Ohio Gets Solar Boost

The Ohio House of Representatives passed some significant "green" legislation on Tuesday, implementing a pilot program which will install solar PV (photovoltaic) panels in 70 of the biggest school districts in Ohio. "Solar Schools Pilot Program Will Put Ohioans to Work" (6/23).

As the headline mentions, the biggest selling point of this bill (HB 113) is the job creation aspect. Ohioans are much more likely to latch on to the idea of moving forward in our green energy economy if there are some immediate, tangible returns, like jobs.

Apparently the state's solar grant program is impossible to navigate, and even harder to pin down the available funds, so this news seems to have been taken skeptically by Ohio environmental groups. But it's no doubt a positive step forward.

Here is the full press release, and here's a good Green Strategies Bulletin from April that breaks the bill down. No one's really talking about it yet in the blogosphere, so extra viewpoints are lacking.