Solar Powered Economic Engine

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The message in Rob DeLine’s article published in the latest issue of Fortnightly SPARK is clear and simple: solar energy can provide numerous economic benefits for local communities, businesses, consumers and utilities while delivering affordable clean renewable electricity. DeLine, a Managing Director in Applied’s Solar Group and fellow blogger on this site discusses how wholesale distributed generation can become a viable self-sustaining economic growth engine. According to DeLine, such a solar power generation business model has been proven in Europe and Asia and makes good sense for the US.

Here’s what I think is a key takeaway excerpt: “The economic impact of an integrated wholesale distributed generation ecosystem can bring a steady stream of jobs to a community. By our estimates, about 850 short-term jobs will be created by the construction of a solar plant, and another 500 permanent jobs after the plant is in production. And assuming the community uses the output of the factory to build out local solar energy, another 1,500 jobs are required on an ongoing basis.”

I encourage you to read his article here.

Fortnightly SPARK is an e-newsletter of Public Utilities Reports Inc., the leading provider of information and analysis to the electric, natural gas, water and telecom industries.

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Comments

There is no substitute for grid parity

Submitted by BrianM on Tue, 05/04/2010 - 10:39.

Yes jobs can be created for solar or any other alt energy if someone pays for it. But when and if we are forever dependent on subsidies from governments, the jobs created will actually be at the expense of a greater number of jobs from the private sector. It's a given. We must not delude ourselves that anything else is the truth. This makes it imperative that we push as hard as possible to get to grid parity unless we just want to be engaged in a niche market.