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In September 2000, the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC) began its 5-year work on contract # DE-FGO3-00SF22116, the Photovoltaics for You (PV4You) Project. The objective was to develop and distribute information on photovoltaics and to educate key stakeholder groups including state government agencies, local government offices, consumer representative agencies, school officials and students, and Million Solar Roofs Partnerships. In addition, the project was to identify barriers to the deployment of photovoltaics and implement strategies to overcome them. Information dissemination and education was accomplished by publishing newsletters; creating a base of information, guides, and models on the www.irecusa.org and www.millionsolarroofs.org web sites; convening workshops and seminars; engaging multiple stakeholders; and widening the solar network to include new consumers and decision makers. Over the course of the grant, 219 newsletters were published, most of them electronically. They included 94 issues of the State Stakeholder E-Newsletters; 57 editions of the Interconnection E-Newsletters; 54 editions of the Schools Going Solar E-Newsletters; 10 issues of the Consumer Letter; and 4 editions of the PV4You Connections Newsmagazine. Nine Conference Papers were published; 2 articles were printed in the Solar Today Magazine; 250 Schools Going Solar Workshop-in-a-Box were distributed; 7 Fact Sheets were prepared, packaged and distributed as part of the Solar Means Safety educational campaign; Connecting to the Grid Guide 4 th Edition was published; and Model Interconnection & Net Metering Agreements were developed and distributed. In 2002, when the Department of Energy requested that IREC add Million Solar Roofs Communications and Outreach tasks to the grant, 26 regional peer-to-peer workshops were convened and 10 phone seminars were held. Two major web sites were maintained throughout the project cycle. The www.irecusa.org web site housed dedicated pages for Connecting to the Grid, Schools Going Solar, Community Outreach, and Certification & Training. The www.millionsolarroofs.org web site was created to serve the MSR Partnerships with news, interviews, key documents, and resource material. Through the course of this grant, the Interstate Renewable Energy Council has been supporting the Department of Energy's solar energy program goals by providing the Department with expertise services for their network of city, state, and community stakeholders. IREC has been the leading force at the state and federal levels regarding net metering and interconnection policy for photovoltaic systems. The principal goal and benefit of the interconnection and net metering work is to lower both barriers and cost for the installation of PV. IREC typically plays a

The purpose of the Solar America Initiative: Solar Outreach and Communications grant was to promote better communications among stakeholders; address infrastructure barriers to solar energy; and coordinate with industry, the U.S. Department of Energy, national laboratories, states, cities and counties. The Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC), a non-profit organization formed in 1982, approached this grant project by establishing a wide range of communication and outreach activities including newsletters, workshops, webinars, model practices and publications; by advancing easy and fair hook-up rules to the utility grid; and by upgrading training based on industry competency standards. The Connecting to the Grid project and the Solar Codes and Standards Public Hearings project offered communication coupled with technical assistance to overcome interconnection, net metering and other regulatory and program barriers. The Workforce Development Project tackled building a strong workforce through quality training and competency assessment programs. IREC's web site, the semi-monthly state and stakeholder newsletter and the metrics report resulted in better communications among stakeholders. Workshops and phone seminars offered technical assistance and kept stakeholders up-to-date on key issues. All of these activities resulted in implementing sustainable solutions to institutional and market barriers to solar energy and getting the right information to the right people. Task #7. SAI/MT & State E-NewsletterThere were 147 issues of the semi-monthly IREC State Stakeholders e-newsletters published on the IREC web site and emailed to over 3,500 subscribers. Task #8. SAI-TD Telephone SeminarsThirty-two (32) telephone seminars were held. Between 100 and 500 stakeholders attended each webinar. Project ActivitiesWhen this grant began in August 2005, it was under the Million Solar Roofs program. At the end of Fiscal Year 2006, the Department of Energy terminated its Million Solar Roofs (MSR) activity. It was replaced with the Solar America Initiative Market Transformation program. Many of the grant activities remained the same through this transition but with the use of more focused methods to achieve substantial market change. Then, for the last six months of the grant, January -June 2011, tasks were scaled back focusing on state rulemaking. Connecting to the Grid ProjectThe Interstate Renewable Energy Council has been publishing the Connecting to the Grid E-Newsletter throughout the duration of the grant, providing informed and unbiased information relating to interconnection and net metering policies. Since the enactment of the federal Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct 2005), there has been a groundswell of interest and activity in grid interconnection, which has made IREC's efforts in this arena more relevant and important. This work has taken the form of many research projects, presentations, newsletters, and other types of collaboration with solar stakeholders, to address the changing landscape in local, state and fede...