Solar panels cover the roof of a Sam's Club store in 2009 in Glendora, California. The United States could source 10 percent of its electricity from solar power by 2030, a report said Tuesday, winning support from a US lawmaker who wants to boost the number of US solar panels.

The United States could source 10 percent of its electricity from solar power by 2030, a report said Tuesday, winning support from a US lawmaker who wants to boost the number of US solar panels.

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 percent of its electricity from solar power by 2030, up from just 0.1 percent in 2008, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Sanders's 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 350 billion dollars 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 press conference Tuesday.

The legislation introduced by Sanders, who heads a sub-committee on green jobs, would offer a rebate of 1.75 dollars per watt of installed capacity in 2010, an offer that would fall to 0.25 dollars per watt by 2019.

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(c) 2010 AFP