Palo Alto to Vote on New Solar Program
February 15th, 2012 by 
On March 5, the Palo Alto (California) City Council will vote on a proposed new solar program–a solar feed-in tariff for the city’s municipal utility.
Some relevant facts:
4 MW of total contract capacity available for wholesale power.
Minimum project size is 100 kW.
Price: $0.14/kWh for 20 years.
If there is more interest in the program than available contract capacity, then potential participants will be asked to bid, and contract winners will be selected by best price. That’s a better way than a lottery.
The city estimates that the ‘green premium’ (i.e. above-market costs) for this program, if fully subscribed, would be $0.02/kWh, or 0.2% rate increase.
If fully subscribed, it would provide electricity sufficient to power the equivalent of 1,000 homes, and provide 0.6% of the city’s annual electricity usage.
Rebates are still available for home and business owners that want to go solar to lower utility bills.
You can get the details here.
Fourteen cents per kWh for a peaking resource (solar produces most when electricity is the most expensive) is a price that can scale. But will it be enough to work? Sacramento Municipal Utility District offered 100 MW at that price, and sold out instantly–but the winning projects were all around 5 MW in size. That’s ~25 acres per project, and with the price of land in Palo Alto–well, that’s an entirely different ballgame. Some developers tell us its too thin, other think they can make it work. Seems to us that it is worth finding out.
We think this is a program worth supporting…and if you live in Palo Alto and think so too, how about sending the City Council a note to that effect? Their website is here, or by email, here. We pre-filled the form a bit for you, but should really just use your own words.
Vote Solar is a non-profit grassroots organization working to fight climate change and foster economic opportunity by bringing solar energy into the mainstream.
photo: h080.
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