In Massachusetts, Governor Deval Patrick has been a proponent of renewable energies from the beginning of his term, and a new press release from the governor’s office shows he’s still committed. What he proposes is moving towards building codes that mandate the use of at least some solar power for buildings greater than 50,000 square feet (big box stores and malls, not that there’s been much construction of either, lately). Patrick is also pushing a voluntary building code that municipalities could vote in for stricter energy conservation guidelines; this code should be available to municipalities in the state sometime next year. These measures are amorphous right now: the high efficiency building code is completely optional and the press release doesn’t offer any details about how solar for big construction projects will be incentivized more than it is already.

The city of Boston already has an impressive measure in place for buildings of this scale: they must be LEED-certified. Solar is pushing this idea of sustainable new construction even farther. Earlier this year, as well, mayor Tom Menino introduced Solar Boston, a two-year movement to have 25mw of solar power running Boston buildings by 2015. The initiative is minimally funded (about half a million), but with the strong incentives Massachusetts has in place for solar adoption, there shouldn’t be too much of a need to increase them–just to advertise them and make it clear that the state smiles on those who choose to pursue the solar option. Currently, MA offers reduction of or exemption from the excise tax, a 3-year production incentive of 3 cents/kwh, and a rebate that starts off as $3.26/w (higher for using MA-made components or for public buildings, and decreasing on a sliding scale as the system gets larger) and is capped at a generous $1.6 million per year.

Sources: The Boston Globe; Boston Business Journal