Solar Powering Your Community Workshop

It has been a couple months since I went to the Solar Powering Your Community Workshop presented by Solar Outreach Partnership,
but the bad-tempered audience and solar wisdom presented are with me like it was yesterday. This out of class experience began at 8:30am on Friday September 28th, though it really started at 6:00am because I had to drive to the Indianapolis City-County building from Bloomington and find a place to park. Regardless, I greatly enjoyed myself. After I grabbed some free coffee and had a seat in this small conference room, I noticed SPEA Professor Terry Usrey was present in the audience. I had met him on a couple occasions before and knew that he was involved with The Southern Indiana Renewables Energy Network (SIREN)
because it was him who helped me get an internship at WFHB Bloomington’s EcoReport news program during the summer of 2011.

You can see the back of Terry Usrey’s head on the left…it wasn’t the most appropriate setting for taking photographs…

I mention that the audience was irritable because they were constantly interrupting the Solar Outreach Partnership presenters and arguing amongst each other. It was so rude, and I kept thinking to myself “Are these people serious? Are these people really grown adults?” One of the audience members shouted at another for asking too many questions about her specific project. Little did the shouting audience member know, but that woman was the person who organized the whole event. He did have a point though: Too many people were asking very specific questions that did not relate to the rest of the audience. Some of the presenters were from the Boston area so they probably thought Midwesterners are insane.

The presentation was awesome. I had always wanted to learn about solar energy and its benefits, given that it makes use of the most natural form of energy known to Earth: solar radiation. It was fascinating to hear about Germany as the leading country using solar energy. The first presenter, Phil Haddix, pointed out, to my surprise, that Germany receives as much solar radiation as Alaska! That means that the United States is more than capable of transferring entirely to solar energy. In fact, Mr. Haddix also said that the United States gets enough solar radiation to power the entire globe for one year. After surveying the audience with questions, we dove right into the basics of solar technology. There are three types of solar technology: Solar Photovoltaic (PV), Solar Hot Water, and Concentrated Solar Power. Fortunately, I was only slightly familiar with PV, thus there was not much information overlap. The purpose of the presentation was to demonstrate and explain the ways that municipal governments can adopt solar energy as a source. It was good to see that John Hazlett of the Indianapolis Office of Sustainability was there so he could pass along the message to Mayor Ballard.

City-County Building PV solar panels in the back entrance courtyard

Mr. Haddix went on to explain the inadequate market for solar energy in the Midwest, comparing Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. Ohio was the leader while the other lagged behind from 2008 to 2011. He explained some of the cost breakdowns associated with solar energy in the United States and compared them to the costs of Germany. Hardware costs are fairly close in each country, but the non-hardware costs such as paperwork, permitting, and installation labor in the U.S. exceed those of Germany by just over $3.00 per watt. He also went on to compare the time it takes to install solar panels in the U.S. and Germany. Whereas it takes only 8 days to install panels in Germany, New York State’s goal is to install panels in 100 days. Clearly, the U.S. has some progress to make. He then attributed Germany’s success to a nationwide standardized process that is consistent and transparent for all regions of the country. He also provided a regulatory framework, which reminded me Roseland’s community tools. This one involved regulation. It was said that the key to a successful regulatory framework is to remove barriers, create incentives, and finally enact standards.

Jayson Uppal then presented about solar panels and zoning in communities. This was around the time the yelling match began between the two audience members. I am glad that Mr. Uppal was kind enough to calm them and continue with his interesting presentation. He explained that planning for solar energy in your community involves visioning and long-range goal setting (topics that were covered in Roseland Chapter 13 Governing Sustainable Communities), public investment, development work, regulations and incentives, and plan making. Mr. Uppal covered much of how barriers can be removed by addressing your given municipal government. He advised that citizens should make solar a by-right accessory use and press legislative officials to streamline the approval process and reduce costs. He actually referenced Bloomington, IN when mentioning how well cities are streamlining the solar installation regulatory process.

It was a pleasure to listen to solar professionals in a public setting. I had never really been to a lecture outside of Bloomington so it was enjoyable to experience one with non-students. I now understand the difficulties with getting a group of people to discuss something in a civil manner. Since the lecture I have been really into the Solar Outreach Partnership Youtube Channel. One thing I still have trouble understanding is feed-in tariffs and the specifics of how the process works. Here is an interesting Solar Outreach video describing the payback period of installing solar panels: