Vermont has beat out Oregon in becoming the first state to allow people 
creating their own renewable energy to be paid competitive rates for the energy they are putting into the grid.
Vermont’s feed-in tariff legislation passed May 27, 2009, and is a breakthrough in the energy world, which has been dominated by large utilities and larger coal companies (coal-burning is a prime cause of global warming). Paul Gipe, a renewable energy expert, says at Huffington Post,
“Hopefully, this is just the first domino to fall in a far-reaching cascade that could stimulate small-scale renewable energy generation across the continent.”
I tend to see progressive, creative Vermont as Oregon’s East-Coast sibling, both states being leaders in sustainability. 
However, the photo below, of a Zero Energy home built by Habitat For Humanity, was taken in Hickory, North Carolina. Now, that’s progressive and uncommon, to combine solar panels and net zero energy with the social equity principle of an affordable home built by volunteers. Way to go, North Carolina!
I have two closing thoughts. The first is that renewable sources of energy, solar and wind being the most common, yield inherently smaller volumes of energy than fossil fuels, i.e. coal, oil and natural gas. That’s because renewables are real-time energy, energy that we’re using at the same rate that nature is creating them. Fossil fuels, in contrast, hold millions of years worth of condensed plant life, and so they yield the extraordinary volumes of energy we’ve built our modern lifestyles upon. (They also discharge extraordinary volumes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, hence global warming, aka climate change).
So, we have to combine using renewables with using less energy in the first place. Two thrifty ways to do that are slashing our electricity bills and saving money on the gas we use for driving. With hot summer weather coming up, slowing down and enjoying life in a sensual way is a good alternative to cranking up the air conditioning.
Finally, Vermont’s new feed-in tariff will probably help the already-growing solar industry to grow even more robustly, and create new jobs. Frank Marquardt reports that the next two years will see 110,000 new jobs in solar, and offers a book on how to land a job in the solar industry.
photos courtesy of jascha and Sare-Bear, respectively
Related Posts:
- Oregon’s New Solar Highway
- Renewables Are Not Sugar-Daddies, But Equal-Opportunity Lovers
- Electric Vehicles: Truly Green, Or No?
This money is matched by EDF Energy and is paid into the Green Energy Fund. Nature