Sacramento Is Mobilizing, Leading The Way Towards Cleaner Energy
On November 18, 2014, Next Ten, a nonprofit nonpartisan group along with Collaborative Economics (CoEcon) - an economic strategy and research firm that tracks the clean industry market sector - released a 15 page report entitled "Power Town: California's Capital Region Mobilizing to Meet Growing Demand for Clean Technologies."
The Power Town report, characterizes the Sacramento regional economy as embracing clean power, with new data showing residential solar power growing six-fold between 2007 and 2013, while incubating a vibrant group of clean tech companies.
An early snapshot of "core" clean economy jobs finds 60,000 such jobs in the Bay Area as of January 2014 and 14,000 in the Sacramento area.
Next Ten founder F. Noel Perry clarifies, "We define the core clean economy as businesses that provide the cutting-edge products and services that allow the state's entire economy to transition away from fossil fuels and use natural resources more efficiently."
In particular for Sacramento, these are electric vehicle deployment (EVs), installation of energy efficiency technologies and development of waste-to-energy technologies.
According to Next Ten more than 3,000 EVs were registered in the region as of 2013, a 37% increase over 2012. City of Sacramento Fleet Manager Keith Leech, recommends this widget to locate one of over 28 charging stations, and some solar-powered too for the city's fleet. Mayor Kevin Johnson signed an agreement to reduce the use of petroleum-based fuels in Sacramento municipal fleets earlier this year.
Energy efficiency financing programs such as from Ygrene have now become available both in Sacramento and Yolo counties, for those that want to upgrade their existing buildings.
Firms such as Solar 3D, and SUNWorks Division in Roseville are projected to generate $20M in revenue this year up from $9M last year and are hiring and expanding quickly.
One of the largest commercial-scale anaerobic digester projects in the country, is found right here in the Sacramento area. At Clean World, food garbage is fermented into fuel, which results in a negative carbon waste-to-energy technology.
Perry states that, "Northern California's forward-looking policies and innovative clean tech entrepreneurs are driving the clean tech sector and cementing our state's leadership in the clean economy."
Karen Hansen M.S. Earth Sciences, has been an educator and consultant who is currently an analyst regarding land and other public information records. She lives and works in Sacramento, CA. She has been writing about earth and the environmental sciences for Examiner.com since May of 2010. Find her work in several sections of the publication. You can find her work at SF Solar Energy Examiner, SF Environmental News Examiner and Environmental News Examiner
