Americans are increasingly aware of the importance of renewable resources in both reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign oil and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions. As a result, renewable energy technologies, particularly solar and wind power, are the most rapidly growing sources of electricity in the U.S.

Environmental and security concerns have also sparked interest in small-scale, “distributed” sources of electricity generation to reduce our reliance on large-scale, centralized power plants.

Despite the growing interest, homeowners and business owners looking to invest in these new sources of energy face multiple bureaucratic barriers to installing their own small-scale, distributed renewable energy systems.

In the U.S., the greatest barriers to the expanded use of these systems stem not from technical obstacles, but from financial, political and social hurdles.

NNEC’s report, “Taking the Red Tape Out of Green Power,” provides seven sets of recommendations for overcoming these hurdles to widespread deployment of distributed renewable energy, focusing on the most common technologies – solar photovoltaics (PV) and small wind turbines.