MTSU Box 57

Murfreesboro, TN 37132

First, TVA is announcing a new program called the "Green Power Switch Generation Partners Program" which could allow you to sell PV or wind power at $0.15 per kWh onto the grid. Second, Sharp is setting up a PV plant in Memphis that will be producing 25,000 kW of PV annually starting in April 2003. This is reported to be half of the US PV production.

If that were not enough to get your blood racing, we also have a very interesting program at Oak Ridge where they are developing "Hybrid Lighting", a combination solar light collector and PV generator. It takes light directly from the sun and pipes it into buildings through fiber optics. In addition the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) obtained a grant to coordinate and develop the Million Solar Roofs program in Tennessee.

Our next meeting - co-sponsored with SACE - has a really nice agenda including all the players above plus a business panel from Tennessee and you as members who are the voice of the public. The focus of our next meeting is simple. How do we get more solar development in Tennessee? This is where you come into the picture. As people who love solar, you are the most likely candidates for installing solar systems. Most of you have had contact with friends and acquaintances that are not members of the TSEA buy who are really interested in installing solar systems. You are really needed to represent their views.

We plan to make a table available for handouts telling you more about each organization. Necessarily, our time will have to be well managed to get through the items and come up with an Solar Action Plan for Tennessee. That is our ambitious goal. We would like you to attend if at all possible. If you haven’t been to a TSEA meeting in a while, this is the one you will not want to miss.

Toward future meetings, last month I attended the DOE Distributed Generation Road Show at Warner Robbins Air Force Base in Georgia. I have been in contact with them, and they would also like to co-sponsor a future meeting with us in Tennessee. They are conducting 150 day-long seminars with local folks to desire to be a catalyst for installing distributed generation. They said they would focus on Solar PV and also teach us about other topics such as, hydrogen, EPA non-attainment areas driving investments, Power Quality driving other investments, Economics of line extensions driving other investments, Fuel Cells, and Micro-Turbines. Did you know electric power cooperatives are selling distributed generation equipment in Georgia? The focus of such a meeting would be to discuss how to overcome barriers with code inspectors so that systems can come on-line. For other upcoming meetings, we should take a couple of road trips this Spring and Summer to see the ORNL Hybrid Lighting, and the Sharp Plant if they would allow us to visit.

The purpose of the meeting is to gather together the Tennessee solar stakeholders. While the stakeholders participating are from various backgrounds - nonprofit, government, research or business - the one thing we all have in common is everyone would like to see greater solar power development in Tennessee. We hope that by the end of the day people representing very different perspectives can come to agreement on some of the issues holding back solar power development in Tennessee and even more important, what we can do - working together - to create more solar power development in the State.

The morning starts with a business panel that will give people a chance to get in tune with the present amount of solar development in the state. We will then take a look at the new "duel metering" pilot that TVA is offering "Generation Partners" to understand how that might impact the situation. During lunch Steve Kalland of the NC Solar Center will discuss incentives that can increase solar development. We will then break into small groups to discuss ideas on how to promote solar in TN. We will finish by bringing the discussion back to the full group and identify next steps.

This is a joint meeting with the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) and the Tennessee Solar Energy Association (TSEA). SACE is a not-for-profit, organization working with citizens for clean air, clean water and healthy communities in the Southeast by promoting the efficient use of energy, clean energy technologies, sustainable energy policies, and by holding polluters to higher standards. SACE coordinates the Million Solar Roof (MSR) Initiative in Tennessee to lower the barriers preventing solar power development,

Newsletter information: Linda Hardymon

Phone: 615-904-8096 Fax: 615-904-8093