The U.S. Energy Department is awarding more than $14 million in funding for 15 new projects to help communities develop multi-year solar deployment plans to install solar electricity in homes, businesses, and communities.
One of the 15 is in Duluth.
Ecolibrium3's "Local Energy Matters" project is working with state and local stakeholders to develop residential rooftop, community, and commercial solar projects in Duluth, further developing the local market. The project focuses on reducing soft costs through community policy implementation and development of simplified processes for permitting and interconnection. Demonstration projects that can be scaled in the final year of the project will include integrated design, construction, and financing packages. Over three years, one megawatt of capacity will be installed with a cost reduction goal of 50 percent.
These projects are part of a $59 million investment in solar energy by the Energy Department. Altogether, the U.S. has installed more than 17 gigawatts of solar power -- enough to power 3.5 million average American homes -- and deployment is expected to accelerate as costs continue to fall and more residential, commercial, and utility-scale projects come online. Broadly, these investments build on the SunShot Initiative's support of state-of-the art products, solutions and technology advancements that will drive down the costs of solar energy and help America lead in the global clean energy race.
The 15 Solar Market Pathways projects announced by the White House pursue various approaches to developing actionable solar deployment plans and strategies to promote deployment at residential, community, and commercial scales -- from expanding shared or community solar programs and local financing mechanisms to integrating solar energy generation into communities' emergency response plans.
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The U.S. Department of Energy reports as more communities look to solar energy as a source of clean, renewable electricity, the funding announced will help lower the cost of going solar and enable businesses to develop solutions for overcoming technical, regulatory, and financial challenges, further unleashing cost-competitive solar energy.
"As the cost of solar energy technologies continues to drop, more Americans are choosing solar energy as their affordable, clean and preferred electricity source," said Minh Le, director, SunShot Initiative. "In support of the SunShot goal, these projects bring together a diverse range of players from the public and private sectors, including utilities and universities, to develop new strategies to overcome barriers to solar power deployment, create long-term plans that create business certainty and support local economic development efforts, and cut costs and drive access to solar electricity for more homes and businesses."
Aimed at cutting the non-hardware "soft costs" of solar -- such as permitting, financing, and connecting to the electric grid -- the case studies and lessons learned from these projects will ultimately provide similar jurisdictions with examples that can be replicated -- an important step towards making solar deployment faster, easier, and cheaper across the country. The awardees include not-for-profits, utilities, industry associations, universities, and state and local jurisdictions in California, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Utah, Virginia, Vermont, Wisconsin and Washington, D.C.
