Whatever the typical high school student is doing at 1 pm on a Saturday afternoon, they are almost certainly not on the street advocating for solar energy legislation. That’s what makes John Alvarez unique. On a recent Saturday, Alvarez and 15 of his classmates from Manhattan Comprehensive  High School were in Union Square, asking passersby to pressure state legislators to pass two solar energy bills before the legislative session ends June 23rd.

"New Jersey has four times the solar capacity of New York State, partly because of the favorable loans they offer," Alvarez told a man who stopped to chat. He and his classmates are interns with the NYC advocacy group Solar One, and every Saturday for several months they’ve attended a class on solar in the morning, and hit the street in the afternoon to publicize the technology. The students use a set of mobile solar units to charge people’s cell phones, a basic but essential task that proves the technology works.

One of the bills that the students were advocating would allow businesses throughout New York State to engage in “net metering,” the practice of selling the energy their solar panels generate back to the grid at retail price. Current law only covers residential and agricultural entities.

The second bill would offer property tax abatement to purchasers of solar systems within New York City. The law would cover the years 2008-2013, and would give solar panel owners who applied during the first three years of the program property tax abatement of up to 35 percent of the cost of their system. System owners who applied during the last two years of the program would receive an abatement of up to 20 percent of their solar system cost.

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“As solar stands now, it doesn’t financially make sense,” said Elliott Montgomery, an industrial designer who co-teaches the high school students’ weekly class. He said the incentives contained in the target legislation could dramatically increase the amount of solar energy present in NYC by making it more attractive for businesses.

In addition to building the portable solar units and measuring their voltage, Montgomery and his partner Chris Niedl of Solar One also teach the students how to advocate politically. Niedl, the Outreach and Advocacy Director at Solar One, recently took a group of students on a lobbying trip to Albany. There, the Senate has passed the net metering and property tax legislation, but the Assembly must pass identical bills before June 23rd in order to give them the force of law.

Niedl has also invited political figures to the Saturday morning class, for informal workshops on the art of convincing. “It was nice to actually meet a politician, said Alvarez, the student. “I know people are asking them a lot of questions about this these days.”

To urge the State Assembly to pass net metering and property tax abatement legislation, click here.