Town of East Hartford Receives High Ranking for Solar Permitting Process
The Connecticut Green Bank has issued a scorecard detailing East Hartford’s residential impact on photovoltaic (PV) deployment in Connecticut. Out of 169 towns in the state, East Hartford ranked 20th overall across a number of factors including solar adoption by residents in the community, the Town’s engagement in supporting clean energy programs, the streamlining of the permitting process for residential roof-mounted solar PV systems and the time and cost for obtaining a permit.
East Hartford ranked 8th overall in its peer group of 38 municipalities within the Capital Region Council of Government (CRCOG), and 8th statewide in the overall permitting, which combines the permit process and time & cost scores for obtaining a PV system.
East Hartford’s total residential solar capacity was 1037 kW, compared to the statewide average of 633 kW, and a shorter permitting time of 6 to 10 days versus the statewide average of 11 days to obtain a permit to install a PV system.
“We are certainly proud of all that we have accomplished in our efforts to seek new energy efficient resources to become a greener community, and are excited to showcase our leadership in this statewide initiative,” said Mayor Marcia Leclerc.
In March 2012, the CT Green Bank unveiled the Residential Solar Investment Program (RSIP) with a goal to support 30 megawatts of residential solar photovoltaics (PV) by 2022, which was met in June 2014. In June 2015, the program was expanded to support up to 300 MW of new residential solar PV by 2022. The 300 MW is an effective cap of the total solar PV that the program can support. The program is set to expire on 2022, or when new solar PV installations reach total capacity of 300MW.
The Yale Data-Driven Environmental Solutions Group (Data-Driven Yale) provided the study for the measurements in the scorecard. Data-Driven Yale is an interdisciplinary and international group of researchers, scientists, programmers, and visual designers based at Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and Yale-NUS College, Singapore. Working with scholars and policymakers across the globe, Data-Driven Yale strives to strengthen environmental policy at all levels, and promotes evidence-based approaches to problem solving while boosting information disclosure and transparency among public institutions, private companies, civic organizations and individual citizens.
East Hartford’s scorecard can be found online following this link. For more information on obtaining a solar PV permit, please contact our Buildings and Inspections Department at (860) 291-7340.