The bureau (BLM) decided to stop accepting applications to build solar plants on federal land until a two-year environmental impact study was complete in 2010. Sanders, with a long history of backing environmental causes, was livid at the decision.

But in the middle of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee meeting, Sanders unexpectedly got word that the BLM reversed its decision. “I congratulate the bureau for making the change and for understanding the enormous potential of solar energy,” Sanders said.

The turnaround was a welcome development for backers of the technology–and, more important, demonstrates the alternative energy industry’s coming of age in Washington after decades of behind-the-scenes lobbying effort.

What happened? “After six weeks of public outcry and inquiries from Congress, BLM reversed their position,” says Katherine Gensler, the manager of regulatory and legislative affairs for the Solar Energy Industries Association.

This chapter in the solar saga started in May, when the BLM announced it would no longer take applications. Since 2005, the bureau has received 130 applications to develop solar plants across 1 million acres of federal land.

Before accepting any more, the bureau wanted to complete a “programmatic environmental impact study” to assess the process of building solar plants. Such studies typically take 18 to 24 months. For the solar industry, the delay was seen as a dangerous threat.

The BLM controls 12 million acres in Arizona, 15 million in California, 8 million inColorado, 13 million in New Mexico, 48 million in Nevada and 23 million in Utah. A lot of that land is sun-drenched empty desert, some of the best land in the country for collecting solar energy.

“It was a blow for the industry, and it was a surprise,” says Gensler. “It certainly caused fear in a lot of developers’ hearts.”

Lengthy delays can jeopardize the funding of some projects, and the longer projects wait in the pipeline, the longer companies must wait to reap the revenue from their investments.

“Right away we started to hear from folks,” says Heather Feeney, a spokeswoman for the BLM. “Solar energy is incredibly popular, and the BLM recognizes that and is willing to encourage that.”

Projects have to carry out environmental assessments individually, but with a rush of applications to develop so much land, the BLM planned for a wider impact study that could be used to streamline the applications coming in.

BLM got the message: Do the impact study, but don’t stop accepting applications. On Wednesday, the bureau reversed course and said applications would continue apace. “That’s what our planning process is built around, people telling us their comments and us responding as best we can,” says Feeney.

The solar power industry may not have been wrong to worry. Just take the cautionary tale of U.S. WindPower. Founded in 1974, U.S. WindPower became the early champion of the industry. Its founder, Stanley Charren, a graduate of Brown University with a master’s degree in engineering from Harvard, recruited an adept management and technical team from Harvard and Yale. They were the best and brightest stars of alternative energy.

But after nearly two decades of struggling to compete with rock-bottom oil prices and hostile Reagan-era policies against alternative energy, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the BLM suspended construction of a wind-farm project that would have kept U.S. WindPower alive.

The EPA said it needed to complete an environmental impact statement before the company could complete construction of a massive new wind farm on Foote Creeke Rim, a remote, treeless plateau between Laramie and Rawlins in southeastern Wyoming. The flat-rim rock is one of the windiest places in the U.S. and has since been developed by Tacoma Power. The company collapsed while the review dragged on. Renamed Kenetech, the company declared bankruptcy in May 1996.

In the 1980s, the U.S. had over half of the installed wind capacity worldwide. After the collapse of Kenetech, European companies like Vestas leaped into the lead of the wind power technology.

The solar power industry, and its proponents on Capitol Hill, were not about to see the same thing happen to them.

“I am glad the Bureau of Land Management has arrived at this good decision. Nevada is the Saudi Arabia of solar energy and is poised to lead a global clean energy revolution,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., in a statement. “We need to do all we can to encourage public and private investment in projects to develop this amazing potential.”

Overturning BLM’s moratorium isn’t the biggest struggle facing the solar industry, though. They’re desperate to preserve the Investment Tax Credit that effectively subsidized the industry. Without it, the industry estimates it could lose $8 billion next year alone. The lobby needs all the leverage it can muster for that battle.

Source: Forbes

At the same forum, Chris Greenwood, Director of New Energy Finance, UK, revealed that investments in the clean technology sector would reach a rate of US$ 10 billion per week by 2030. He was presenting the enormous growth opportunities in new investment areas of clean technologies and renewable energy like solar and wind technology, and bio-fuels amongst others. He further added that several clean technologies needed heavy engineering and there was a demand supply gap which hiked the cost of these technologies. He reiterated that energy infrastructure in developing countries should be developed with low cost, decentralised solutions.

The Confederation of Indian Industry, CII-Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development and Clean Technology AustralAsia are together organising this forum with the aim to recognise the challenges and opportunities for stepping up investment, dissemination and deployment of clean-tech in the swelling Indian market, which is widely held as the biggest clean-tech market in the world.
More than 30 global experts and leaders in clean-tech would be sharing vital market knowledge and opportunities for clean-tech in India in this forum scheduled for two days.

McCarthy said the success of the partnership would depend on how “we promote growth today to tackle the central issues of climate change, sustainability and clean technologies which will be discussed in the forum today.” He said that climate change and sustainable development were the core policy issues for both India and Australia and the two countries have jointly worked in partnerships like the Asia Pacific Partnership for clean development and climate change. Together, they had built a fund for strategic research, and had also worked together to build markets for renewable energy and clean technologies.

He underscored that the private sector was an important source of ideas, and emphasised that visionaries of clean- tech, should ensure the right policy scenarios along with repositioning of regulations supported with the right political will.

Fred R Buenrostro, former Chief Executive Officer of CalPERS; America’s largest pension fund, stressed that asset allocations to clean technologies in developing markets is on the rise and upcoming economies like India, drawing institutional investors from developed countries like the US, can become the benchmark economy with its reliance on renewable energy and promotion of clean-tech. He emphasised that the time was ripe for transformational investments to come up with solutions to some of world’s most critical environmental challenges.

Source: IBEF