0:00:08a renewable energy cost have declined significantly in the past few years
0:00:14but the us still derives the majority of its power from fossil fuels
0:00:18here with me today to discuss or power as a viable clean energy alternative
0:00:23is a mean well known
0:00:25director of the g w solar institute
0:00:28since its founding in two thousand and eight
0:00:30the institute has become a respected source of research and analysis on solar energy
0:00:36welcome at me
0:00:38i know you come to g w with the background on capitol hill as one
0:00:41if you could describe a little bit about that work and how it intersects with
0:00:44your work it's or it's too
0:00:46well i worked on the helper over a decade in the senate and was part
0:00:50of a lot of the
0:00:52authoring in developing and really marketing of clean energy legislation some of it that underpins
0:00:58of the growth in the solar industry that we see today
0:01:00and
0:01:02i'm not trying to leverage that without my unique position here with there are research
0:01:07agenda an analysis that we were unable to do before
0:01:10and take that back to policymakers both in congress an executive branch but also the
0:01:14federal energy regulatory commission the world bank and
0:01:17provide them with pragmatic but also politically attuned solutions
0:01:21to some of these big palsy questions
0:01:24where we now in terms of our solar energy usage here in united states and
0:01:28how does this compare with other clean alternatives and the use of fossil fuels
0:01:33right well solar is that i entering a very exciting and dynamic period in terms
0:01:38of cost we seen justin last couple years the cost of solar panels themselves dropped
0:01:43dramatically which is really change the
0:01:44the landscape
0:01:46and
0:01:47even though solar is only a fraction of the energy used in our country today
0:01:51is about point three percent of the electricity generated and twenty twelve
0:01:55that's up seventy five percent just from twenty eleven
0:01:59and we're seeing great increase in the amount of solar installations or about a new
0:02:05solar array goes up every four minutes
0:02:07and we're seeing the cost a landscape really change solar is competitive and in about
0:02:13ten states right now and it's projected to be
0:02:16competitive and have price parity with other alternatives like fossil fuels
0:02:20in forty seven states by twenty sixteen
0:02:24so what you see solar energy going in the next few years
0:02:28well
0:02:29that's one the exciting things about this job in what i'm passionate about it is
0:02:33that solar
0:02:35really has a potential to
0:02:36be a key component of our energy supply and solve many the challenges that faces
0:02:42in terms of environmental concerns national security concerns and provide a more affordable source for
0:02:48a homeowners businesses and across our country and ideally be something that we could develop
0:02:54here in united states
0:02:57manufacturing and the installation and make it into of an economic opportunity for our country
0:03:03we see solar energies increases as really now just on the starting
0:03:09to really become a destructive force in the traditional utility model
0:03:14for over a hundred years we had a situation where we had centralize
0:03:19utilities essentially of and monopoly on a
0:03:21in a centralized
0:03:23distribution system and consumers by power as they use it
0:03:27now there's the dynamic where
0:03:29people can go solar a they all they have to do is
0:03:33call up a solar installer and some states
0:03:37they'll look at a satellite mapped to determine your eligibility
0:03:40and then the homeowners can have solar installed on the roof with no money down
0:03:44and then i'll be paying
0:03:46less in their electricity bills every month
0:03:48we have multi billion dollar solar arrays
0:03:51vast fields of mere is going up in the southwest as or which utilises a
0:03:55different technology but that feeds into a lot of the growing population centres around our
0:04:01country
0:04:03we also what this is to do is really focusing on that's how
0:04:06this destructive changes going to mean to the larger system
0:04:09in many ways of parallels a lot of the transformations in
0:04:13in
0:04:15cal's the five networks that we saw in telecom in transportation
0:04:20it's similar where there's a dynamic shift happening
0:04:24there's trillions of dollars in future economic investment that's going to be happened based on
0:04:30whatever policies
0:04:31and what the technology brings
0:04:35well you know that our students are very interested in learning more about clean energy
0:04:40tell us how the solar institute interacts with the g w community
0:04:45well we're a very excited and pleased to be part of
0:04:48the great
0:04:49student body that we have here
0:04:51their passion in intellect or unmatched and what the institute we have interns a come
0:04:57work with us
0:04:58we teach classes about solar energy
0:05:00and we provide a lot of students come to us with research questions on policy
0:05:05papers that there
0:05:06working on in solar energy or and we support thesis work enough for our phd
0:05:13students
0:05:14so it's really exciting time here all the time from students how interested they are
0:05:18in clean energy
0:05:19and this rising next generation really wants to be part of this clean energy future
0:05:26what clean energy is certainly a topic that we all care deeply about i want
0:05:30to thank a meat for the discussion and for the work that it does at
0:05:34the g w solar institute in the area of public policy
0:05:39thanks