Position Summary

The American Solar Action Plan (ASAP) calls for a National Solar Workshop sponsored by the U.S. Congress to implement a ten-year incentive package designed to create a competitive solar industry operating at an optimized manufacturing scale by 2020. The solar technologies are photovoltaic (PV) power plants coupled to compressed air energy storage (CAES) power plants and concentrating solar power plants (CSP) with thermal storage systems. The objective is to establish solar energy as a self-sustaining source of most future energy for the United States. With cost-competitive solar electricity, the U.S. can begin to reduce its dependency on foreign energy, stabilize energy costs, and mitigate climate change.

The proposed ten-year deployment schedule (installed solar power plant capacity) is:

Round One (annual deployment for each of the first five years):
1. 1.5 GW of CSP
2. 1.5 GW of CAES supported by 2.5 GW of PV
Round Two (annual deployment for each of the second five years):
1. 4 GW of CSP
2. 4 GW of CAES supported by 6 GW of PV
Total Deployment is 28 GW of CSP and 28 GW of CAES supported by 42 GW of PV

The national incentive package could include:

National Solar Portfolio Standards – binding solar electricity purchase requirements
Feed-in tariffs – price supports to cover the spread between solar electricity production cost and the average market peak electricity price paid by local electric utilities

The exact magnitude of solar deployment and nature of incentives will be decided at the Solar Workshop, with the required goal to achieve a self-sustained, competitive solar industry. Based on the baseline version of the Plan proposed here, the total cost of the incentives for the solar deployment schedule would be $250 billion. Funding for the National Solar Plan could be generated with the issuance of “American Energy Independence Bonds.”

The benefits are cost-competitive solar electricity, creation of 500,000 jobs, reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from energy, and the potential for non-polluting electricity for the electrification of transportation, which reduces dependence on foreign oil.

* How You Can Help:
Contact your U.S. Senate and House representatives, send them a copy of this document, and tell them to create the National Solar Workshop - ASAP!