The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has just begun rolling out the first part of what will be the country’s largest urban rooftop solar program. This will essentially turn the city into one big distributed solar power plant, which will pay residents for excess energy produced by their solar panels.
The Feed-in Tariff project kicked off with a set of rooftop panels installed on an apartment complex in North Hollywood. Solar Provider Group provided the panels, and a contract with the DWP has solidified plans for the company to invest $50 million in 17 projects across the state.
“Today, we took a major step forward in creating a clean energy future for Los Angeles by flipping the switch on the first installation to be completed through the LADWP Feed-in Tariff Program – the largest offered by any city in the nation,” said Mayor Villaraigosa. “The FiT program takes advantage of LA’s abundant sunshine to spur new private sector investment that will create jobs and decrease our city’s reliance on dirty fossil fuels.”
The goal of the program is to expand to more homes and buildings and generate 150 megawatts of electricity through solar, enough to power about 43,000 homes and displace 147 metric tons of CO2 emissions.
Aside from helping to clean up the air more, the program will also create 45,000 local jobs, generate over $500 million in private investments and $300 million in federal tax credits for local businesses, and give residents a heck of a good reason to invest in solar. Programs like this have gone over well in other parts of the world, so it’s great to see a city with a huge need for clean energy taking full advantage of its ample sunshine.
via Earth Techling
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