Apr 7 2010
The Los Angeles Business Council (LABC) in collaboration with the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation has released an in-depth study to examine the potential use of solar Feed-in Tariff (FiT) programs on location in Los Angeles County. The FiT program could facilitate residents and businesses to set up solar panels on parking lots and roof tops and sell the generated power to a local utility. Participants could receive payments from the utility for every kilowatt hour sent into the power grid.
The study, by relying on interviews with residents and businesses in Los Angeles County and sophisticated economic modeling, indicates that regional FiT programs have the potential to produce solar energy that is cost-effective and propel considerable economic growth. The implementation of the program could produce 500 MW of electrical energy within 10 years. By creating over 11,000 new local green jobs, the program can produce significant cost-savings for ratepayers, the LADWP and businesses. Moreover, businesses by means of federal tax credits can cover around 40% of the costs incurred in installing solar panels.
The Senior Managing Director of Trammell Crow Company Brad Cox commented that businesses by employing the FiT program can attain considerable operating cost reduction, recover the money spent on solar panels and green their operations. The benefit for the utilities could be the decreased electrical transmission costs and access to reliable solar power.
J.R. DeShazo, UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation’s Director stated that the FiT progam can attract clean technology companies to the Los Angeles region. Los Angeles is not the only region scheduled to adopt the FiT program, as Gainesville, Florida in March 2009 implemented an FiT program that had met its participation goals and is currently offering residential and commercial participants with return on solar investments of 4-5%.
The FiT program implemented in 2004 in Germany has helped create over 100,000 jobs ever since. A comprehensive FiT program when implemented in the Los Angeles area can attract clean technology manufacturers and other solar companies to the locality, which could propel economic growth, create jobs, and generate a sizeable amount of tax revenues.
On April 6, DeShazo will present the findings from the study at the fourth Annual Sustainability Summit of LABC at the Getty.
Source: http://www.labusinesscouncil.org/