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.
All Articles
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Feed-in tariff champion Hermann Scheer leaves big legacy
The recent death of German renewable energy advocate Hermann Scheer -- dubbed the sun king or even the Stalin of renewables -- is a unique opportunity to reflect on his largest legacy, the feed-in tariff, a policy responsible for the rise of the renewable energy industry.
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The focus on big projects holds back solar in U.S.
While the government lavishes loans and expedites project reviews on public land for multi-megawatt solar projects, it's solar PV that's turning sunshine into electricity.
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Community solar: Better on the roof?
Our report on community solar power has garnered a response from the Clean Energy Collective, which has made us reevaluate our grading system.
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Distributed, small-scale solar competes with large-scale PV
Distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) proponents have recognized that solar has economies of scale -- larger installations generally have lower installed costs per watt of peak capacity. But new data suggests that these economies are significantly smaller than previously believed. This is good news for solar and great news for the renewable energy movement.
