Originally featured on the cover of SolarGas by David Hoye, the cartoon illustrates the frustrating battle of Big Oil versus Solar. Oil corporations have a stranglehold on every major energy source except renewables. How can the fledgling yet highly accelerating solar movement break into such an industry? From the ground up.

Residential solar at the local level is our best bet to flag the attention of policymakers in the U.S.  Demonstrate that the demand is there, and incentives to go solar will increase, making solar more and more affordable for all.

Interested in home solar power? Click here for cost information in your area.

One start-up files for bankruptcy, and suddenly solar energy gets more media attention in one week than it receives in a year.

And you know what? We’ll take it.

Solar energy is poised for expansion, with technologies that have readied it for widespread use throughout the world. The day will soon come when solar makes more sense to the general public than energies derived from fossil fuel, though not without resistance.

In one sense, over-reactions to incidents like Solyndra‘s failure can be seen as progress.

Any list of the world’s leaders include a number that bank their profits on fossil fuels. Historically, companies whose technologies have become outdated rarely give up without a fight. When the corporations hold influence over much of the world’s economies, the fight can get nasty.

And those whose fortunes depend upon a dying resource will resist solar energy until the day that it becomes more profitable for them to embrace it.

Astronomical strides in technology

The solar industry is making solar energy cheaper, faster and smarter at an accelerating rate. This year saw Dow’s release of a solar shingle product that lets you go solar simply by re-roofing your home.

An Arizona company developed a form of pavement with built-in solar cells. They are currently replacing their company parking lot with the material.

The overall cost to install solar systems has dropped by over 43 percent in just 12 years. Solar has made astronomical strides in technology that few could have predicted.

Are solar costs a barrier?

For those who find installation costs a barrier, no- or low-cost leasing options are available all over the country. Forward-looking companies like Google are investing millions into funds that make it possible to lease residential solar systems with no upfront costs.

Millions of Americans can now lower their monthly electrical bills through solar leasing programs, and can lower America’s dependence on fossil fuels at the same time.

According to the U.S. Department of Housing, for every $1 saved in annual electrical bills, a home’s value is raised by $20. How’s that for curb appeal?

As recent world events have shown, when the people of a nation persistently call for change, change can happen.

History also demonstrates that change almost always comes from the bottom up, rarely from the top down.Clean, renewable solar energy will take its rightful place in the world one by one, household by household, and business by business.

Every homeowner that makes the decision to go solar is part of the solution to the world’s energy crisis. Every solar array that appears on a residential rooftop encourages neighbors to follow suit.

Every American that stands up for solar is going above and beyond the call of a duty, paying all the respect that this truly amazing technology deserves.

For information on solar power in your area, click here.

The news that New Jersey has the most solar energy systems per capita might surprise residents of the Golden State. True, California still leads the nation in the total number of solar energy installations, but when you divide installation dollars by population, New Jersey wins.

What is driving New Jersey’s success? And what can California and other states learn from New Jersey’s push to go solar?

Historically, New Jersey is better known for pollution than conservation. With more industrial clean-up sites than any other state in the nation, something had to change.

A Clear Plan to Cut Pollution

In April of 2006, then Governor Jon S. Corzine pushed forward legislation that allowed New Jersey to join a global coalition, the International Carbon Action Partnership, to fight global warming.

New Jersey became the third state in the nation to mandate greenhouse gas reduction. As part of the state’s Energy Master Plan, New Jersey must return greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, a reduction of about 20 percent.

The state’s four public utilities are also mandated to provide 20 percent of their power using renewable energy by 2020. At the time, these goals were the most ambitious in the nation. To help utilities reach those goals, the state offered a rebate program for residential solar panel energy system installations.

In addition, utilities are allowed to purchase excess energy generated by residential systems to help meet mandated requirements. Subsequently, the costs of solar in New Jersey are incredibly low for homeowners.

To get pricing on a solar installation in your area, click here.

New Jersey’s solar rebate “buy back” programs are among the most generous of any state in the nation. All four of New Jersey’s public utilities offer financing programs for customers who install solar energy systems as well.

A Focus on Low-Cost Residential Solar Installation

From the start, New Jersey’s programs emphasized the use of solar energy for residential and commercial use, and here is where the state’s development of solar energy diverged from California’s.

Perhaps more than any other state, California has pushed for the creation of large-scale solar energy utilities, pursuing a belief that, considering the state’s wide-open, sunny spaces, establishing solar utilities was the best option for promoting renewable energy.

California’s policy of promoting utility-scale projects hit two unexpected snags. First, big solar farms needed to be connected with the state’s electrical grid, and that means building power stations and high-voltage power transmission wires through existing neighborhoods. Residents of these neighborhoods have protested these installations with a “not in my backyard” response.

Second, and perhaps more significantly, large-scale solar farms have not yet become an economically feasible alternative to conventional utilities. Why? China dominates the manufacturing of the photovoltaics used in solar farms.  U.S. solar makers simply cannot compete with their prices.

Conversely, U.S. solar technology excels at creating innovations that make residential solar panels more efficient and more affordable than ever.

Further, distributed generation adds more jobs compared to the number created through large-scale projects, an important distinction. Job creation spurs the economy, which helps homeowners afford home improvements like residential solar energy installations.

The good news for Californians is that the Golden State’s residential incentive programs remain as robust as ever.

UK ministers say they are instituting the cutback because a recent survey shows far too many utility-scale (1 megawatt or greater) projects in the pipeline are positioned to receive feed-in tariffs, or FiTs, and this would defeat the original purpose of the program, which was designed to stimulate small-scale solar energy projects on homes and small businesses.

In their newest proposal, the DECC has said it will pay just 8.5 pence (about 14 cents in U.S. dollars) for each unit of electricity produced by solar energy systems larger than 250 kilowatts. Original rates were set at about 30p.

Fortunately for entrepreneurs and their investors, the new rates are not retroactive—a fact which hasn’t put a smile on the face of utility-scale solar advocates like Gaynor Hartnell (head of the Renewable Energy Association, or REA), who says the curtailment is like “pulling the rug out.”

Her statement is supported by a document the REA released describing the cutback as “salami-slicing the sector” to fit the Treasury’s mandate. Nice alliteration, but not exactly on-message, since the cuts vary from 0 percent to 72 percent (for installations currently being planned in the southwest).

Hartnell was joined in protest by a number of environmental groups, one of which described the FiT cuts as “horrendous.” Howard Johns of the Solar Trade Association called them a “total disaster.”

The UK government continues to insist that the measure is necessary to protect subsidy funding for residential installations—a position supported by residential and small-business solar installers.

And, while FiT cuts will certainly strangle that portion of the solar industry vested in throwing up power plants which profit on government subsidies, it may well benefit distributed generation to such an extent that the loss (of clean, renewable power, over the next few decades) is negligible.

Photo Credti: OregonDOT via Flickr CC

Yesterday, the Assembly Telecommunications and Utilities Committee approved A-2042, a bill that would help local solar panel and parts manufacturers by giving them a 250-kilowatt head-start on the state’s solar renewable energy certificate (SREC) incentive.

That is, those installing rooftop solar systems, for example, would reach SREC territory sooner if they bought solar equipment made in New Jersey—an incentive that has found supporters and, surprisingly, a few opponents.

Take for example Jeff Tittle of the New Jersey Chapter of the Sierra Club, who fears that the bill will damage the state’s already established free-market based system of encouraging solar energy.

The bill, sponsored by Assemblymen Wayne DeAngelo (D-District 14), Matthew Milam (D-District 1) and Nelson Albano (D-District 1), is an amendment to the “Electric Discount and Energy Competition Act” of 1978 which directs the Board of Public Utilities—the state’s utility supervisor—to provide SRECs on an advanced timetable for those systems manufactured in New Jersey. That is, instead of one SREC per megawatt hour, New Jersey-made solar systems would get one SREC for 850 kilowatt hours.

In New Jersey, in 2010, a SREC was worth almost $700.

Other dissenters include SunPower business development manager Terry Sobolweski, who says the bill would prevent New Jersey solar buyers from getting the “best and lowest priced” products available. Note to unbelievers: SunPower is located in California.

DeAngelo, the bill’s prime sponsor, argues that A-2042 is essentially designed to create jobs and increase the uptake of clean, renewable solar energy.

Photo Credit: Lilly Anderson via Flickr CC

In 2009 and 2010, speaking a discouraging word about renewable energy systems like solar or wind would have gotten one labeled as a sourpuss, a grinch, or even (gasp) a non-environmentalist.

No more. As Carson City, Nevada residents meet to discuss the future of AB122 – a measure that would make it possible for “local jurisdictions” (cities, municipalities, homeowner’s associations) to formulate rules regarding renewable energy systems’ locations and appearance.

It’s a 360-degree turn from the 2009 struggle to force these same entities to permit solar, and represents an unexpected backlash to what many formerly saw as the road to President Obama’s “clean energy economy.”

The bill is getting some resistance, of course, from renewable energy aficionados and a number of cities that have their hearts, and their bottom lines, vested in solar. Nevada is one of the states in the southern U.S. whose solar insolation (i.e., sunlight strength) and 300 days a year of sunlight make solar energy a worthwhile investment.

Sponsored by Assemblyman Pete Livermore (R-Carson City), and opposed by the likes of Nevada Conservation League Political Director Kyle Davis – who says that the bill could shut down Nevada’s thriving solar industry – the bill is reportedly supported by “neighbors” who want their state Legislature to nix “ugly renewable installations” that affect property values and quality of life.

And here I thought the clean energy economy was aimed at quality of life. How else, I wonder, are we to improve the air so that children plagued with asthma (a disease which has increased by 60 percent since 1980) or elderly at greater risk of heart attacks can begin to breathe cleaner air again?

Photo Credit: Jon Callas via Flickr CC

The Republican-run House of Representatives has released a partial list of cuts that they think would help balance the U.S. budget, which will be running a deficit of nearly $1.5 trillion in fiscal year 2011, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The partial list of cuts, which politicians describe as averaging 15 percent, target domestic spending and social welfare, including Americorps, public radio, community policing, and – get this – weatherization programs that help insulate homes and office buildings.

The cuts would be deep for general weatherization assistance (48.6 percent of the 2011 request) and absent for training and technical assistance, whose budget rises to 127 percent. The rest of weatherization line items – energy efficient appliance rebates, energy conservation competitive grants and Title V energy conservation block grants have been cut completely.

As Switchboard (the Natural Resources Defense Council staff blog) notes, these cuts will have deep, devastating and long-lasting effects on the Clean Energy Economy President Obama heralded when he first took office.

Additional cuts to the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) science programs, as run by such entities as Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL) or the National Energy Technology Laboratory – to the tune of a fifth of the DOE’s budget, no less – would virtually end discoveries and innovation in renewable energy fields like solar, wind and geothermal or wave power.

Guess which programs aren’t cut? Defense, of course, and fossil fuels are only getting a 17 percent cut, after 50 years of subsidies. And the final sally? The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which has proposed regulating greenhouse gas emissions (namely CO2), is getting a 17 percent amputation.

For those who had hoped we were on the road to a “green” energy economy, news flash: you can’t get there from here.

Join us in fighting to keep clean energy alive on the Solar CalFinder Facebook page.

Photo Credit: House GOP Leader via Flickr CC

Finally, after all our preaching here about compromise between the wants of environmentalists and the needs of solar energy developers, a California group is getting the message.

The California Desert and Renewable Energy Working Group says it wants to skip the courtroom drama (and probably all the sniping and name-calling as well), and simply move forward with a set of recommendations that offer both sides an opportunity to step back from the table with a smile.

According to a representative of the California branch of Defenders of Wildlife, it’s not everything that either group wants, but it’s a good meeting ground from which to negotiate those “must haves” and surrender items that were just bargaining chips in the first place.

And why not, because this is the way the real world works. Joe Blow wants a solar panel array in his (large) yard; Jim Jones says it would be ugly. However, if Joe will build a privacy fence between the yards, cutting off the view, Jim won’t make a stink. See how easy that was?

The compromise document is an attempt to avoid mistakes made in 2010, when the impetus to get solar projects on the books before the federal stimulus deadline expired caused a number of projects to come up against environmentalists’ charges that the EIRs (environmental impact reviews) were inadequate and downright shoddy.

What will one of the most important compromise positions be? Solar energy developers will be encouraged to target degraded public lands (e.g., formerly farmed areas of the desert where cultivation has already destroyed habitat, but the soil is too poor to support more crops).

A meeting at the U.S. Department of the Interior on Feb. 9 and 10 will consider the 41-page document, called the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, or DRECP.

One of the goals: Provide a framework for a more efficient process by which proposed renewable energy projects within the Planning Area may obtain regulatory authorizations, and which results in greater conservation values than a project-by-project, species-by-species review would have.

Sounds like a winner to me. A better article on the subject also appears here.

Photo Credit: Robert Dalton & The CTBTO via Flickr CC

Says a report released by the Department of Energy, this is no farfetched fantasy—it’s actually feasible.

Not only that, but if tribes invested in solar power, that the same land could provide 4.5 times the amount of power needed for the entire country. So why aren’t we jumping at the chance to put our money where our mouth is and take renewables to the next level?

Currently, there is only one large-scale clean energy installation operating on tribal land, despite the fact that the majority of tribes are more than willing to invest in eco-friendly energy.

In truth, they would benefit from the cultivation of renewables through higher profits and more jobs that honor their desire to protect the environment.

The problem lies with bureaucratic red tape that many aren’t willing to cut through. There are a variety of outdated laws that make building anything on tribal land a near impossibility.

When enough of these obstacles are in place, developing these installations becomes significantly less cost-effective.

Recently President Obama began his attempts to get rid of such regulations that prevent these and other growth-promoting projects from moving forward.

Obama is calling for a 21st-Century Regulatory System, which would launch an audit of all obsolete laws—including the regulations in question.

Amazingly, about one in seven American-Indian homes do not have electricity. For those that do, they pay 10-percent more than the country’s average.

Add to this an astounding poverty rate of 27-37 percent, and these renewable energy projects become necessity—not excess.

Photo Credit: Chauncey Davis via Flickr CC

EarthTechling is calling the official state visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao (to American President Barack Obama) a “meeting of the minds.”

Though not in so many words, and certainly not using those words, the message is clear. Presidents Jintao and Obama had one strong common interest: clean, renewable energy technologies like solar power, and the resultant energy security that such technology can deliver to both nations.

Political pundits are calling it the most important meeting between the two nations in the last 30 years (the last during the Carter administration, in 1979). That meeting expanded China’s industrial activity. This most recent one follows the same vein, as China in turn reportedly opens up its country to more U.S. imports.

While currency reforms will progress slowly, and the U.S. military may continue to fear China’s growing arms might, the two nations’ clean energy cooperation could be the basis for a sort of friendship made elusive by a devalued yuan and a global firepower ranking that sees China neck-and-neck with the U.S. (instead of in its former third-place slot).

According to a clean energy forum hosted by the Brookings Institution, and attended by China’s Minister of Science and Technology, Wan Gang, the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center (announced in 2009, and purportedly expanded as of this latest visit) is the sort of engine that could drive both change and clean-energy progress.

Funded jointly by China and the U.S., the initiative aims at building energy efficiency, clean coal and clean vehicles. It also includes appliance efficiency ventures (Honeywell and Haier), best practices in energy efficiency product labeling, and about $45 billion in other new business ventures.

But the biggest venture, at least from my point of view, is the promotion of renewable energy technologies like solar power, and the joint NREL/China Electric Power Research Institute work on transmission planning and grid integration for solar and wind.

As the world’s two biggest greenhouse gas emitters, however, the nations did not – as called upon by environmental leaders – engage in a carbon emissions reductions plan. Then again, real progress seldom occurs by leaps and bounds, but rather by baby steps.

Photo Credit: Nancy Pelosi via Flickr CC