We Can't Drill Our Way Out of This Mess
"With oil hitting $90 a barrel last Friday, it's economically naive to think that we can drill our way out of this energy mess," said Barry Cinnamon, CEO of Akeena Solar and president of the California Solar Energy Industry Association. "Using the free space over our heads for solar makes the most sense.

"It's cheaper to install solar on rooftops than to pay utilities to build gigantic power plants - and then trying to feed that power into our already congested electric grid. Instead of replacing one big power plant with another, we need to be encouraging customers to generate the electricity they need on their own rooftops."

For example, in California -- which accounts for 85 per cent of the U.S. residential solar market -- the California Solar Incentive Program will save $8 billion that energy customers otherwise would pay. That's not even counting an additional $1 billion in economic and environmental savings. The fundamental reason for these dramatic savings is that rooftop solar power systems (also called Distributed Generation), avoid the need to build new utility power generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure.

Congress Can Act
A critical piece of legislation is before Congress now, Cinnamon said. Both the House and Senate are considering bills that would provide incentives that would jumpstart demand for rooftop solar power systems. If the 30% residential tax credit were passed without the current $2,000 cap, this new legislation would effectively halve the payback period for many homeowners.

"There's nothing that our lawmakers could do that would get us out of this energy and environmental mess faster than encouraging the installation of rooftop solar," Cinnamon said. "Governments all over the world - including Japan, Germany and Spain -- have already figured this out."

New Technologies Reduce Costs
The solar industry is not standing still while these incentives are being considered. Improvements in business efficiency, reductions in red tape and new solar technologies are all being deployed to improve the economics of solar power. For example, Akeena Solar recently introduced the first radical improvement in rooftop solar systems in more than a decade. Called Andalay, this new system integrates all wiring, grounding and racking into the panels themselves.

"Andalay cuts the cost of rooftop labor by more than 50 percent, decreases parts by more than 70 percent, cuts installation costs - and results in handsome solar panels that look like skylights," Cinnamon said. "The combination of Andalay and the legislation before Congress makes the solar equation even more attractive."

Details about these industry and technology improvements can be found in two White Papers: "Making Solar Easy: Removing the Barriers to a Solar Powered America" and "Andalay: Now There's a Whole New Look to Solar Power."

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