Centralized solar power station development represents an exciting opportunity to replace fossil fuels with emission-free solar energy at entirely new orders of magnitude and economies of cost. But big solar requires big policy changes to effectively bring this clean energy generation resource to scale.

1. Build Demand: Effective and aggressive renewable portfolio standards (RPS) in each state are key to driving the economies of scale that will bring down the cost of large-scale solar generation.
2. Provide Financial Incentives: When it comes time to meet demand, project finance can be a major barrier to large-scale solar adoption – particularly in these challenging economic times. Financial incentives in the form of tax abatements or loan guarantees can effectively overcome that economic barrier.
3. Improve the Procurement Process: Even with strong renewable energy goals in place, an arduous RFP processes can stand in the way of efficient large-scale solar project development. RFP reform includes streamlining the overall process, accelerating projects of higher viability, and planning for incremental, long-term growth to best meet the utility’s clean energy goals.
4. Enable New Transmission: Success in the fight against climate change will require an unprecedented amount of renewable energy–and running a grid with large levels of variable resources is going to need new infrastructure.  In order to ensure an electron is available when its needed, we need to tap into a wide variety of resources with different generating profiles, spread over wide geographic areas.  Our planning processes need to be reformed with renewable success at the heart of it: we need a national or regional authority with oversight for effective planning across state lines and tariff administration to allow for regional cost allocation..
5. Land-Use Issues: Large-scale solar energy project development will require the use of large tracks of land. The key will be to ensure that this development is done in a way that minimizes impact and maximizes our conservation values.
6. Grid Integration: Effectively running a grid with high levels of variable resources is going to require changes not just to infrastructure, but to operating procedures.  We are working on helio-centric regulatory reform to ensure that the full suite of tools available are brought to bear — from energy storage, to demand response and interconnection procedures.