LABC’s Solar Strides

By Adam Jacobson, Director of Communications, LA Business Council

The LA Business Council has been leading the charge to advance an ambitious solar policy in LA. We recently completed two studies in partnership with UCLA that illustrate how a 600-megawatt solar Feed-in Tariff (FiT) program would benefit the city. This program would allow businesses, nonprofits and homeowners to install solar panels on their roofs and get paid by the LADWP for the power those panels generate.

Shiny panels!

Our research shows that a FiT would produce long-term cost savings for ratepayers while creating over 11,000 clean tech jobs in the city of LA, and an additional 7,000 indirect jobs. A new solar-focused value chain would be created with new jobs in sectors such as equipment manufacturing and assembly, financing, legal services, solar installation, and system construction, monitoring, reporting, operations and maintenance. This promising economic development data, along with the clear environmental benefits of large-scale solar energy generation in the LA Basin, has helped us partner with a broad group of business, environmental, nonprofit and union leaders to form a LA Solar FiT Coalition.

LA’s policymakers are also excited about the idea of a FiT. Councilwoman Jan Perry, chair of Energy and Environment Committee, filed a motion last month asking the Chief Legislative Analyst (CLA) to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the LABC Coalition’s proposed solar FiT program within 45 days. Watch the video we produced about the day’s proceedings here:

For more information on the proposal to create a FiT for LA, please visit SolarFiT4LA.org