Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

India’s PM Announces Plan To Install Rooftop Solar on 10M Homes

Via PV Magazine, a report on India’s ambitious rooftop solar plans: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced ‘Pradhan Mantri Suryodaya Yojana’ under which 10 million households will get rooftop solar. The scheme is intended to not only reduce the electricity bill of the poor and middle class but also make India self-reliant in the field […]

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Pentagon To Get Rooftop Solar Panels In Clean Energy Drive

Via Solar Daily, a report on plans to put rooftop solar panels on the Pentagon: Solar panels will be installed on the roof of the Pentagon as part of a push for clean energy at federal facilities, the US Department of Energy said Wednesday. The Pentagon is slated for upgrades including “rooftop solar panels, a […]

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A New Shadow Over California’s Solar Industry

Courtesy of the New York Times, a report that some companies are leaving the state or reducing their presence there after California greatly reduced incentives for homeowners to install rooftop solar panels: California has long championed renewable energy, but a change in the state’s policies last year has led to a sharp decline in the installation […]

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Roof Top Solar Proves To Have Key Benefits Over Large Solar Farms

Via Energy Daily, an article on a new report stating that roof top solar proves to have key benefits over large solar farms: A new study shows size matters in solar energy. The first ever life-cycle analysis comparing big and small solar photovoltaic systems has concluded that small-scale solar systems are in fact better for […]

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How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Rooftop Solar

Via the Los Angeles Times, commentary on California’s solar power regime: As global leaders celebrated a hard-fought agreement to triple the world’s renewable energy production and transition away from fossil fuels, an attorney for the state of California was in a San Francisco courtroom Wednesday, defending a decision by appointees of Gov. Gavin Newsom to […]

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How Australia Got Solar Panels Onto One in Every Three Houses

Via The Guardian, a look at Australian efforts to scale use of solar panels quickly: For a brief period over several weekends this spring, the state of South Australia, which has a population of 1.8 million, did something no other place of a similar size can claim: generate enough energy from solar panels on the […]

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About This Blog And Its Author
As potential uses for building and parking lot roofspace continue to grow, unique opportunities to understand and profit from this trend will emerge. Roof Options is committed to tracking the evolving uses of roof estate – spanning solar power, rainwater harvesting, wind power, gardens & farms, “cooling” sites, advertising, apiculture, and telecom transmission platforms – to help unlock the nascent, complex, and expanding roofspace asset class.

Educated at Yale University (Bachelor of Arts - History) and Harvard (Master in Public Policy - International Development), Monty Simus has held a lifelong interest in environmental and conservation issues, primarily as they relate to freshwater scarcity, renewable energy, and national park policy. Working from a water-scarce base in Las Vegas with his wife and son, he is the founder of Water Politics, an organization dedicated to the identification and analysis of geopolitical water issues arising from the world’s growing and vast water deficits, and is also a co-founder of SmartMarkets, an eco-preneurial venture that applies web 2.0 technology and online social networking innovations to motivate energy & water conservation. He previously worked for an independent power producer in Central Asia; co-authored an article appearing in the Summer 2010 issue of the Tulane Environmental Law Journal, titled: “The Water Ethic: The Inexorable Birth Of A Certain Alienable Right”; and authored an article appearing in the inaugural issue of Johns Hopkins University's Global Water Magazine in July 2010 titled: “H2Own: The Water Ethic and an Equitable Market for the Exchange of Individual Water Efficiency Credits.”