As part of its Solar America Initiative to make solar power cost-competitive with fossil fuel energy sources, the US Department of Energy has awarded engineering firm CH2M $5.5 million to install pilot programs in 25 major cities across the nation. Denver and San Francisco are among those that the firm will help outline possibilities for solar energy in the city. Programs will address several areas of integration, from zoning code revisions to financing to installer certification and training.

Part of the process will include creating a rooftop-by-rooftop map of each city in order to figure out how best to incorporate solar power into the city’s energy needs. Contracts for each city will follow a seven-month pilot program. In San Francisco, which aims to have 10,000 solar roofs by 2012, the “solar map” has already been written up and, in fact, won an Innovation Award from the Interstate Renewable Energy Council.

Such programs are key to the success of solar power as a major source of our nation’s electricity needs. With so many existing rooftops available in cities across the globe, there is real opportunity for harvesting electricity smack dab in the middle of towns, possibly eliminating the need for large scale updates to our aging transmission infrastructure while simultaneously making homes and businesses self-sufficient entities.

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Posted on October 22nd in Solar News by Dan.