Articles by John Farrell
John Farrell is the author of Energy Self-Reliant States and a senior researcher at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, where he focuses on renewable energy policy.
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If you like solar, tell your utility to publish this map
Distributed energy generation (like solar) brings unique and valuable benefits to the electric grid. But capturing those benefits means solar and other renewable energy developers must find the best places to plug in to the grid, e.g. where demand is high or infrastructure is stressed. The cost to connect distributed generation may also be lower […]
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Wind farm sizes suggest bigger is no better
This post originally appeared on Energy Self-Reliant States, a resource of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s New Rules Project. Have wind developers hit a financial sweet spot above which more turbines results in disproportionate land acquisition and lease costs? Are crane and construction economies of scale no greater? Are NIMBY concerns mitigated with a smaller […]
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Solar gardens to bring small-d democratic solar power to Colorado
Colorado is the first U.S. state to follow in Canada’s footsteps democratizing solar power.This post originally appeared on Energy Self-Reliant States, a resource of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s New Rules Project. Want to go solar but you have a shady roof? You rent? You don’t have $40,000? Last year, Colorado passed the first state […]
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Solar is contagious
This post originally appeared on Energy Self-Reliant States, a resource of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s New Rules Project. Adam Browning of Vote Solar wrote about a recent study of the peer pressure effect of solar photovoltaic (PV) adoption. The study [PDF] notes that for every 1 percent increase in the number of installations in […]
