SolSmart Designees
Austin
Texas
Population: 978,908
Designation Level:
SolSmart Gold
Year Designated:
2016
- Austin Energy has had an incentive program for more than a decade that lowers the cost of solar.
- The city has installed solar on more than 50 municipal buildings.
- Established solar goals, which have been adopted in Austin Energy’s Resource Generation Plan. Those include achieving 750 megawatts of utility-scale solar and 200 megawatts of local solar by 2025.
- Austin City Council has specifically adopted goals for customer-sited solar — 100 megawatts by 2025.
- Created an online permitting checklist, increasing transparency for community members and solar installers
- Reviewed local zoning codes and identified restrictions that intentionally or unintentionally prohibit solar PV development
- Made solar metrics publicly available
- Cross-trained both inspection and permitting staff on solar PV
- Provided a streamlined permitting pathway for small PV systems
This Gold designation demonstrates our commitment to supporting clean, renewable sources of electricity as an important choice to fight climate change. Advancing solar energy benefits our quality of life by not only reducing the community carbon footprint, but also helping Austin become increasing resilient and adaptive.
- Lucia Athens Austin’s Chief Sustainability Officer
