Reports and Resources

In choosing policies to finance solar power, U.S. states have chosen
between two major options: solar renewable energy credits (SRECs) and
CLEAN Contracts. But few legislatures have been armed with data on the
cost-effectiveness of these strategies.  This report reveals that the transparency, certainty, and low risk of CLEAN Contract Programs makes them more cost-effective than SRECs for financing solar power projects. In other words, CLEAN means more solar at less cost.

What would happen if the U.S. adopted the world's flagship solar energy policy – a feed-in tariff?  This policy is responsible for three-quarters of the world's solar power capacity and offers the simplest mechanism for expanding production of solar power and other renewable energy. 

Quietly, virtually unreported on, a new player has emerged in the United States telecommunications sector: publicly owned networks. Today over 54 cities, big and small, own citywide fiber networks while another 79 own citywide cable networks. Over 3 million people have access to telecommunications networks whose objective is to maximize value to the community in which they are located rather than to distant stockholders and corporate executives.

For several years ILSR has been tracking telecommunications developments at the local and state level. We have worked with businesses and communities protecting their right to self-determination via the fundamental infrastructure for the information-based economy. This report offers some of our findings. More

Ontario’s bold renewable energy program contains excellent examples of policy that marries economic and environmental goals.  Unique among programs that set a guaranteed price for electricity from renewable energy projects, Ontario’s program also boasts a domestic content requirement that has already resulted in the promise of 43,000 jobs and dozens of new manufacturing plants to support the 5,000 MW of new clean energy. More

North Carolina aims to be a hotbed for innovation and technology, but the General Assembly has recently considered bills that would preempt local authority to build broadband infrastructure.  Such preemption would cripple the most advanced broadband networks in the state.  This new analysis shows that community owned networks are faster and cheaper than incumbent cable and telephone networks in North Carolina. 

Past broadband discussions in the General Assembly focused on a bill to prevent communities from building their own networks -- but communities are the only ones building citywide next-generation fiber-to-the-home networks in North Carolina.  The best connections in the state are in the towns of Salisbury and Wilson because both built community fiber networks that offer much faster connections to residents and businesses at more affordable prices.

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PACE provides one of the most promising municipal energy financing tools and it's been adopted by 22 states.  But resistance from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has put the brakes on new programs.  This presentation explores the rationale, the process, and the promise of PACE.