Solargate

Riot · #1 11-23-2011, 04:59 PM

Wind-Works.org

Quote:

After only three years of development, a small town in Florida has moved into the ranks of the solar big leagues worldwide.

The municipal utility serving Gainesville, Florida expects that by year end 2011 the town will have installed 7.3 MW of solar photovoltaic (solar PV) systems.

Quote:

The university town, home of the University of Florida, was one of the first in the US to implement a feed-in tariff for solar PV after a previous program using grants, tax credits, and net metering had failed to install any significant number of systems.

Gainesville Regional Utilities serves a population of 200,000 people. Thus, the utility's feed-in tariff program has resulted in the installation of 0.036 kW per person. This is equivalent to that in California which has had various programs for solar PV in place since the early 2000s.

However, Gainesville will have to increase its installation rate 20 times to catch up with the German state of Bavaria, which is the region with the world's highest concentration of solar PV of 0.60 kW per person. Puglia Italy is not far behind Bavaria with 0.49 kW per person.

This makes Gainesville 7th worldwide in Solar PV per capita compared with leading markets.

geeker2 · #2 11-23-2011, 07:37 PM

Solar and Wind only works because of the government subsidies. When they end - which will be very soon... those businesses will fall off a cliff.

Look for Natural Gas specifically Gas Turbine Combined Cycle Plants to boom. Look at the major players like Siemens, GE, MHI and Alstom it is exactly what they are positioning themselves for.

The good of it is that the natural gas path creates jobs....there is little or no after-market business with wind or solar. Even the initial construction is minimal as far as jobs are concerned for Wind and Solar.

If you let the free market prevail....it will...and it will be natural gas.