Solar Helps Cities Meet Sustainability Goals

Solar deployment has increased rapidly in the last 10 years, allowing more communities to access the benefits of solar photovoltaics (PV). This increase has also allowed solar to play an important role in local plans such as resilience planning, sustainability planning, and climate action planning.

As cities answer the calls from their taxpayers to increase their efforts to protect the environment, some are taking it a step further by creating a “climate action plan.” This is a tool that helps cities take a comprehensive and strategic approach to their sustainability efforts. 

Establishing Sustainability Goals

It’s not only larger metro-area cities that are adopting climate action plans. Communities as small as Grand Marais (population 1,337) and La Crescent (population 5,276) have plans to reduce carbon emissions by taking actions like retrofitting aging properties, promoting solar, and creating more walkable, bikeable streets.

Climate action plans allow for many different avenues to reduce a community’s carbon footprint, like taking steps towards energy efficiency, organizing and strategizing a local solar effort, updating local policies, zoning codes and processes, and developing local workforce training and education programs. 

Fullfilling Your Goal with Solar

Ultimately, the largest step a community can take towards their climate action plan is to install solar on or near public buildings that directly offset energy expense and power the buildings and infrastructure. 

For many communities there has been a steep barrier to entry into installing on-site solar due to the high upfront cost of the solar installation and being a non-taxable entity, communities are unable to access the lucrative tax credits available to businesses and individuals that install solar. However, there is a solution to this problem.

Funding Your Solar Array

Innovative financing models through iDEAL Energies’ allow for communities to be able to receive the benefits of the tax credits while installing solar for no upfront cost and save money day 1 with energy expense savings. These financing models work by providing 100% financing toward the arrays and the community’s only financial obligation to the system is to purchase the power it creates at a discount to what they currently pay their utility for a term. Following this term, they receive all energy from the solar array for free for the remaining life of the system. 

iDEAL Solution

To date, iDEAL Energies has helped 16 Minnesota cities meet their renewable energy goals with on-site solar. Contact iDEAL today to see if on-site solar energy is a climate solution for your community.

About iDEAL