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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From soybeans to solar – a community energy project sprouts from Wisconsin fields
Just north of Delavan, Wisconsin, is Dan Osborne’s nursery farm. Where you once found a bean field now sit 80 solar panels on 100 tracking towers, generating renewable power for over 125 homes. It’s a small, but successful community-owned energy harvest. The solar farm was developed by Convergence Energy of Lake Geneva, WI and has […]
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Utility “Gets Ready” for More Local Energy in Hawai’i
Hawai’an solar advocates are celebrating after the island state’s largest utility, Hawai’ian Electric (HECO) filed a plan with the public utility commission to take a “proactive approach” to adding more distributed solar to their grid system. Utilities across the country typically use “conservative blanket limits” on the amount of renewable energy allowed on local circuits […]
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Cloudy Days for a Washington-State Community Solar Effort
The Backbone Campaign’s community solar project was motivated by a generous production incentive offered in Washington State for solar projects installed on public property. Campaign organizer Bill Moyer and many residents of King County, WA, hoped to keep more energy dollars in the local economy by using this incentive to create a community solar project […]
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Solar cooperative gets panels on 1 in 10 roofs in Mt. Pleasant neighborhood of DC
What began as a group of neighbors hoping to reduce their impact on global warming has since become a major force for solar advocacy in Washington, DC. The Mount Pleasant Solar Cooperative was started by two teenage boys who wanted to make solar power convenient and affordable through a bulk-purchase program. Along the way, the […]
