If you installed solar panels on your roof and feel aglow with environmental virtue, you may be in for a rude awakening. There’s a good chance someone else has purchased your halo and is wearing it right now. In most states (including California) power generated by rooftop solar panels earns Renewable Energy Certificates, which quantify how … Continue reading »
solar energy
You have the right to generate your own electricity
Do people have the right to generate electricity for their own use and still remain connected to the grid? Of course they do. You see it every day. Without prior registration or a background check, anyone can go into a hardware store and buy a diesel generator. Homeowners and businesses can install rooftop solar photovoltaics … Continue reading »
Interior moving forward with contentious desert solar projects
On February 19th, the Department of Interior announced that it had approved two utility-scale solar projects in the Mojave Desert: Silver State South Solar Project and Stateline Solar Farm Project. The two projects, which have already generated significant controversy, straddle the California/Nevada border in the remote Ivanpah Valley, and will combine to provide 550 MW of energy, … Continue reading »
Sometimes people really are out to get you
The Guardian has a rather startling story about organized efforts to stamp out wind and solar energy. (I suppose the fact that I find it startling is an indication of my naiveté.) Not too surprisingly, the Koch oil interests are a major funding sources. The Guardian lists some of the efforts to eliminate clean energy, … Continue reading »
Exploring policies to promote local renewables
Last July, California Governor Jerry Brown held a conference, hosted by the Luskin Center at UCLA, to launch his initiative to achieve 12,000 megawatts of local renewable energy projects in California by 2020. Local renewables, often called distributed generation, are projects no larger than 20 megawatts located close to customer demand. Berkeley Law’s Center for … Continue reading »
Post-tsunami Japan teaches the world about energy within limits
Earlier this summer, I accompanied a class of renewable-energy law students to a home in Vermont that is “off the grid.” The family lives quite comfortably — television, microwave oven, electric washing machine, sizable refrigerator. With the exception of a small diesel generator, which they use once or twice a year, they derive all of … Continue reading »