Benchmark Comparisons of Leading Wind and Solar Areas with the Coachella Valley: Implications

Abstract

Renewable energy development and entrepreneurship in the Coachella Valley, which are at fairly early stages, are compared to benchmark mature metropolitan areas for renewable energy in Texas and Maryland. The purpose is to achieve broader perspective from states outside the U.S. Southwest, and to gain insights into possible opportunities and challenges for the Valley in the future. A literature review examines the history of policy formulation for wind energy in Texas and of barriers to residential adoption of solar. The main chapter focus is on the metropolitanarea benchmarks of Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land for wind energy; and Baltimore-Columbia-Towson for solar energy. For each metropolitan area and its state, the history and background of renewable energy are examined, as well as the geographic distributions of renewable manufacturing facilities relative to socio-economic features. Case examples are presented of wind and solar innovation. The findings on the benchmark areas are compared to those from Chap. 4 for the Coachella Valley, and the implications are discussed.

The original version of this chapter was revised. An erratum to this chapter can be found at DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-51526-7_8

An erratum to this chapter can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51526-7_8