This year, Builder Online ranked Austin in the top ten cities with greenest homes. This is because Austin Energy leads the nation in sales of renewable energy. In addition, Austin Energy provides low-interest loans to homeowners for energy-efficient upgrades up to $20,000. It also provides rebates for a variety of upgrades including extra attic insulation, high-efficiency clothes washers, rainwater collection barrels, and low-flow toilets.
This isn’t the first time that Austin’s been in the headlines for being a Green City. In 2012, Time Magazine spotlighted Austin in Red State, Green City: How Austin Has Become America’s Clean Tech Hub. In this article Time Magazine discussed why Helio Volt, a solar panel manufacturing company decided to start its operations in Austin in 2001 and why other clean-tech companies picked Austin when they relocated.
Austin was already home to the high-tech industry because of the University of Texas. It city has been a science-and-technology hub for a long time. Michael Dell, a college student in during the 1980’s founded his computer manufacturing company in his dorm room. Around this same time, Sematech was launched by the government and US semi-conductor manufacturers in Austin. Sematech was a research consortium which was funded by public and private investors to compete with Japan, who at the time was threatening to dominate the semi-conductor industry.
Because of Dell and Sematech, the high-tech boom was born in the 1990’s. Engineers were lured to Austin for the jobs and ended up staying for the Austin lifestyle.
When clean-tech started getting hot in the early part of the past decade, Austin seemed like a logical place to start Helio Volt. The city already had an available technical workforce and Austin was business and start-up friendly. In early 2009, Solar Bridge a company that manufactures micro-inverters that improve the efficiency of solar modules, moved to Austin from Illinois. Joe Scarci vice president of marketing said, “We liked the entrepreneurial ecosystem, and there’s just a ton of talent here that you can’t get in Illinois. It’s a great place to recruit.”
But the leading reason that Austin has become a greener city is because of the utility. While in most cities, utilities create barriers for clean-tech, Austin owns its utility. And, since the Austin residents have shown their support for renewable power, Austin Energy has more leeway to experiment than any other clean-tech company nationwide.
Green start-up companies can also count on help from the University of Texas and the city government. The Clean Energy Incubator at UT supports green start-up companies with initial seed money and by hosting networking events that connect venture capitalists with entrepreneurs. A public-private program in Austin, The Texas Clean Energy Park provides training and facilities for the smallest clean-tech start-up companies.
Source: www.time.com – www.builderonline.com
