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Philadelphia, PA
Philadelphia is a city with a strong commitment to urban sustainability. The city hopes to transform into a regional and national leader in clean energy development with a commitment to its community, job growth and renewable energy. Philadelphia’s long-term goal for solar energy is to fully utilize the potential of solar energy to safely, reliably, and cost-effectively displace the use of energy generated by fossil fuels. The city’s “Solar City Partnership” (the name of Philadelphia’s Solar America Cities partnership) will focus on bringing together a group of stakeholders with varying perspectives, a broad knowledge base, and experience who are in the position to identify and remove barriers to solar development in the city.
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Credit:phillysolarhomes.com
Maple Point, Philadelphia’s First Solar Neighborhood, is a new community of thirty-eight Energy Star 3- and 4-bedroom town homes, designed and built for performance and energy efficiency.
Credit:Photo by Edward Savaria, Jr.
In April 2008, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter (right) announced a major solar development project slated for a brownfield site at the former Philadelphia Navy Yard. Pictured with Mayor Nutter are Kathleen McGinty and representatives from Exelon and Epuron.
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Activities
Philadelphia plans to transform the local market for solar energy, with the objective of making solar technologies cost-competitive in the near- to mid-term. The Solar City Partnership will develop a plan to help Philadelphia generate 2.3 MW of solar electricity by 2011 and 57.8 MW by 2021, the city’s proportional share of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s solar installation goal. The city intends to add a large commercial-scale solar installation to its ongoing smaller scale efforts in order to achieve its goals.
- Develop and adopt a solar implementation plan that is replicable and fully integrated with updated citywide plans and institutional processes for guiding decisions on land use, economic development and infrastructure investment.
- Identify and implement cost-effective tools to overcome commercial and residential solar market barriers in Philadelphia and its partnering communities. This includes development of a “Solar Developer’s Guide to Solar Philadelphia.”
- Prioritize for development and initiate planning for solar energy installations that can cost-effectively achieve the city’s goals. This includes choosing technologies, targeting districts and sites, and creating financial structures that will support the installations.
Partners
- AE Polysilicon Corp.
- AFC First Financial Corp.
- AKF Engineers
- Ben Franklin Technology Partners
- City of Philadelphia (Project Lead)
- Clean Power Markets, Inc.
- Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission
- ICLEI—Local Governments for Sustainability
- MSEIA- Mid-Atlantic Solar Energy Industries Association
- PECO Energy
- Philadelphia Energy Development Authority
- Philadelphia University Engineering and Design Institute / Pennsylvania Green Growth Partnership
- Skanska USA Building, Inc.
- SunTechnics (now Conergy Americas)
- Sustainable Development Fund
- Villanova University
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