North America's Largest Municipal Utility Proposes Solar Feed-in Tariff (Los Angeles)

[jpak]

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/story?id=54209

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced to much fanfare on November 24 that the city's municipal utility would launch one of the continent's largest solar power programs. The mayor's plan would direct the city's municipal utility, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), to build or purchase 1,300 MW of solar energy by 2020.

Among provisions of the plan is a feed-in tariff for 150 MW of solar photovoltaics by 2016. This is the first official announcement of a feed-in tariff proposal by a California city, but it is not the first in the United States. Gainesville, Florida previously announced that it was formally considering a feed-in tariff to replace its solar rebate program.

Recently, the Palm Springs Desert Sun reported that Palm Desert, California was also considering solar feed-in tariffs after city officials toured Spain, one of the world's leading developers of solar energy. Spain uses feed-in tariffs.

LADWP is the continent's largest municipal utility. It was briefly at the forefront of solar energy development in California from 1999 to 2003, before inexplicably abandoning its program.

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[BR_Parkway]

1. Nice article - mention "feed in tariff" umpteen times, wish they had explained

what that was just once.

[jpak]

2. Feed-in tariffs pay solar power generators a fixed long-term price for the power they produce

It's a way to jump-start PV array deployment...and was wildly successful in Germany.

[BR_Parkway]

3. Great news then, thanks for the explanation