Solar Alliance - Home Page

In The News

Gov. Schwarzenegger Signs Legislation to Grow Solar Investment and Create Jobs in California

New Black & Veatch Study Finds Solar in the Keystone State Yields Many Jobs

The California Public Utilities Commission's California Solar Initiative issued its Annual Program Assessment to the Legislature, on July 9, 2010. Highlights of the report include:

* Three years into the state's 10-year solar program, California is already 42 percent of the way towards its general market program goal in the territories of the investor-owned utilities. This figure includes both projects already installed and those currently holding reservations for incentives and in the process of being installed.
* California has over 600 MW of solar connected to the electric grid at nearly 65,000 customer sites. Of the 598 MW of capacity installed in investor-owned utility territories, 342 MW were installed under the CSI Program at 31,000 sites, as well as 256 MW installed through other programs.
* Demand is increasing. The CSI Program received a record of nearly 300 MW of new CSI project applications since January 2010 - more than any other six-month period since the start of the program.
* The program had over 134 MW of new projects applying in April 2010, the highest month on record for new solar applications.
* For every dollar spent on incentives by the state, there has been another $2.62 invested in solar technology in California from other sources.
* Program data shows a decline in the average cost of solar systems. The inflation adjusted cost trends show that prices have declined since January 2007 from $10.04/watt to $8.49/watt for systems under 10 kW.
* The CSI Program has reduced incentive levels several times since 2007 in response to program demand. Incentives started at $2.50/watt across the state, and now they are as low as $0.65/watt.

Details of the report can be found on the CPUC web site http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUC/energy/Solar/.

The Solar Alliance

The Solar Alliance works with state administrators, legislators, and utilities to establish cost-effective solar policies and programs.

We specifically target our efforts to help legislators, regulators and utilities make the transition to solar power by providing the technical and policy expertise to create programs that are in the best interest of residential, commercial, and government customers and Americans as a whole.

Legislators - Your actions can ensure that your constituents receive the environmental and economic benefits of clean, renewable energy in the most cost-effective manner.

Regulators - Many of you struggle to find solutions to the myriad problems facing electric utilities today, including greenhouse gas mitigation; fuel diversity; transmission congestion and siting new transmission; and rapidly rising costs. Working solar into your state's energy mix can help to address each of these.

Utilities - Polls show by large margins that customers prefer solar electricity over any other form. Forward-thinking utilities can use solar energy as one part of the strategy to improve customer satisfaction, improve the capacity factor of the grid, particularly during peak hours, and increase shareholder value by creating new revenue sources and increasing rate-based assets. Solar can also be deployed far faster and less expensively than other options and can become a key element in meeting GHG reduction targets.

The Solar Alliance works closely with corporations, state-level trade associations, grass roots organizations, academic institutions as well as local governments that advocate solar energy so that we may all speak with one stronger voice.

We thank you for your interest and look forward to working with you toward a sustainable solar future.

Any state can develop a world-class solar market if – and only if – the Four Pillars are in place. These include a combination of thoughtful:

(1)	Incentives
(2)	Net metering standards
(3)	Interconnection standards
(4)	Utility rates and revenue policies