Utah, or at least Corroon's Utah, sees solar possibilities

(Photo by Bill Keshlear)

Salt Lake Community College students installed a 3kW photovoltaic array on the roof of a low-income house in Kearns, Utah, last year as part of a pioneering program to train workers for just the kind of "distributed" solar power project that will be formally announced (but informally announced here by The Salt Lake Tribune) next week by Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon.

The students were enrolled in “Advanced Photovoltaic Systems,” one of the first solar-installer classes offered by SLCC as part of its Green Academy initiative.  SLCC recognized the value of training would-be entrepreneurs and workers to compete in an emerging renewable energy economy at the boots-on-the-roof level.  The SLCC course was developed in partnership with the Utah Solar Energy Association, the Community Development Corporation of Kearns, Utah Clean Energy and others.

SLCC,  Corroon and his staff have been aggressively pushing development of renewable energy as an engine of job creation in Utah for several years now. However, it's been a tough row to hoe. Utah's Legislature is heavily influenced by coal interests and  has been sluggish in attempts to develop the state's abundant solar resources -- at least compared with what's being done right now on utility scales in Colorado, Arizona, Nevada and California.

(An example is an enabling bill that apparently died during the 2010 legislative session because of the influence of bankers and their lobbying apparatus or the relative lack of influence of solar and clean energy supporters. Take your pick. It would've opened up PACE -- property assessed clean energy -- to county- and city-level governments and homeowners. Basically, PACE is a way to finance solar systems or energy efficiency retrofits. The city or county offers you a loan, and you pay it back through your property tax bills over 15 to 20 years. Good idea, right? Here are the basics. But bankers were cut out of the loop. End of story. Or, thanks to Utahns for Ethical Government, the beginning of the end?)

That could change if Corroon, also the Democratic candidate for governor, is elected in November. Voters should expect Corroon to adopt similar policies in an attempt to inoculate Utah's economy from what may be a long-term economic downturn and the twilight of the coal industry -- or at least push for policies that enable Utah to compete with its neighbors, even its equally politically conservative neighbors.