By Grace Fiori
Buffalo’s Fire

WAKPALA, S.D. – On an unseasonably hot day in mid-October, three apprentices learning to install solar panels clambered on the roof of a community building in the small township of Wakpala, on the Standing Rock Reservation. Three weeks into their apprenticeship, they had a practiced ease on the roof as they attached solar panels to anchor points. Before the week was over they moved north on Highway 1806 to install a solar array for the small riverside community of Kenel.

The technicians are part of an run by Lightspring Solar, a solar panel installation company, and the community development corporation for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, , leading renewable energy projects on the reservation.

Great Plains tribes are eager to capitalize on the burgeoning clean energy economy and are creating training programs to empower tribal members. Rather than competing with the region’s dominant wind industry, some tribal communities are focused on solar power programs. By prioritizing local workforce development, they’re reimagining the job site and a utility system rooted in community ownership.

This was the first time the young men had done work like this, and they applied after seeing social media posts from SAGE Development Authority. Besides crawling in some dusty attics and stray wasps, they all agreed hands-on training outweighed a classroom lecture.

“It’s a good crew and I’m learning something new,” Joseph White Mountain III said. He previously worked in oil and gas, and said this job site was much different. That’s largely due to the guidance of Wes Davis, Lightspring’s general manager, who leads the installation crew.

He envisions the job site as “an environment where everybody is part of the process,” he said. “This is something more than just a job. It’s giving back to your community.”

Through tax credits, grants and loan programs, the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act provides $369 billion for and climate change mitigation. The IRA makes funding accessible for various organizations —  from local and tribal governments to educational institutions and private businesses. Northern Great Plains states have been notably absent in .

In this region, “Native Americans and Native American tribes are going to lead the effort in the next five years,” when it comes to solar development, said Cody Two Bears, executive director of Indigenized Energy, a nonprofit focused on tribal energy sovereignty. The group says program development and workforce training are essential.

The massive federal investments prioritize apprenticeship programs because of the need for skilled workers in the renewable energy sector. Since 2020, solar jobs grew more than 5% nationally, but 40% of (non-unionized) employers reported it was “very difficult” to find qualified workers.

Northern Great Plains tribes are taking a grassroots approach to solving this need and utilizing these funds. “How can we create this industry on our reservations to give our communities resiliency,” said Davis, a citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa.

Betting on solar in a wind economy

Energy is a big industry in North Dakota. Fourteen percent of the state’s workforce is employed by the energy sector. The strongest renewable energy sector has been wind, providing about 1,700 jobs and a majority of the for the state, according to American Clean Power.

Tribes looking to expand renewable energy in their regions want to see more Indigenous people employed in the energy sector, but face significant barriers to wind energy development. Wind projects require a lot of land, upfront costs, and complicated agreements for regional grid connectivity, said Lizana Pierce, deployment supervisor with the Department of Energy’s Office of Indian Energy. Tribes are instead focusing on solar.

They hope training programs like Lightspring Solar will help capitalize on the clean energy boom. SAGE Development Corporation CEO Joe McNeil Jr. envisions Standing Rock employing tribal members to operate a grid powered by solar and wind.

But some are skeptical. “We need to be honest with ourselves,” said ChĂ©ri Smith, founder of the Alliance for Tribal Clean Energy. In the Dakotas, “it’s not solar friendly, the state incentives aren’t there, the state support isn’t there,” she said. In other words, there’s insufficient solar demand to support new jobs.

While she has seen multiple solar trainees go on to start their businesses or work for solar companies, the industry’s potential workforce benefits in Great Plains tribal communities “should not be overstated,” she warned.

“We don’t want solar installers to just become solar installers,” said Smith, a descendant of the Mi’kmaq Nation. There’s not enough demand yet, she said, to support solar specialists. These training programs should also include basic electrical skills, so “they’re not stuck with only one skill set.” Smith views this as a holistic solution to the persistently high unemployment of Standing Rock Reservation’s young population.

Solar also faces tough competition. Wind is king in the clean energy economy. Nationally, wind supplies more energy than solar because commercial wind technology was developed decades before solar, and there have been more federal incentives. That trend is extreme in North Dakota, where 36% of all energy is supplied by wind, compared to just 0.01% by solar. And the state gets plenty of sunshine – it’s one of the sunniest states along the Canadian border.

Wind turbines and the technical experience required to maintain them require a lot more certifications, training and upfront cost. The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa in northern North Dakota tried it out – but without a local wind technician they could not afford to maintain the turbines.

These issues have proven contentious in the state, where lawmakers have pushed the wind industry to employ locals. A failed 2021 bill would have required companies to prioritize hiring local workers for their state-funded projects. In September, a local labor union criticized the high number of out-of-state workers in the state’s wind industry.

So rather than try to muscle in on the wind sector, they’ve decided to start with solar. Solar’s costs have dropped almost 90% in the last decade, reducing barriers to entry. Storage advancements have improved solar reliability.

“Solar is here to stay and is only going to grow,” said Pierce.

Community ownership model

The apprenticeship program is just the beginning of SAGE Development Corporation’s broader vision, McNeil said. Tribal energy advocates know training community members is crucial to tribal energy sovereignty.

“I’m excited to have the opportunity to have someone from here who has been trained professionally and certified through our process…and know they have our best interest at heart because our community supports one other,” McNeil said.

The six technicians who completed this summer’s installation apprenticeship have a promising future in the Dakotas. White Mountain is an independent general contractor based out of Standing Rock. He plans to incorporate solar installation into his services. “We’ve got plenty of work,” said Kambeitz. Even during winter when installation work virtually stops, Lightspring tries to keep staff employed through additional training and certification.

Indigenized Energy is working with the Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin to develop similar workforce development programs and include business skills for their solar operation. “The biggest thing” is the tribe’s capacity to manage their utilities operation, according to Two Bears. These efforts could speed up development region-wide. By adapting the Menominee Tribe’s model, other tribes won’t have to “recreate the wheel,” he said.

“The biggest thing is we’re an Indigenous crew and we’re installing for an Indigenous community,” Davis said. He acknowledged that some potential apprentices hesitate to commit to solar training when there is “no historical data in North Dakota supporting it.”

But the sun’s potential is not new to the tribes. “This is something we as Indigenous people have known for time immemorial,” Davis said. “We’re able to use these alternative energy resources to give us our power back.”

This story is a product of the , an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri. Support our independent reporting network .

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An Oregon product designed to provide clean drinking water in Third World countries may also hold the solution to a problem that plagues construction sites: how to clean stormwater.

Beaverton-based Puralytics first caught widespread attention when it unveiled the SolarBag. The bag, which uses sunlight to clean contaminated water, has been used in 60 countries around the world, according to Mark Owen, Puralytics’ CEO.

Owen’s company is now working on an overgrown version of the SolarBag. The new product, called the LilyPad, is in the spotlight for its potential to not only clean large sources of water in impoverished countries and disaster areas, but also serve commercially viable markets such as construction and agriculture.

Owen, a self-described “serial entrepreneur,” started Puralytics seven and a half years ago with an eye toward using LED light to activate nanotechnology to purify water. That early search resulted in a product called the Shield, an LED-powered purification system designed for decentralized drinking water systems, multiunit housing or small-scale water stations.

Even as they developed Puralytics’ first product, Owen and his staff began to ponder whether they could replace LEDs with sunlight to purify contaminated water. Their search resulted in the creation of the SolarBag.

The SolarBag quickly caught the attention of the tech community and captured a string of awards for Puralytics, including a grand prize for best clean technology business at the 2010 CleanTech Open. But Puralytics wasn’t done noodling ideas for better – and bigger – ways to clean contaminated water.

With a 3.5-liter capacity, the SolarBag was limited to producing a maximum of 10.5 liters of clean water per day – enough for a single person. Owen and his staff wondered if they could make a larger version of the bag to clean a much larger volume of contaminated water.

“The question was: How big could we make it, and could we treat the water source?” Owen said.

At the time, Owen figured the product that would become the LilyPad would again find its main purpose in areas where pure drinking water is a problem. Owen envisioned it being used mainly in open-topped water tanks and ponds. But as he talked to people about the product, he soon realized it also might have commercial potential.

“There’s been tremendous interest from the (construction) industry,” Owen said. “We’re looking at its potential to clean stormwater, to clean water used on farms for crops.”

Creating a product for widespread use in a commercial market would be a big boost for Puralytics. The high costs associated with developing technology – the SolarBag and LilyPad both rely on a combination of five processes – require tech startups like Puralytics to rely on investors and funding from sources like Oregon BEST.

Money from Oregon BEST, which works to direct research revenue from multiple sources to companies in the state, helped Puralytics work with Oregon State University to conduct an initial phase of research on the LilyPad.

“The LilyPads are designed to float on the water surface,” said Tyler Radniecki, an assistant professor of environmental engineering at OSU. “We did some lab tests with (collected) stormwater and found that four inches of standing water is the ideal depth.”

Armed with that information and $94,000 more from Oregon BEST, Radniecki is ready to start a second phase of LilyPad testing for Puralytics.

The testing will be done in a rain garden area at the OSU-Benton County Green Stormwater Research Facility in Corvallis, which will allow Radniecki and one of his students to study how the LilyPad stormwater treatment technology performs in real-life conditions.

“(The facility) has all the bells and whistles as far as monitoring,” Radniecki said. “We can measure water flow, sunlight. For Mark’s technology that I’ll be testing, that will be critical – how the sunlight intensity affects the rate of contaminant absorption.

“(The LilyPad) is designed for more than one-time use, so we’ll (also) be looking at how long they last, how leaf debris that falls on top of it affects it.”

For Radniecki, the LilyPad testing results will provide material for papers for peer review in scientific journals and a topic for his assistant’s master’s thesis.

The tests also promise to provide civil engineers with information about ways to make it easier to maintain rain gardens, according to Radniecki. Rain gardens often are used to help clean stormwater, but they require a high degree of care.

“Maintenance is a big thing with rain gardens,” Radniecki said. “A rain garden needs the grass mowed. You have to clean the silt. You have to take care of the plants, but a lot of times that doesn’t happen.”

During the testing phase, Radniecki and his assistant will examine whether the presence of the LilyPad changes the amount of maintenance that needs to be done to keep the garden in proper working order.

As for Puralytics, if the testing upholds expectations, the company will be able to walk away with what it says is crucial for earning recognition – and commercial acceptance – for the LilyPad.

“One of the challenges is that you need third-party certification and a qualified lab to talk about results,” Owen said. “The industry really wants to see that.

“This is going to help us cross that gap for internal testing to formal field training with a well-monitored application in a public setting. It will give us the (real world) data. That’s essential.”

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The Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability is raising money through a crowdsourcing campaign to install solar panels at Oliver P. Lent Elementary School.

Thanks to sponsors, the is about halfway to raising the $50,000 necessary to install a 10-kilowatt solar system on the music building at the Southeast Portland school, said Andria Jacob, senior manager of clean energy programs with the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. The solar panels will be part of a larger project to make the school more environmentally friendly, including building a community garden.

Oliver P. Lent Elementary will be the second site to receive solar panels through the city’s solar crowdsourcing campaign. Funds raised through the campaign have already paid for the installation of solar panels at the Southwest Community Center
in Southwest Portland. Other Portland schools and community centers could also soon receive solar panels through the Solar Forward Fund.

“We wanted to build a kind of revolving fund where we wouldn’t just install one system, but multiple systems,” she said. “We’re the first city to do it in this way.”

Portfolio 21 Investments, Portland Development Commission, SolarWorld, Umpqua Bank and Wells Fargo have all donated to the campaign, but the city is now calling on the community to raise the last half of the money needed for the Oliver P. Lent Elementary solar panels, Jacob said.

“There are plenty of people in Portland that are very supportive of solar energy,” she said. “For a much lower price point, they can help fund a solar project on a public building.”

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Solar technology developers face a difficult quandary. The most advanced systems are too expensive for commercial use, and cheaper options aren’t as effective. But a Corvallis-based startup may have a solution.

Today, most rooftop panels are made from silicon wafers only 15 to 17 percent efficient in their ability to turn sunlight into electricity. Plus, they’re costly.

Thin-film technology, which uses a laminate-like material that can be rolled out in large quantities, is only 11 to 13 percent efficient.

The most advanced and expensive solar technologies are those that power satellites, but they are only 30 percent efficient.

“We are currently approaching 30 percent and we actually think we have the ability to do substantially better than that,” said Frank Cloutier, CEO of Corvallis-based solar technology startup Inspired Light LLC. “So we’re talking about being as efficient as super-efficient space-bound arrays and yet being cheaper than thin film. That’s the reason we think we have something of a breakthrough.”

Inspired Light is in the process of developing a solar technology that can harvest 50 percent more energy per square foot than conventional commercial systems can, and at a fraction of the cost. Cloutier thinks that has a lot of potential for the built environment, and industry professionals agree.

The Oregon Built Environment & Sustainable Technologies Center recently awarded the company a $150,000 grant to continue researching and testing its product. Inspired Light is working with Oregon State University’s Chih-hung Chang, a chemical engineering professor who directs the university’s Oregon Process Innovation Center for Sustainable Solar Cell Manufacturing research facility.

Cloutier is keeping details about the technology under wraps until the company is closer to production.

Inspired Light uses a concentrated photovoltaic system, which typically employs lenses or mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto photovoltaic cells. The company presently is devising an anti-reflective coating that reduces the amount of sunlight reflected from the system’s surface.

“They have a completely radically new approach to concentrated PV that is lighter weight and lower cost and more simple than other vendors in the … market,” said Ken Vaughn, commercialization grant program manager at Oregon BEST. “As a result of that, they are able to do concentrated PV on commercial rooftops, which the other systems are not able to do (because) they’re too heavy (and) too complicated.”

Work on Inspired Light’s concept began in 2005 at Hewlett Packard, where Cloutier previously served as vice president and chief technical officer for the imaging and printing department. But last year, Cloutier and much of his team left HP and licensed the technology from it. Now, Inspired Light already has a manufacturing partner lined up: Korvis Automation.

When Cloutier thinks about the untapped potential of the sun, he gets excited. Every square meter on the planet receives about 1 kilowatt of energy – enough to power 10 100-watt light bulbs in perpetuity. That’s inspiring, Cloutier said.

“We’re all very passionate about this stuff,” he said. “Many of us came out of retirement. We’re doing this because we really think it’s a critical need, both for the planet and our independence from (fossil fuel) energy sources.”

U.S. companies are increasingly installing solar energy to manage costs, especially as competition from China pushes technology costs down. Earlier this year, GTM Research forecast that 3.2 gigawatts worth would be installed in 2012 – 68 percent more than in 2011.

While a launch date isn’t set, Cloutier hopes to roll the technology out sometime within the next two years. Until then, he’ll have to keep his excitement close to the chest.

“My momma taught me to do it and then brag versus the other way around,” he said. “Especially in this industry, the solar industry, people have been a little too quick to talk about their goals.”

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Travelers to the last rest area on Interstate 5 before hitting Portland can visit the country’s largest solar highway project.

The Baldock Solar Station, a 1.75-megawatt solar array with nearly 7,000 solar panels stretching across seven acres, opened to the public Aug. 23. The site just south of Wilsonville on northbound Interstate 5 features information kiosks where people can learn about solar power. They can also visit a sustainable community garden bordering the site created by experts from Oregon State University’s Master Gardeners program.

The $10 million solar array was built by Portland General Electric on land owned by the Oregon Department of Transportation. It sits among farm fields of corn and cabbage and is expected to generate 1.97 million kilowatt-hours of energy each year.

Jim Piro, the president PGE, said that’s the equivalent of 11 percent of ODOT’s need in PGE’s service territory.

“This solar highway project shows how Oregon is leading the nation in developing innovative, renewable energy sources,” he said when opening the site to the public Aug. 23. “The Baldock Solar Station not only educates travelers about the booming solar industry in our state, but showcases what can be accomplished through creative collaboration between public and private partners.”

Matt Garrett, the director of ODOT, added during the opening that this project is the largest of its kind in the nation. “We’re contributing to a strong future in clean, renewable energy resources for Oregon,” he said. “It’s just one example of the kind of forward-thinking approach we can take in transportation – one that brings multiple benefits to Oregonians.”

The array’s 6,994 panels were built by SolarWorld of Hillsboro with inverters provided by Advanced Energy of Bend. All consulting, construction, analysis and other materials were provided by Oregon companies, Piro said.

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The Oregon University System for more than six years has pursued what would be the state’s largest photovoltaic project. The path has been riddled with obstacles, but a committed group is now closing in on a deal that it hopes will finally lead to installation of ground-mounted solar arrays.

Three campuses in the Oregon University System were supposed to have arrays totaling five megawatts operating by the end of 2011, with more to come online this year. But after ground was broken with much fanfare last August, the 27 dedicated acres remain untouched.

On Dec. 30 – the day before the first phase of the massive solar project was expected to be ready – the project’s developer, Utah-based Renewable Energy Development Corp., filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

The action represented the second failed attempt to configure “Solar by Degrees,” a program to add solar power to all seven OUS schools; previously abandoned the project. It would be the largest university system-based contract in the U.S. if it were to move forward, according to OUS.

“We entered the hurdle race,” said Bob Simonton, OUS’ assistant vice chancellor for capital programs. “But it’s taking a pole vault to get over them.”

But OUS is now finalizing a new deal with San Mateo, Calif.-based , according to Brandon Trelstad, sustainability coordinator for Oregon State University.

If SolarCity were to officially take on the challenge, one crucial aspect of the financing package would already be in place: Business Energy Tax Credits.

SunEdison was unable to secure money through the state BETC program; however, after the company walked away, Simonton decided to take matters into his own hands and file the application himself.

“One of the biggest lessons learned was not to leave it up to the developer to get the BETC,” he said. “I did that as a precaution and now I can pass them through.”

The BETC program is almost wholly unfunded for now, but if the ground-mounted solar project were built this year, it would benefit from slightly more than $13 million in tax credits, Simonton said.

Because the project would receive significant state assistance, pressure is on everyone involved to demonstrate the quality of the investment, according to Martin Shain, who has served as a project consultant for nearly five years. After several deals fell through, some people are questioning why OUS is still trying to push it forward, he said.

“We need to show them that their investments in these programs are prudent,” said Shain, co-founder of renewable energy consulting firm . “A lot of people are very anxious to earn the badge of credibility here.”

According to OUS, the three initial university participants would save a total of more than $6 million over the next 25 years. The electricity rates the university pays are expected to be the same as in the previous plan: 4.1 cents per kilowatt-hour for power produced at the Oregon Institute for Technology and 4.8 cents per kilowatt-hour at Eastern Oregon University and Oregon State University.

Construction is anticipated to begin in late summer, although campus administrations could wait until May 15 to approve the plan.

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The U.S. Department of Commerce today imposed new fees on solar panels and cells imported from China. The countervailing duties are meant to counteract the subsidies the department believes the Chinese government is giving its solar manufacturers.

The duties will range from 2.9 to 4.73 percent of imported products’ cost, an amount that is not expected to dramatically impact solar trade. But the duties could rise as the department’s investigation continues.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., supports the decision and in a statement said he predicts the tariff margins will “significantly swell” as the Obama administration’s investigation continues.

“Right now U.S. manufacturers are being hammered by Chinese imports that appear to be subsidized by the government and dumped on the U.S. market,” Wyden said in the statement. “For domestic producers to compete, they need only a level playing field free from the unfair trade practices that are routinely employed by China.”

The duties will apply retroactively to all imports of cells and modules from China brought into the U.S. since December, 2011, although the duties could change when the agency issues its final decision.

In the meantime, importers will have to post bonds or cash deposits toward anti-subsidy margins of 2.9 percent for cells and panels made by Chinese manufacturer Suntech, and 4.73 percent for those made by Trina Solar. Importers of all other Chinese solar products will have to meet a margin of 3.6 percent.

In addition to the subsidy investigation, the Commerce Department is looking into accusations that Chinese companies are “dumping” panels in the U.S., or selling the products at less than fair value. The department’s findings are expected May 16. The dumping investigation was prompted by the SolarWorld-led , which is seeking anti-dumping tariffs of more than 100 percent on Chinese-made panels.

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Portland is inviting community members to invest in renewable energy.

The city on Wednesday signed a $100,000 grant agreement for , a Seattle-based company, to put solar panels on eight community structures – five elementary schools, the , and a building owned by the .

Local residents and business owners will be encouraged to buy shares of the energy produced by the solar panels.

“We definitely see solar as a promising part of the future energy supply, but it’s got a ways to go,” said Michael Armstrong, senior manager at the . “We want to implement a system that will drive the cost of solar power down, attract solar industry to town and open ownership to a broader scope of people.”

Many residents and business owners can’t access solar energy because they rent or own property not viable for solar panels. However, an investment in one of the community solar panels can help support a system that some city officials believe could be the future of renewable energy.

The $100,000 will go toward program development and community outreach. The money came from a grant the city received from the U.S. Department of Energy in 2009, when it named Portland one of 13 U.S. cities to successfully integrate solar energy into its communities.

“Five years ago, we had less than 200 kilowatts of solar energy being used in the city – now we have 11,000. This will help encourage the trend by generating community support,” Armstrong said.

At this point, Oregon laws prevent property owners from receiving energy directly from communal solar energy systems, so investors’ energy bill amounts won’t drop. Instead, the energy generated will be sold to utility companies in Portland – like PGE – and investors will receive profits.

Stanley Florek, CEO of Tangerine Power, said the panels will have a direct effect on the city’s energy output.

“It’s going to have the same job and overall use (as if investors had their own panels plugged in) because it’s all the same electricity grid,” Florek said. “The city will use more renewable energy as a result.”

Florek said he is not sure yet how many people will be able to invest in each panel. However, he did say that one panel would be able to produce 5.5 kilowatts and each of the others would be able to produce slightly less than 10 kilowatts.

Residents and business owners in the neighborhoods surrounding the panels will be the first people targeted by the BPS to become investors.

“Our expectation is that people will be more interested in supporting a solar project that they can actually see – on a school or community building that they may have a relationship with – regardless of the fact that individual electrons can’t be tracked,” Armstrong said.

Multiple neighborhood associations have signed on to participate. In fact, the convinced to donate roof space at five of its schools. Bob Alexander, senior manager for real estate and assets at PPS, acknowledged that the schools would not be directly plugged into the panels. He said PPS agreed to do it because school officials believe it will improve the community.

“The benefit for PPS is more about being a good community neighbor. They felt it was important to be actively engaged in solar energy outreach, so they wanted to have a place to go ahead and demonstrate this kind of model,” Alexander said. “It will also benefit our students, because they could learn about solar power and how the community could participate in it.”

BPS and Tangerine Power hope that eventually communal solar panels will be set up around the city and whole neighborhoods will be powered solely by solar energy. Florek said that presently, 75 percent of Portlanders don’t use solar energy. However, these eight panels may provide a spark.

“It’s (funded by) money that’s actually coming from Washington, D.C. to find a way for local investors to make solar energy happen,” Florek said. “If the program works, we will replicate it on more buildings, and Portland could serve as a model for the rest of the country.”

The panels are expected to be installed and fully operational by Oct. 31. BPS will start targeting investors this summer.

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The trade war between U.S. solar manufacturers and China continues to blaze, and today the U.S. Department of Commerce stirred up more controversy with its announcement that any duties levied by the U.S. will be charged retroactively.

The -led celebrated the ruling, a response to what Commerce Department called “critical-circumstances” between U.S. solar manufacturers and China. The coalition sees the ruling as a step toward victory in its anti-dumping and anti-subsidy trade complaint filed last November.

But the faction of U.S. solar installers and other companies that oppose the trade complaint – the – today released a study that paints a devastating picture of the domestic solar industry if tariffs are placed on Chinese modules.

The economic analysis, prepared by the Brattle Group, finds that a 100 percent tariff on imported solar cells and modules from China would result in as many as 50,000 net lost jobs in the U.S. over the next three years. The study also anticipates retaliatory tariffs placed on U.S. exports of polysilicon to China, which could put nearly 11,000 more U.S. jobs at risk in the first year.

In response, Gordon Brisner, president of SolarWorld Industries America released a statement calling the study “highly speculative.” Brisner argues that the study ignores the illegality of China’s trade practices and the impacts those actions have already had on solar manufacturing jobs.

If the Department of Commerce imposes preliminary countervailing duties on March 2, the duties will apply to all imports of cells and modules from China brought into the country starting Dec. 3, 2011. The agency is scheduled to issue a separate preliminary ruling on anti-dumping duties on March 27.

The U.S. International Trade Commission issued a preliminary determination on Dec. 2 in agreement with the claims that Chinese imports are harming the U.S. solar manufacturing industry.

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The Northeast Coalition of Neighbors recently launched its second round of , a project that aims to simplify the solar installation process for local homeowners.

Solarize Portland was launched in June 2009 by the and the with the goal of making solar power more affordable and less complex for homeowners. To that end, neighborhood associations run workshops for neighborhood residents, purchase photovoltaic systems in bulk and contract with a single solar installer to keep costs down.

Since 2009, the program has since expanded to neighborhood groups throughout the city. In the last campaign, approximately 200 systems were installed, according to Gene Lee, project manager for Solarize Northeast. This time, he said the group is hoping to double that number.

Solar installers are vetted through a community committee and selected through a competitive process. For its second campaign, the coalition contracted with , which has offices on North Lombard Avenue.

“One of the themes coming out of the first campaign is a strong dedication to local businesses, and (Mr. Sun Solar) sources most of its materials locally and hires locally,” Lee said. “Some of their employees are residents of Northeast Portland.”

The next Solarize Northeast workshop is Jan. 21 at the Umpqua Bank at 1745 N.E. Alberta St.

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