Solar America Cities

Through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar America Cities partnership, a select group of U.S. cities is working to accelerate the adoption of solar energy technologies for a cleaner, more secure energy future. These Solar America City partnerships include the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), national laboratories, 25 cities across the United States, and a variety of municipal, county, and state agencies, universities, solar companies, utilities, developers, and non-profit organizations. These partners have made a commitment to power their municipalities with clean, safe, reliable energy—solar energy.

San Diego is California’s second largest city, and the eighth largest in the nation. The city has experienced rapid growth, which has led to a significant increase in the city’s energy demand. San Diego’s Solar America Cities project aims to improve the sustainability of the region by building an energy infrastructure that is diversified, reliable, and as self-contained as possible. Solar energy offers these attributes, and San Diego’s climate makes it well suited for extensive solar power development.

Even with the global financial crisis, industry analysts predict the solar market will expand dramatically in the next decade and generate hundreds of thousands of “greentech” jobs nationwide. The growth will be fueled by government mandates for utilities to use low-polluting sources of energy by innovative financing for buying solar power systems and by a projected boom in the availability of solar panels.

Project Description

San Diego will provide a blueprint for the nation through its “Sustainable Energy 2050 Plan,” which will create an energy infrastructure capable of supporting the region on a sustainable path. Where appropriate, San Diego will work in partnership with local, state, and federal representatives to realize its plan. In this project, San Diego is addressing key issues necessary for a sustainable solar infrastructure, including tariffs, data management, expedited permitting, strengthened private-sector involvement, training and technical expertise, and long-term implementation.