The Obama administration is bringing solar power to the masses

[applegrove]

The Obama administration is bringing solar power to the masses

by Lindsay Abrams at Salon

http://www.salon.com/2015/07/07/the_obama_administration_is_bringing_solar_power_to_the_masses/

"SNIP..............


The solar revolution is nigh. Or, as MSNBC would have it, rooftop solar is “not just for white people anymore.”

Not that it ever was, of course. But a new initiative being rolled out by the Obama administration Tuesday aims to expand access to clean, inexpensive energy to a wider range of Americans, by bringing solar to low-income and subsidized housing.

“We need to expand opportunities for more families to reap the benefits of using cleaner sources of energy that can also help households save money on their utility bills,” Brian Deese, Obama’s top energy adviser, told reporters. While U.S. solar capacity has expanded exponentially and, not unrelatedly, become increasingly inexpensive, over the past decade, its benefits have been largely denied to about half of all American households, either because their roofs are too small or they are rental properties. The White House plans to address that by installing small, community solar farms into which entire neighborhoods can tap. By 2020, it wants to triple the solar capacity installed in federally subsidized housing to 300 megawatts — and will be unveiling more than $520 million in commitments from “charities, investors, states and cities” to encourage solar’s growth in lower-income communities.

It’s all, according to Deese, “part of a bigger-picture effort to try to drive innovation” towards renewable energy projects. And aside from providing relief for both wallets and the climate, the administration is stressing the initiative’s potential to create job opportunities in these communities — an expansion of the plan, announced earlier this year, to train 75,000 solar workers, also by 2020.


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[Snobblevitch]

1. I hope this is more successful than Solyndra.

[Cha]

2. It already is ..

After Solyndra Loss, U.S. Energy Loan Program Turning A Profit

snip//

Beacon Power President and CEO Barry Brits, at the company's plant in Hazle Township, Pa. He says a loan from the Department of Energy made it possible for his company to develop its flywheel energy storage technology.

In 2011, solar panel company Solyndra defaulted on a $535 million loan guaranteed by the Department of Energy. The agency had a few other high-profile bankruptcies, too — electric car company Fisker and solar company Abound among them. But now that loan program has started turning a profit.

Overall, the agency has loaned $34.2 billion to a variety of businesses, under a program designed to speed up development of clean-energy technology. Companies have defaulted on $780 million of that — a loss rate of 2.28 percent. The agency also has collected $810 million in interest payments, putting the program $30 million in the black.

http://www.npr.org/2014/11/13/363572151/after-solyndra-loss-u-s-energy-loan-program-turning-a-profit

[Cha]

3. This is wonderful, apple.. and of course gets a big yawn on DU.. LOLOLOL

We need to expand opportunities for more families to reap the benefits of using cleaner sources of energy that can also help households save money on their utility bills,” Brian Deese, Obama’s top energy adviser, told reporters. While U.S. solar capacity has expanded exponentially and, not unrelatedly, become increasingly inexpensive, over the past decade, its benefits have been largely denied to about half of all American households, either because their roofs are too small or they are rental properties. The White House plans to address that by installing small, community solar farms into which entire neighborhoods can tap. By 2020, it wants to triple the solar capacity installed in federally subsidized housing to 300 megawatts — and will be unveiling more than $520 million in commitments from “charities, investors, states and cities” to encourage solar’s growth in lower-income communities.
http://www.salon.com/2015/07/07/the_obama_administration_is_bringing_solar_power_to_the_masses/