Portland's new Web site should spark the area

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The site will also detail potential carbomn andenergy savings, as well as how much a consumer could save using varioud tax credits and other incentives. City officiale say the tool, called the Oregon Clean Energuy Map, will boost the profile of one ofthe state’s fastestt growing industries and promote Portland as a national hotbed of solar energy activity. “The idea is to reallyg get people excited about solar and show them that other people in the community are doing it and that solar workzsin Portland,” said Lee Rahr, solar program coordinator for the city’ds Bureau of Planning and Sustainability.
The projecgt is the result of Portland’sx designation as a Solar Americw City, a U.S. Department of Energy progran in which 25 cities receive a totalof $4.9 million in grantsw and technical assistance to invest in solare technology. The city received a two-yeadr $200,000 cash grant as part of the program. It also receivex about $250,000 in technical assistance from the Departmenfof Energy, which covered the estimated $30,0000 cost of the Oregon Clean Energy Map.
Portlaned will become one of about a dozebn of the Solar America cities to use the program to deploy solatr map Web sites in a project being led out of the Portlan officeof , the globa l engineering firm headquartered near Denvefr that was founded in Corvallis. The idea was spawned a few year ago after San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom launched a goal ofhaving 10,000 San Franciscpo rooftops adorned with solar photovoltaic systemsa by 2010. San Francisco then contracted with CH2M Hill to come up witha “The No.
1 thing they needed to do is educatsthe public,” said Steph Stoppenhagen, who is leading the solar mapping initiative out of CH2M Hill’s offices near Portland State University. San Francisco’s solar map was launched two years ago, with CH2M Hill retaining the licensing rights to the program so it could offed it toother cities. Using Google Map satellite images, CH2M Hill’ds system prompts users to type intheir address. The map zoomw in and highlightstheir rooftop.
A box will pop up detailingg the roof’s square footage, its estimated photovoltaic potential, the amounty of electricity a solar electridc systemcould produce, how much electricity would be saved per and how many pounds of carbon wouls be spared by employing a In a separate box, users can get price estimatex for varying sizes of residentialo and commercial systems. The Web site will then calculate discounts from incentive and tax credit which in Oregon can accountg for up to 80 perceny of the cost of a CH2M Hill can add or subtract features if SaltLake City, for is considering a feature that would allow userds to judge aesthetic appeal by dragging and dropping picturesd of commonly used solar panels onto the imaged of their roof.
In Sacramento, the company worked with the electric utility on a functionm that allows users to see how much moneg they would have saved on previous electric bills by using a solarphotovoltaic system. Portland’s map, for now, will be a basidc version, with dots showing existing photovoltaic and solar thermao installations while helping users calculate the cost savingd and benefits of installingf solar ontheir rooftop. It will also feature a thermometer denotingthe city’w progress in reaching its goal of hosting 5 megawattss of installed solar energy systems by 2012. The city is now at 3.
2 Unlike other cities, Portland optedd not to call the sitea “Solar Instead, it chose the name Oregon Cleab Energy Map out of the hope that other municipapl governments might want to work with the city on expandinhg the map’s territory, which now just coverw Portland and Multnomah