LABC garnered an enormous win—after 3 years of research, outreach and advocacy on the part of the LABC and our CLEAN LA Solar Coalition partners, LABC and the Coalition successfully carved out a major role for the private sector to continue benefitting from solar on commercial, industrial and retail rooftops. In addition this program will create an opportunity to create a new market on multi-family apartment buildings. The new solar feed-in tariff (FiT) program will be a major economic driver for Los Angeles, creating 4,500 jobs and generating a half-billion dollars in economic investment and will generate over $300 million in federal tax credits for LA businesses by 2016.
Last Friday, the Los Angeles Board of Water and Power Commissioners voted to approve the 100-megawatt feed-in tariff (FiT) program for Los Angeles, clearing the way for the largest urban rooftop solar program of its kind in the nation. The vote authorizes the DWP to move forward this February and to begin to offer the first of five tranches of 20 megawatts.
The program establishes a fixed price of 17 cents per kilowatt-hour, which the DWP staff says will be a determining factor to encourage participation. We are particularly proud of the inclusion of a “set-aside” allocation for small projects (30-150kw) in each of the five 20-megawatt allocations. The allocation for small projects will ensure that all Angelenos can participate—local businesses, small warehouses, and multi-family residential buildings will benefit from the program.
We thank Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa who helped set the CLEAN LA Solar plan in motion in 2008, when he ambitiously called for over a gigawatt of new solar energy to be created in Los Angeles. The program would not have been successful without his leadership and the leadership of two key Los Angeles City Council leaders, Eric Garcetti and Jan Perry. We are grateful to the DWP leadership and staff who worked to tirelessly on making this program a reality.
We look forward to the launch of the first tranche of 20 MWs in February and will host a citywide event welcoming business participants in this program. Now that LA’s FiT program is fully adopted, it is up to us to make sure it is an unequivocal success!
Photo from left: Celebrating the FiT at DWP Headquarters with Evan Gillespie, Sierra Club; Mary Leslie, LABC; Cecilia Aguillon, Kyocera Solar; Michelle Garakian, LABC; Michelle Kinman, Environment California
