NYT: Mayor Bloomberg Turns Attention To Solar Power

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Just one day after Albany’s refusal to support congestion pricing, Mayor Michael Bloomberg reaffirmed his strong support for increased solar power deployment in NYC in a keynote address delivered at Newsweek’s second annual Global Environmental Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C.

Next week will mark the year anniversary of the release of PlaNYC, the Mayor’s ambitious longterm sustainability blueprint for development and planning in the five boroughs over the next two decades. While congestion pricing was the component of the plan that certainly garnered the greatest amount of attention over the past 12 months, the proposal was one of over 120 separate recommendations that were introduced in the plan and which pertain to key infrastructure, environmental and quality of life-related categories including transportation, open space development, air and water quality, energy use and climate change.

Counted among the plan’s energy recommendations are some visionary and potentially high-impact policy measures intended to induce solar photovoltaic development in the five boroughs. These include a property tax abatement for solar system owners; the investigation of new varying electricity rate structures favorable to solar deployment (i.e. “real time pricing”); as well as Solar One’s own project to construct Solar 2, a state-of-the-art solar-powered learning and cultural center to be located at our current site in Stuyvesant Cove Park.

As reported by Sewell Chan on the New York Times’ City Room Blog, the Mayor’s address yesterday focused on the City’s plan to install 2 MW of solar PV on 11 public buildings in the near term. This amount would roughly double the amount of solar - private and public - that New York currently has online, and would help galvanize the local market.

(The recommendations can be viewed on pages 112 and 113 of the PlaNYC report, which can be downloaded, here.)

Solar One’s new I Heart PV campaign, which is pushing for stronger solar policies in New York State through grassroots citizen engagement, will launch a series of activities to forward its immediate goals beginning next weekend - exactly one year after the initial release of PlaNYC. The Mayor’s bold solar recommendations - in particular the property tax abatement mentioned above - are included among a number of policy proposals that the campaign seeks to realize. The I Heart PV web page, to be hosted on this site, will be up and running by next week. Stay tuned and be in touch if you or anyone you know is interested in getting involved in the effort.

If you are interested in hosting an informative free, 1-hour workshop in your community about solar’s potential in NYC and the I Heart PV campaign’s current goals, please contact campaign organizer Chris Neidl (neidl@solar1.org).


Posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 at 8:12 am | Tagged in Solar One | posted by Neidl

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