Earth Equity News

Long Island Power to Spend $14.4 Million on Efficient Energy Programs. By John Rather, NYTimes, February 16, 2009. "The Long Island Power Authority is moving ahead with an ambitious effort to generate more solar energy from commercial and industrial sites and increase spending by 80 percent to $14.4 million for residential rooftop solar power systems and other renewable energy programs, LIPA officials said... President Obama wants to double renewable energy production over the next three years. Gov. David A. Paterson has also backed solar energy expansion and recently set a goal that 40 percent of the state's energy come from renewable sources and energy efficiency by 2015... LIPA's commercial solar project, which would be the largest of its kind to date in the Northeast, would provide the LIPA grid with up to 50 megawatts of electricity. That is about a fifth of what a medium-size oil or gas-fueled power station would generate and a tenth of the 500 megawatts LIPA projects its energy efficiency programs will save by 2018. The solar power would come from acres of photovoltaic panels laid out on commercial and industrial rooftops, school and government buildings, brownfield sites, landfills and even parking lots across Long Island."