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At last, what every wannabe solar homeowner in California has been waiting for…on Feburary 26, the humble net metering cap was raised from 2.5% to 5%.  Net metering allows solar power generators to get some financial benefit when they generate more power than they use rather than making an involuntary gift of free electricity to their utility company.

Here’s how net metering works:  When your solar panels generate power, that power is sucked into the giant power grid that serves your area. If, at the end of the year, you have consumed less electricity than you fed into the grid, then you’re entitled to an offset on your electric bill.  Seems only fair, right?

Until last week, utilities only had to offer customers the excess power generation credit until the point at which the utility’s was meeting 2.5% of its peak load with solar power generated by its customers (at which point they could turn customers away from the program).  Now, utilities will have to keep paying out the credit until they’re getting 5% of their electricity from solar (which isn’t going to happen for several years).  This means lots of new room in the net metering program for tens of thousands of homeowners, schools, municipalities and businesses that install solar systems in the years ahead.

Amen.

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With public school budgets being cut to the bone, this may seem like an unlikely time for school districts to start installing solar PV systems.  But a number of new incentives make this the ideal time for schools to solarize.

The California Department of Education estimates that school districts spend $132 per student per year on energy-that means our nearly bankrupt state is spending $700 million a year burning fossil fuels.

More than 35 schools in California have gone solar, including Berkeley’s own Washington Elementary.  Most participated in the California Solar Schools Program, which is now closed, but a handful have begun to take advantage of new incentives and attractive financing mechanisms, such as PPAs (Power Purchase Agreements) that allow the school district to pay the system off over time.

If you’d like to help your kid’s school save money and the planet, the Helios Project has all the tools you need to get started.  Independent schools, unfortunately, are not eligible for many of the incentives available to public schools, but still may be able to find a commercial installer who will offer a PPA or a lender who can loan the money at a favorable enough interest rate that the school will still save money in the long run.

The California Energy Commission also has some other tips for how schools can save money by conserving energy, including turning out lights in empty classrooms, turning down the thermostat and fixing leaky hot water faucets.   And be sure to check out the free solar curricular resources offered by the SunPower Foundation.

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At this year’s TED conference, Bill Gates issued a clarion call for “energy miracles” that will bring global carbon emissions down to zero.  Gates’ philanthropic focus has been on education, vaccines and malaria but, in his 2010 TED speech, he said that his one wish for the next fifty years is not to pick the next President nor to discover a silver bullet vaccine–it is the global deployment of zero-emissions energy technology at half the current price.

Reflect for a moment on how earth-shattering (or, should I say, “earth-saving”) Gates’ epiphany could be:  Here’s one of the wealthiest and most influential individuals on the planet asserting what we climate freaks have been trying to communicate for the past decade–that if we want to have a life-sustaining planet, we can and must get to zero.  And when Bill Gates talks, people with money listen.

Gates begins the talk with a simple math equation even I was able to understand:  Global CO2 levels = # of people on the planet  x services people use (eg. electricity, food) x energy required per service x CO2 per unit of energy.  As you might recall from 4th grade, if the product of an equation is zero, at least one of the factors being multiplied must be zero.  Of all the factors, the only one that could conceivably be reduced to zero is the amount of CO2 per unit of energy.  To do so will require major advances in the scale and reliability of five energy technologies–solar PV, solar thermal, wind, nuclear and carbon capture.  Gates believes we must work intensively on all five fronts by investing heavily in research & development and creating market incentives to move away from fossil fuels.

We couldn’t agree more (with respect to the first three energy technologies on Gates’ list).  Dubious and unsafe technologies aside, we applaud Gates for embracing the gravity of our energy predicament and using his platform to inspire innovation.

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Yesterday, Sungevity was presented a Green Business Award by the San Francisco Business Times for its leadership in solar installation! Pretty exciting, no?

We are very honored to receive this award—and ecstatic that our unique online platform is catching on! By cutting out those expensive site visits, we have been able to make solar more affordable for the average homeowner. We are proud to have the opportunity to educate and empower people to generate their own energy.

Glad to know the Business Times recognizes our online sales model as a bright idea!

To learn more, check out the full story on our award here!

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Last night I had the privilege of attending a great event at the Oakland Museum of California “reporting back on the Dream Reborn Conference” in Memphis, TN on April 4th; the 40th Anniversary of the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. The theme of the conference was around building a green economy across America strong enough to lift people out of poverty while protecting the planet.

The report back was full of inspiring stories about clean energy companies collaborating with communities around the USA to train and employ people in meaningful careers; rewiring America, retrofitting buildings to be energy efficient and installing solar panels. Sungevity was proud to be one of the corporate sponsors of the event. This great video captures some of the mood of the moment:

I wasn’t in Memphis but I got just as excited at the event in Oakland last night about the huge potential of this movement for meaningful careers and green collar jobs (check out the pic of me speaking below). The subtitle of the event was “Building the Movement in California” for green jobs not jails. There was lots of great information from Green for All, a national campaign pushing Washington to support green workforce development; and the Ella Baker Center.

We have worked with this organization’s Green Collar Jobs Campaign since last year and proudly sit on the Oakland Green Employer Workforce Council, which is helping Oakland (and hopefully Richmond, Berkeley and Emeryville that make up the Clean Tech Corridor) develop training programs for the clean energy industry.

Another awesome organization featured at last nights event is Solar Richmond, whose trainees we hope to have on roofs from this July as part of their program. Long-term we’d like to see a Solar Danville, Solar Fresno and Solar San Bernadino. Ultimately we’d love to be supporting and providing work to people coming through training programs by groups like these across the country. That’s our Dream.

Shine on, dannyk.

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