After eight years of relative inactivity on climate change, the Department of Energy has suddenly sprung into lockstep with the sustainability revolution. First organizing a big mixer back in June so renewable energy entrepreneurs could mingle with a little venture cap, and now channeling a fat 24 million dollars in funding into solar energy projects for fiscal year 2008.

DOE Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy John Mizroch—who could probably save a not insignificant amount of energy by shortening his title—explained the move to the media:

“Harnessing the natural and abundant power of the sun and cost-effectively converting it into energy is an important component of our comprehensive strategy to commercialize and deploy advanced, clean, alternative technologies to enhance our energy security and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

“Our investment in these grid integration projects will lay the groundwork for high levels of solar photovoltaic market penetration to help meet the President's goal of making solar power cost-competitive with conventional sources of electricity.”

The DOE funding will be meted out to 12 projects, collectively referred to as SEGIS, or the Solar Energy Grid Integration Systems, which have been initiated by organizations ranging from industrial giant General Electric, to smaller players like Petra Solar, to large research institutions, such as the University of Central Florida. The projects differ, too, in that they focus on different steps of improving the integration of solar into the United States energy supply. Massachusetts firm Premium Power plans to work on developing an improved inverter to increase solar’s cost viability, while a consortium in Oregon looks to find the optimal performance levels of different solar technologies. 

While it’s good to see some tax dollars going into serious attempts at large-scale integration of renewable technologies, the program still seems to lack some obvious features. With the exception of projects in Florida and Virginia, all the work sites are to be located in either the Northeast/Great Lakes region, or along the Pacific coast. Future investments in solar grid integration must make more effort to cover the sprawling cities of Texas and the Southwest, where increasing costs of non-renewable energy are likely to bring on the largest economic impact, and where environmental conditions are prime for solar power generation. 

That having been said, getting the government—outside the military, that is—to finally take the shift to sustainability seriously is a huge step. It provides legitimacy to the concept, as well as reassurance for private investors, which is extremely important, given current levels of green-sector market volatility.

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DOE Guarantees Loans for Renewable Energy
DOE Spotlights New Crop of 'Solar Cities'
Solar Showdown in the Desert

Photo by Flickr user twentyeight