Dan Brockway: Boulder Should Invest Directly In Solar Energy

Daily Camera

OK, so the city of Boulder wants more renewable energy. Great, then why do they want to buy the local electric distribution from Xcel? Buying the wires and the distribution system does nothing to bring more renewable energy on the grid. That will require additional expense and further delay.

In fact it seems that the utility business has a dim future since the cost of solar panels has drastically decreased. According to the U.S. Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) the price of solar power has decreased by 60 percent since just 2011. This means is that a growing source of renewable energy will be in distributed generation (that is homes that can generate their own power usually with solar panels).