On December 27, 2012, Bryan Walsh writes in Time:
On the surface, it looks like the renewable energy industry has never been healthier. This year, wind-turbine installation in the U.S. actually outpaced the installation of new natural gas capacity—despite the shale gas boom, which has pushed down the price of natural gas. In 2012 new wind capacity reached 6,519 MW as of Nov. 30, just edging out gas capacity and more than doubling new coal installations. Meanwhile new solar capacity in the U.S. reached nearly 2,000 MW, beating out 2011′s numbers. Globally the stock of installed wind and solar power hit 307 GW in 2011, up from 50 GW in 2004, while total investment in the sector hit $280 billion last year. Those are some bright numbers.
Yet there are clouds on the horizon for renewables. The wind industry faces the loss of the valuable production tax credit next year if Congress can’t get its act together to renew it—and indeed, some of the growth the industry experienced this year may be due to companies rushing to get their projects in while the credit is still in place. (And those capacity figures comparing wind to gas or coal are a bit misleading—the intermittency of renewables means that a MW of wind doesn’t deliver the same amount of actual juice as a MW of gas.) The solar industry faces serious global oversupply, which has driven a number of manufacturers in the U.S. and elsewhere into bankruptcy, and while helped depress the recent IPO of the major panel installer Solarcity. According to the Financial Times, total investment in wind and solar in 2012 may well fall compared to 2011—the first time that’s happened in nearly a decade.
So what’s the real forecast for wind and solar power?
I publish an architectural magazine, Ultimate Home Design (www.ultimatehomedesign.com) that advocates responsible green building initiatives, with respect to on-site energy generation. I also built the greenest home in America, the Optimum Performance Home (http://www.ultimatehomedesign.com/oph.php).
The United States should adopt the German model of “Feed-In-Tariff” (TIF) and ensure that anyone who generates power from solar, wind, or hydro is guaranteed payment from the local power company. Under such a program, local power companies are obliged to buy power generated by solar, wind, and hydro home and small business installations.
Germany pioneered legislation, and other European countries––including Spain, Portugal, Greece, France, and Italy––are implementing similar legislation. At present, unfortunately, local power companies in the U.S. are not required to pay homeowners for the energy generated on-site beyond what the homeowners generate produce a “Zero Energy Home” (ZED) cost operation. Thus, homeowners with systems designed to generate excess electricity are not compensated. “Feed-In-Tariff” legislation, which offers cash incentives, will become the most important means we have to boost the solar and wind energy market, and significantly reduce our country’s dependence on foreign oil. Such legislation will make it lucrative for ordinary people to put solar systems on their roofs and wind turbines on their properties. The end result will produce a new class of homeowners who will be energy-independent and part of a network of clean energy producers.
Beyond the issues explored in the article regarding large solar installations, what is missing is the ownership structure of this advanced renewable energy system development. The article implies that the U.S. Department of Energy is involved. Should ANY power plant involve taxpayer monies, the government should require that the utility users/customers share in the private, individual ownership of the development, turning every customer into an owner of the power utility. This can be accomplished by forming a for-profit, professionally managed, citizen-owned “Community Investment Corporation” (CIC) or Citizens Land Bank (CLB) (www.http://cesj.org/homestead/strategies/community/cic-full-nk.html).
While the CLB would create new private sector jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities, its main accent is on widespread participation, particularly in the ownership of land, technology, buildings and infrastructure that must be fabricated upon the community’s land for expanding the local economy. The Citizens Land Bank is designed to serve as a for-profit land planner and private sector developer geared to rational innovation and change at the community level.
Using the most advanced tools of the free enterprise system––especially innovative credit and financing tools-the CLB would create new owners of newly created assets, without taking existing property away from present owners.
The CLB strategy and its institutional structure for mobilizing citizen action are easily adaptable to areas of virtually any size, such as land surrounding nodes of a mass transit system, a downtown renewal area, or an inner-city neighborhood. The CLB can even be adopted for an entire city, metropolitan area or natural region of the country.
The CLB would create new opportunities for corporate executives, real estate professionals and the best advisors that money can buy, but they would be accountable to the CLB’s lenders and shareholders through the CLB’s broadly representative board of directors. Local enterprises could then compete more dynamically in the global marketplace without special protections or subsidies.
Such policies, when implemented will provide a substantial amount of energy. We need to make the effort and advocate to our political leaders to pass the necessary legislation.
