Wednesday (April 3) Fort Collins was presented a commemorative road sign and a plaque at its "Solar Update: What's New Under the Sun'' event in recognition for achieving gold-level Solar Friendly Community status under the Solar Friendly Communities. It’s the fourth city in Colorado to earn the distinction behind Denver, Aurora and, most recently, Lakewood.

The 12-step program is designed to recognize cities and municipalities across the US that have taken efforts to make it easier for residents and businesses to go solar in their jurisdiction. Such efforts include reduced permitting fees and the time it takes to process such fees.

Fort Collins earned Gold Level certification for achieving 1,100 out of 1,600 possible points under the voluntary program. "Fort Collins has shown the power of increased communication between the utility and city departments in streamlining solar permitting,” said Rebecca Cantwell, senior program director for Solar Friendly Communities.

More specifically the city has consolidated the requirements of the city and the municipal utility for permitting, inspecting, interconnecting and applying for rebates into a single, easy-to-find website location.

Fort Collins also looked at best practices based on other municipalities with local utilities and explored how to narrow the inspection time window while speeding the inspection process. “By focusing on these issues together, the community was able to achieve Gold level status which shows excellence in a range of best practices. We hope these actions will yield economic and environmental benefits in Fort Collins for years to come,” Cantwell said.

In many ways, Fort Collins has been a clean-energy friendly city for a long-time. "The City of Fort Collins has an established organizational focus on sustainability and a history supporting renewable energy going back to the first voluntary green power program in Colorado launched in 1998," said Bruce Hendee, City of Fort Collins chief sustainability officer. This is just the next step.

With the recognition Fort Collins becomes the second city to achieve gold-level certification. Denver was the first. Both Lakewood and Aurora achieved silver-level certification. More cities along Colorado’s Front Range are likely to follow.

Solar Friendly Communities is a Colorado-based program that could be to expand nationwide someday. It’s supported by a Rooftop Solar Challenge grant through the U.S. Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative. The Rooftop Solar Challenge has supported 22 efforts to reduce the costs of rooftop solar, largely through soft-cost reductions. The project is led by Colorado Solar Energy Industries Association (COSEIA) and is partnered with American Solar Energy Society, Boulder County, Denver, Fort Collins, Golden, and the Rocky Mountain Institute.