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White House solar panels being installed this week

By Juliet Eilperin, Published: August 15

After nearly three years, the White House began installing solar panels on the First Family’s residence this week, a White House official confirmed Thursday.

The Obama administration had pledged in October 2010 to put solar panels on the White House as a sign of the president’s commitment to renewable energy.

The White House official, who asked not to be identified because the installation is in process, wrote in an e-mail the project is “a part of an energy retrofit that will improve the overall energy efficiency of the building.”

At the time of the 2010 announcement, then-Energy Secretary Steven Chu and White House Council on Environmental Quality chair Nancy Sutley said the administration would conduct a competitive bidding process to buy between 20 and 50 solar panels. The officials did not identify the supplier or cost of the project, but wrote the White House “has begun installing American-made solar panels” and the initiative, “which will help demonstrate that historic buildings can incorporate solar energy and energy efficiency upgrades, is estimated to pay for itself in energy savings over the next eight years.”

The retrofit also includes installing updated building controls and variable speed fans, the official added.

Back in 2010, Chu said, ”This project reflects President Obama’s strong commitment to U.S. leadership in solar energy and the jobs it will create here at home. Deploying solar energy technologies across the country will help America lead the global economy for years to come.”

This is not the first time solar panels have graced the White House’s roof: President Jimmy Carter had 32 installed in the late 1970s but President Ronald Reagan removed them in 1986. Two grass-roots campaigns lobbied Obama at the start of his first term to restore the panels.

On Thursday, climate activist Bill McKibben, whose group 350.org had organized one of the campaigns to install solar power at the White House, welcomed the news that the installation had begun.

“Better late than never–in truth, no one should ever have taken down the panels Jimmy Carter put on the roof way back in 1979,” he said. “But it’s very good to know that once again the country’s most powerful address will be drawing some of that power from the sun.”

In 1979, Carter had predicted the solar water heater and panels on the White House grounds will ”either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/08/15/white-house-solar-panels-finally-being-installed/