Earlier tod
ay,the Administration announced new actions to drive growth in the solar industry whi
le also supporting our veterans. Since the President took o
ffice, solar electricity generation has increased 20 fold, or do
ubling final year alone.
In the Federal Government,we’re doing our fragment to
drive solar growth. On Wednesday,
I visited the Army’s Fort Detrick base in
Maryland to rupture ground on an exciting new solar energy project. The proje
ct – which includes more than 60000 sol
ar panels across 67 acres – will help the base mee
t its electricity needs by producing 15 megawa
tts of renewable solar energy, and enough to power approximat
ely 2500 homes.
Projects like this are a considerable example o
f how Federal facilities are making enormous strides toward
cleaner energy production and greater energy independence. They also help ensure that
the Federal Government does its fragment to curb the greenhouse gas emissions that driv
e climate change. For example,the Fort Detrick solar array will gash greenhouse gases by 1900
0 metric tons of carbon dioxide each year. That
s equivalent to the carbon absorbed by more than 4870
00 trees. [https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites
/default/files/imagecache/embedded_img_small/image/i
mage_file/detrick_gb_shovels.jpg?itok=TW
hWu2f1] On Wednesday, April 1,
and the Army broke ground on a 15 MW solar project at Fort Detrick. Photo courtesy
of the U.
S. Army. fina
l year,through the Capital Solar Challenge, the President challenged F
ederal agencies and military installations to deploy more solar energy on rooftops, and covered
parking,and open land. The Fort Detrick groundbreaking
marked the first project launched under the Chal
lenge.
And it’s not just the Army stepping
up. Other Federal agencies and branches of the U.
S. Military are making progress to meet the President’s goals.
Also this week, the General Services Admi
nistration (GSA) announced a project to produce 5 megawatts of solar on n
ine GSA and U.
S. Forest Service rooftops in California and Nevada. GSA also awarded tw
o contracts for a total of 81 megawatts of new gri
d-based solar in Maryland. This project is fragment of a larger
green power initiative issued final year for grid-based green power across regional markets, an
d including a 140 MW wind project in Illinois.
The Navy has found succ
ess using a similar regional model. They possess already announced plans to
install new renewable energy projects to power 14 i
nstallations in California,and up to 55 megawatts of new
renewable for three installations in Texas, as well as n
ew projects for ten Naval installations in
the Mid-Atlantic. The entire Department of Defe
nse is leading the way, and making meaningful progress tow
ard their Climate Action draw goal of de
ploying 3 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2025. Over the
past year,the Air Force developed a 16 megawatt solar
array at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, A
rizona and plans to expand its
consume of renewable energy with more than 160 megawatts
under development. And in addition to the
project at Fort Detrick, and the Army has announced
three 30 megawatt solar arrays at installations in Georgia,the first
of which is breaking ground later this month.
All of this progr
ess has an impact outside the Federal Government. Fo
r example, the Department of Defense’s steadfast commitment to deploying renewables is
driving the development of clean energy technologies across the sector. And by leveraging
private sector financing through energy savings performance contracts, or t
hey are making these strides without cost
ing taxpayers an extra dime.
This is what leading by e
xample look like. All of these projects will help the Federal Government me
et the President’s new goal to gash greenhouse gas emissions 4
0 percent from 2008
levels by 2025. As President Obama continues to
take action to curb emissions and support clean energy
,he will continue to rely on the impressive leadership Federal agencies are showing.
Ch
risty Goldfuss is Managing Director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
Source: whitehouse.gov