A new report ranks the top states for solar power. Not all of them are bathed in sunshine.
Oregon Department of Transportation/Flickr
Environment Oregon wants its home state to add more solar power to its energy mix. In a report released Tuesday, the group ranks 12 states that are leading on solar installations.
Oregon isn’t one of them. Neither are Washington or Idaho.
The report, “Lighting The Way: What We Can Learn From America’s Top 12 Solar States,” used data from the Solar Energy Industries Association to rank the states with the most solar power per person.
They are, in order: Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii, New Jersey, New Mexico, California, Delaware, Colorado, Vermont, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Maryland. (Oregon is lucky number 13, Washington ranks 25 and Idaho wasn’t ranked.)
Notice only some of those “dazzling dozen” states are bathed in sunshine.
The report concludes the reason these states are leading on solar installations is because they have policies that support solar power, such as:
- Rebates, grants and tax credits that provide financial incentives to install solar panels.
- Mandatory requirements for how much of a utility's electricity must come from renewable sources. Oregon and Washington have such requirements, but other states – five on the top 12 list – have specific targets for solar alone.
- Net metering, which pays consumers the full retail rate for extra solar power they supply to the grid. Oregon and Washington also offer consumers this incentive; Idaho does not.
Other ways the “dazzling dozen” are leading in solar energy development, according to the report: They make it easy for people to connect solar panels to the grid, and they allow for creative ways of financing solar installations to reduce the up-front costs and spread them out over time in property tax or utility bills.
Environment Oregon says the country is only tapping a fraction of its solar potential. The group’s report concludes the majority of U.S. states could be generating more than 20 percent of their electricity from rooftop solar panels.
Environment Oregon says Oregon only gets 1 percent of its electricity from solar power, and it’s asking Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber to set a goal of raising that number to 10 percent by 2025.
-- Cassandra Profita
