By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

What Happened: Environment America released its list of top cities for solar development, and Los Angeles tops the list, with San Diego, Honolulu, Phoenix and San Jose rounding up the Top 5.

The first “surprise” city on the list is San Antonio, which clocks in at No. 6. Other surprises include Indianapolis, which arrives at No. 8, and Albuquerque, which shows up just outside the Top 10 at No. 11. The list reads as a Who’s Who of cities with smart leadership in the administration and, in many cases, well-run municipal utilities like LADWP.



SolarWakeup’s View: I love lists like the one Environment America put out this morning concerning the country’s top solar cities. The first thing I do when a list like this comes out is to see which cities surprise me.

On this list, the first one to catch my eye is Indianapolis, a city I used to drive through frequently when I was coming home from graduate school at Indiana University in Bloomington. While it’s a nice enough city, I must admit I never would have considered it a hotbed for solar development. But it clocks in at No. 8 on Environment America’s list, showing that the Solar Revolution is spreading across the country, even to the cloudy Midwest (as I sit here right now in Cleveland, there’s overcast skies, with small breaks of sunshine and … snow. Yep. Snow.)

The other city that wasn’t as surprising as one might think is San Antonio. While Texas has long been known as a wind market, its solar market is slowly but surely gaining momentum and could eventually place it in the top of solar-friendly states in the country.

But – and it should come as a surprise to no one – Los Angeles claimed the top spot on the list for obvious reasons.

First of all, Los Angeles’ mayor has been a long-time supporter of solar energy, and the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power – one of the strongest municipal utilities in the country – has been at the forefront of solar development for years. So when lists like this come out, it’s no wonder Los Angeles comes out on top.

That partnership should be a model for cities around the rest of the country. Fortunately we’re seeing more cities commit to 100% clean energy – most often with a strong solar component – and I think this list isn’t the end of the race but just the beginning.

And we’d like to thank Environment America for doing the hard work of putting together the list (I’ve done multiple lists like this over my career and they are largely thankless tasks). I’ve attached the full report below, and it is great. Go read the whole thing.

More:

Boom time in Texas (pv magazine USA)

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Bonus: