The good thing about solar power is that it can take place wherever the sun beats down. Now, of course, during the winter, metro Detroit isn't exactly blue skies all the time, but Detroit could push through that and become a hotbed -- a solar hotbed -- of activity.
Excerpt:
An unlikely location in the Midwest is setting up to be a locus of
solar activity: Detroit, Michigan, former world auto industry capital
as famed for its Model-Ts as it was for its smoke-belching factories,
is also at the center of a pilot solar incentive program offered by
utility company DTE Energy Co. through its subsidiary Detroit Edison.
With Michigan shooting for a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) of 10
percent by 2015, however, the pressure is on for utilities to
deliver—and DTE has stepped up to the plate.
SolarCurrents,
as the $25 million Detroit Edison program is called, provides rebates
of $2.40/watt—or, $2,400 per kilowatt—of installed solar capacity, a
lucrative rebate that could set off the price of a 5 kW system by a
hefty $12,000. It applies to solar photovoltaic systems
between 1 kW and 20 kW
in installed capacity, and the program will accommodate only up to 5 MW
of installations, so get your foot in the door while you can.
Read the entire article
here.
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