmental problems on our planet. One Bay Area company, Better Place, has a unique approach to helping solve those problems. At a Green Project Management seminar I attended in May, Peter Cooper of Better Place explained how the company is attempting to break oil’s monopoly on transportation — by accelerating the adoption of electric vehicles.
Continue reading “Making the world a better place through electric vehicles”
You may have been hearing a lot lately about RECs — or Renewable Energy Certificates. But what are they, and should we be for them or against them?
Community power is springing up everywhere! There’s a huge amount of interest in it – in fact, as I noted almost a year ago, it’s really a movement, and one that keeps growing. This was in evidence at the recent San Francisco Bay Area Community Solar Confluence I organized, which was co-sponsored by the Solar Gardens Institute and the Local Clean Energy Alliance. It was part of a series of similar events this spring in Boston, New York, and Omaha.
Continue reading “Community power: A powerful force in the SF Bay Area”
I’m organizing an exciting event that’s coming up in late May — the San Francisco Community Solar Confluence. It’s part of a series of “confluences” presented by the Solar Gardens Institute.
Continue reading “Save the date — May 23 Community Solar Confluence in San Francisco”
People have been talking for quite a while about grid parity for solar power, the point at which solar becomes as affordable as power purchased from the grid, where it may come from sources such as coal. While we waited for grid parity, solar was still becoming attractive: rebates, tax incentives, and leasing options made it possible to start saving money in fewer years, in some cases right away.
Over a year ago, I began my quest to solarize my condo complex. I’m still working on that — but even if (I mean, when!) we manage to get solar for the common electricity and hot water, there’s not enough room on the roof to power all the units. So what do we do? In my research, I’ve come across a number of promising community solar options that can help us all participate in solar power.
Have you ever thought about going solar? Maybe you rent, live in a condo, can’t afford solar, have a shaded roof, or plan to move soon.
Some states are now making it possible to go solar even in these situations. In those states, people can subscribe to solar power from a common array called a solar garden, supplying their homes through the existing power grid. Next year, a bill will be before the legislature in California to make this possible here. Please urge your representative to vote for SB 843, which would enable solar gardens to happen in California.
Continue reading “Occupy rooftops (and parking lots, unused land, etc.)”
Any regular visitor to this blog has read more than once about the GRID Alternatives Solarthon. After participating in this “solar barn-raising” last year, I was hooked. And that’s not surprising, since the event combines two of my favorite things: solar power and community. It’s a celebration of the work GRID does all year, and it provides an inspiring example of what people can achieve together.
This post originally appeared on The Energy Collective.
You may or may not have noticed, but a grassroots movement in community power is picking up speed around the country. What’s community power, you may ask, and why does it matter?
The community power movement aims to decentralize electricity generation, which provides benefits to communities beyond local, clean, and more affordable energy — though those benefits would be enough. Take the case of solar power. Solar is getting cheaper, and given the costs of coal and nuclear plants, it will at some point become cheaper than other options. But who will benefit? Organizations promoting community power want to ensure that the answer to that is the people who need the power, rather than big companies outside their communities. In addition, keeping power production local creates jobs locally, avoids destroying delicate habitats, and bypasses the need for inefficient transmission lines, which can take many years to put in place.
Project Green A to Z 