WASHINGTON, DC – On Thursday, April 17, 2014, the White House will honor ten local heroes who are “Champions of Change” for their efforts to promote and expand solar deployment in the residential, commercial and industrial sectors.
As the President highlighted in his State of the Union address, the pace of solar deployment has picked up. Last year was a record-breaking year for new solar installations, and the amount of solar power installed in the U.S. has increased around eleven fold – from 1.2 gigawatts in 2008 to an estimated 13 gigawatts today, which is enough to power more than 2.2 million American homes. In fact, every four minutes another American home or business went solar. Whether it is deployed at the utility scale or by rural electric co-ops, businesses, multifamily housing, or new home builders, solar power is now a cost competitive option that offers financial and environmental benefits. This trend has yielded new economic opportunities for many Americans – job growth in the solar industry is now increasing by 20% each year.
Jessica Bailey, Director of Commercial and Industrial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE), Clean Energy Finance and Investment Authority
Norwalk, CT
Jessica Bailey joined Connecticut’s “green bank,” the Clean Energy Finance and Investment Authority, as the Director of Commercial and Industrial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE) in August 2012. In this role, she has designed a state-wide program that allows building owners to access financing to perform clean energy improvements on their properties. In the first year, this program brought $20 million in financing to clean energy projects in Connecticut resulting in the deployment of over 3 megawatts of solar energy and millions of dollars of energy efficiency savings across 2 million square feet of buildings. Through her work in Connecticut, Bailey has demonstrated the power of PACE financing to quickly deploy clean energy. Bailey worked from 2004-2012 at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, where she served as the Fund’s program officer for sustainable development. She received her graduate degree from Yale University and undergraduate from the University of Notre Dame.
President Obama is committed to continuing the momentum. In June 2013, the President launched a comprehensive Climate Action Plan<http://www.whitehouse.