“Go Solar” Colorado! 

The 2008 legislative session marked the beginning of a new journey for Colorado’s new energy economy—we launched a quest to bring half a million solar roofs to Colorado in the next decade.

And why not? Colorado has the fifth best solar resources in the country, and by tapping just 2 percent of the solar potential of the San Luis Valley, we could power half the state.

Fortunately, with Environment Colorado and Gov. Ritter in the lead, our state doubled the renewable energy target to 20 percent in 2007. But there’s no time to sit back and relax.

“It’s time for Colorado to go solar,” said Legislative Program Director Pam Kiely. “We can continue to promote robust growth in the homegrown energy industry and ensure that participation in the new energy economy is accessible and affordable to homeowners and businesses across the state.”

Expanding the new energy economy

This session, Environment Colorado committed our efforts to giving all Coloradans the opportunity to participate in building the new energy economy and to help put the state at the forefront of the fight against global warming. We moved a suite of bills through the state Legislature this year designed to do just that.

“The ‘Go Solar!’ legislative package will remove barriers and create incentives for renewable energy in Colorado,” said Kiely. “This package will bring renewable energy to homes and businesses across the state.”

Right now, a problem for most Coloradans is that major investments in renewable energy systems and large-scale efficiency improvements require a major up-front cost and could take many years to pay for themselves.

“To solve this problem,” explained Keith Hay, energy advocate with Environment Colorado, “we’re helping to develop an innovative financing system to bring the renewable energy economy home.”

Clean, homegrown power for Colorado

We also worked with groups such as the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union and companies such as Sun Edison to remove barriers and create incentives for homeowners and businesses to install solar and wind power. Xcel Energy was one of the few utilities that offered a fair market rate for homeowners who returned excess homegrown electricity to the grid. We passed the Homegrown Power Act to expand these programs statewide so that more Coloradans can invest in clean energy.

Finally, the third big component of the “Go Solar” campaign was to harness solar resources in places such as the San Luis Valley and southeastern Colorado to build solar power plants that can power homes across the state and beyond.

“Utility-scale solar power plants have been in use for almost 20 years in the United States,” said Hay. “Today’s systems are even more efficient and reliable. These systems can dispatch clean power to meet Colorado’s electricity needs at a very competitive price.”