Johnson County, Johnson County Public Health, Johnson County Conservation, and six municipalities are teaming up with a Wisconsin-based nonprofit organization to launch this program. Cities helping host free educational events, called Solar Power Hours, include Coralville, Iowa City, North Liberty, Solon, Shueyville and West Branch. While these are the hosts of the program, all residents of Johnson County and West Branch are welcome to participate.
Solarize Johnson County will kick off on Thursday, April 26 (my brithday), at 12 pm at the Johnson County Health and Human Services Building (HHS), 855 S. Dubuque Street, Iowa City, 2nd floor.
Additional Solar Power Hours are scheduled through the summer. You can visit www.SolarizeJohnsonCounty.com to learn more, see the schedule and sign up for an estimate.
Solarize Johnson County is administered by the Midwest Renewable Energy Association (MREA) at no cost to the county. However, the County is investing a lot of staff time to bring residents this exciting opportunity for bulk discounts on renewable energy.
The County is currently under construction on our 6th solar array. Johnson County is also an investor in the Farmer's Electric Co-op solar gardens, to offset energy use at two rural road sheds down by Sharon Center and Frytown.
I have been a big advocate for the County using solar. The County projects, including the ones right down town, are demonstrating that solar can be a significant contributor to lowering our greenhouse gas emissions and also save the taxpayers money. Please consider asking your City, School District and others to include solar in their projects. I'm a firm believer that we can improve climate change together with a lot of small and big changes.
One of the projects I would like to see the County do is solar carports on surface parking lots. I have been advocating for this for years, but in the beginning the kits for the carports were not available. I'm told that may be changing, so I may get to see my goal accomplished soon.
While Johnson County is leading in using and advocating for solar, there is trouble on the horizon. The President is applying/threatening tariffs on solar, which is making the market unstable. Many of the Republicans in Des Moines are talking about eliminating the tax credits you could use to pay for solar on your home. All this proves to me that renewable energy is so good, that if the word gets out it threatens traditional fossil fuel based energy. So let's get the word out and start building a cleaner, better and renewable energy system.
Please visit this website for more information: SolarizeJohnsonCounty.com
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