US Department of Defence announces privately financed solar project for 160,000 military residences

Over the past few years I have been seeing a number of announcements related to renewable energy from the US Department of Defence (DoD).  DoD has a stated goal of 25 percent of all energy consumed by 2025 shall be supplied from renewable sources.  But the latest announcement is hard to ignore for two reasons.  First of all it could double the number of rooftop solar installations in the US.  Secondly it is a public-private partnership (PPP) financed entirely by private capital. 

The project is called SolarStrong and a private company SolarCity will install, own, and operate rooftop solar systems on 160,000 privatized military residences on 124 military bases in 33 states with a capacity for generating 371 megawatts of solar PV power.  The financing is entirely from private sources with a federal loan guarantee from the Department of Energy Loan Guarantee Office.  US Renewables Group (USRG) in partnership with Bank of America Merrill Lynch will provide $344 million in financing for the project.

Geoff Zeiss

Geoff Zeiss

Geoff Zeiss has more than 20 years experience in the geospatial software industry and 15 years experience developing enterprise geospatial solutions for the utilities, communications, and public works industries. His particular interests include the convergence of BIM, CAD, geospatial, and 3D. In recognition of his efforts to evangelize geospatial in vertical industries such as utilities and construction, Geoff received the Geospatial Ambassador Award at Geospatial World Forum 2014. Currently Geoff is Principal at Between the Poles, a thought leadership consulting firm. From 2001 to 2012 Geoff was Director of Utility Industry Program at Autodesk Inc, where he was responsible for thought leadership for the utility industry program. From 1999 to 2001 he was Director of Enterprise Software Development at Autodesk. He received one of ten annual global technology awards in 2004 from Oracle Corporation for technical innovation and leadership in the use of Oracle. Prior to Autodesk Geoff was Director of Product Development at VISION* Solutions. VISION* Solutions is credited with pioneering relational spatial data management, CAD/GIS integration, and long transactions (data versioning) in the utility, communications, and public works industries. Geoff is a frequent speaker at geospatial and utility events around the world including Geospatial World Forum, Where 2.0, MundoGeo Connect (Brazil), Middle East Spatial Geospatial Forum, India Geospatial Forum, Location Intelligence, Asia Geospatial Forum, and GITA events in US, Japan and Australia. Geoff received Speaker Excellence Awards at GITA 2007-2009.

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