Top Story 

Time for North Carolina to grow solar

We have the power and conditions are ripe

This summer, Environment North Carolina is launching an all-out effort to make North Carolina a solar powerhouse. The goal: 100,000 solar roofs—homes, businesses and public buildings of all sorts—by 2020.    

Last year, we helped renew federal tax credits for investing in solar power.  And earlier in 2009, we helped pass the president’s green economic recovery package—with clean, renewable sources of power and energy conservation as the centerpiece. This year, we’ll work to renew and expand North Carolina’s own solar-investment and manufacturing tax credits.  And we’ll work for a dramatic increase in the amount of solar power the state is required to purchase and produce.

We will build a powerful coalition of business owners, environmental advocates, mayors, and state legislators. And we will knock on 30,000 doors across the state to build support and get Gov. Bev Perdue and lawmakers to commit to go solar.

North Carolina has the potential

Conditions are ripe for our state to increase its output of energy from the sun by a factor of 25. With four hours of peak sun per day, North Carolina has twice as much solar potential as Germany, the world’s solar leader. And, through the production, installation and servicing of solar panels, solar energy creates more than three times as many jobs as the coal industry.

With our top-notch university system and high-tech hub in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina has world-renowned scientists and innovators working every day on solar energy. With their help, solar technology is cheaper, more attractive and more effective at capturing the sun’s rays than ever before. Local investors and entrepreneurs have already created the world’s largest installation of solar cooling and heating technology in the world in Fletcher, North Carolina. SunEdison is planning to build the world’s largest solar photovoltaic power plant in Davidson County.

There is already a demonstrated commitment from policy makers to promote solar energy. In 1977, the state created one of the nation’s most generous tax credits for investing in solar energy. Thirty years later, it became the first in the Southeast to adopt a renewable electricity standard, including a requirement for solar power.