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