As Portland is in love with its green roof program, so too is New Orleans in love with Solar energy. And why not? We have lots of sun in the South, a very impressive tax rebate program (for now), and the city has been named as one of 25 American Solar Cities.

We’ve talked about solar energy and Louisiana’s incentives for its use on the Louisiana Green Law Blog here.

Here, we’re just going to identify some of the movers & shakers in the New Orleans solar market. This post is not an advertisement, although many of these links are to companies selling and installing solar equipment. But those who are identified all provide good resources for solar energy and keep up with news and legislation affecting the solar market.

Louisiana Solar Energy Society
The Louisiana Solar Energy Society has a great news section that will keep you up to date on legislation and nationwide news related to solar energy.

The Solar Installers
There are three companies I’ll highlight, because I think they’re doing the best job of marketing themselves online. This is not a comment to the services themselves…but simply just recognition that their websites and published information is useful to folks looking to learn more about solar energy and the Louisiana incentives for using solar equipment. South Coast Solar, Gulf Coast Solar, and Joule Energy.

John Moore & the Department of Environmental Affairs
New Orleans’ Department of Environmental Affairs was getting on its feet in the Nagin administration, but under Mitch Landrieu the department is really picking up some steam. One area where good work is being done is in the solar energy market. With financial assistance from the Solar American Cities program, New Orleans is looking to become a Sustainable Energy Financing District (commercial only for now) to help solar equipment penetrate the market.

Know any more movers & shakers? Give us your comments.

Earlier this year, I attended a seminar promoted by the Louisiana Chapter of the USGBC with guest speaker John Moore from the New Orleans Office of Environmental Affairs. Under the Nagin administration, this office has taken a bit of a beating, getting separeted and consolidated from other departments so often…they haven’t even had time to finish their website!

The election of Mitch Landrieu as Mayor of New Orleans shows promise for this department, and is good news for any New Orleanian interested in the green building industry.

Glassboth.org, a neat web organization that publishes candidates views on certain issues, had a survey filled out for Mitch during the election. Here are his answers on Environmental and Sustainability issues.

Mitch supports:

• City-funded recycling program
• Expanding the role of the City’s Office of Environmental Affairs to include issues of sustainability
• Supporting municipal carbon footprint regulations to control local CO2 emissions
• Requiring all public buildings to meet LEED Standards
• Implementation of the City’s plan for sustainable redevelopment called GreenNola

All good news for Mr. Moore and the team working on GoGreenNola.com. And for Louisiana companies who build green.