Growing sunshine, one garden at a time!

Governor Ritter signs the SUN Act into law.

Thought vegetables were the only things you could grow in a garden plot? Think again. Thanks to the recent passage of the Solar Uniting Neighborhoods Act (SUN Act for short) by the Colorado legislature, individuals can now claim the 30% federal tax credit for purchasing solar panels even if those panels are hosted on a different property. Especially for those who live in apartments or a shady area and wouldn’t otherwise be able to host their solar panels, the new law offers an exciting opportunity.

As Joy Hughes, Founder of the Solar Gardens Institute and member of the DUG community explains, 

“Colorado has entered the world of community-supported energy with the new Community Solar Gardens Act.  This will allow energy to be produced locally the way we are learning to produce our food. Under the new law, ten or more electricity customers can join forces and own their own solar panels in a neighborhood power plant… People might need a solar garden for the same reasons they join community food gardens - they care about ecology, and might live in an apartment or shaded by trees that limit sunshine.”

According to the Solar Gardens Institute website, so far, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, Washington and Colorado all have passed legislation that allows for community solar gardens. Sunny Arizona is in the process of passing a bill of its’ own, while California has passed solar garden legislation only for low-income neighborhoods.

While they might seem like a no-brainer solution to clean energy, not to mention a great way to foster community, critics point out that the new law might have some drawbacks. Tom Konrad, from Clean Energy Wonk, explains:

"My greatest concern with the bill is not that it will cause a move towards large installations, but that it will lead to more ground-mounted installations taking up open space, contributing to Energy Sprawl. No matter what you think about the economics of photovoltaics, one advantage that they have over almost every other type of electricity generation (both fossil and renewable) is that they can be placed on otherwise unused rooftops and other structures, giving a use to otherwise wasted space. Only energy efficiency and conservation have less physical impact on the environment than rooftop solar... Any law which makes solar more likely to be ground-mounted than rooftop is a step in the wrong direction. I think the bill should be amended to prohibit CSGs from being ground-mounted, effectively limiting them to large rooftops and other structures such as awnings for parking lots."

To read the full blog from which this quote was taken, click here. 

Despite concerns about energy sprawl, it seems that if they are implemented thoughtfully, community solar gardens have tremendous potential to bring people together as well as facilitate the move towards energy independence for both individuals and communities.  

To learn more about solar gardens in Colorado, visit solargardens.org. To read about the timeline of the SUN legislation, visit Ecopolitology.org.