US to be 10% solar powered by 2030

Updated: 08:57, Thursday March 11, 2010

The United States could source 10 per cent of its electricity from solar power by 2030, a report said on Tuesday.

The report, produced by the independent environmental group Environment America, was presented to Congress with backing from Senator Bernie Sanders who in February introduced legislation to install 10 million solar panels across the United States within a decade.

Sanders praised the report, which said the United States could get 10 per cent of its electricity from solar power by 2030, up from just 0.1 per cent in 2008, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Sanders' bill, which has gained the support of several other Democratic senators, proposes 'rebates for the purchase and installation of an additional 10,000,000 solar roofs ... by 2019.'

'At a time when we spend $US350 billion ($A383.14 billion) importing oil from Saudi Arabia and other countries every year, the United States must move away from foreign oil to energy independence,' Sanders told a media conference on Tuesday.

The legislation introduced by Sanders, who heads a sub-committee on green jobs, would offer a rebate of $US1.75 ($A1.92) per watt of installed capacity in 2010, an offer that would fall to 25 cents per watt by 2019.

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