Will Illinois Solarize politics?
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010Yesterday (Monday the 29th of March) I went to a rally where our (the state of Illinois’) current governor Pat Quinn announced his running mate for his reelection. The pick for Lt. Governor is Sheila Simon who championed trying to get Photovoltaics on a city building when she was a city of Carbondale, IL council woman and when she was running for mayor of the city.
I did end up writing a proposal to be installed on the Eurma Hayes Child Development Center which may still happen especially since the price of PV has fallen over 50% in the last year and a half.
Pat Quinn’s office (when he was Lt. Governor) actually had all us renewable energy installers on a conference call to try and determine what is slowing or stopping renewable energy installation in the state of Illinois. Two things are stopping the installation of renewables: one is the fact that the state is operating without a budget and keeps sweeping all or most of the money out of the RERP (Renewable Energy Resources Program) so it is completely unreliable, which in term makes it so we rarely tell our customers about the program. Second is there is no good financing programs for solar. Solar will not be regularly installed or mainstream until people can pay off a loan instead of pay for an utility bill. There is a payoff with a solar system but never with an electric bill.
At the rally Pat Quinn said he has brought honesty to the state and with Sheila Simon on his side will continue to do so. As long as people are paying as part of their utility bill into the RERP that money is supposed to be set aside to create rebates for the installation of renewables. I respectfully ask all the state government but especially Pat and now Sheila to make the state honest and stop stealing our renewable energy program money. Make sure the RERP is fully funded!
Lets get the state of Illinois Energized with Renewable Energy!
