Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Harvard Journal on Legislation
Abstract
A host of detailed evaluations from various private institutions concludes that the nation's best and most cost-effective energy investments are in conservation and renewable energy resources. This article demonstrates that many of the households in the country are left wholly without access to these incentives, and that urban regions are threatened with effective exclusion from this energy incentive market. This article will highlight the innovative provisions of the enacted Solar Energy and Energy Conservation Bank during a prior Presidential administration.
This article showcases why innovative provisions in U.S. energy policy are required because both the private-market and traditional federal programs have fostered the use of renewable energy and related conservation technologies in a manner blind to the barriers which exist across geographic areas, income levels, and types of buildings, which are not effective for:
· urban as well as suburban buildings
· rental as well as owner-occupied dwellings (rented dwellings constitute more than one
third of the total housing stock)
· poor as well as affluent-occupied dwellings
· master-metered as well as individually-metered building units
All of these factors render conventional federal incentive programs highly regressive. The Solar Energy and Energy Conservation Bank included innovative market incentives to reach through existing institutional barriers to every market segment. This importance in terms of equity of this transition to renewable energy cannot be overstated. It is likely the final transition in energy technology which this society will undertake.
This article illustrates how renewable energy resources are not merely another new appendage to be grafted onto the conventional way of life. Rather, like many of the energy technologies in use today, solar energy is a pivotal technology which will fundamentally mold the structure and environment of societies where it is employed. Renewable technologies will dramatically affect urban planning and demography, industrial location and specialization, architectural design densities, environmental amenities, and the quality of life itself.
First Page
483
Last Page
551
Publication Date
Summer 1981
Recommended Citation
Steven Ferrey, Solar Banking: Constructing New Solutions to the Urban Energy Crisis, 18 Harvard J. on Legis. 483 (1981).
Creative Commons License
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