Solar Investment Tax Credit: remember expiry date is 12/31/2016

10 years ago

Commonly known as the 30% Federal rebate on purchase of solar systems. It can be extended by Congress, odds are it probably will be. Just know you are taking a chance if you buy plan to buy your system "a few years from now".

Also, CA energy users should know that all three major utilities are PHASING OUT the Net Energy Monitoring program. By 7/01/2017 or when the Total Generating Capacity # as set by the State legislature in bill AB 327 is reached - whichever comes sooner - a major factor in determining solar payback will be removed.

Net Energy Metering programs provide customers the ability
to offset the cost of electricity with their own renewable generation. Commonly called "Net Zero Monitoring", residential & commercial private solar installs are allowed to use their solar generation production for credit on their bills. The offset starts at the most expensive tiers, working downwards from Tier 4 to Tier 1. This credit is lopsided; it works in favor of the customer as the idea was to encourage private solar installs.

Conversely, when NEM (not if, just a matter of when) ends, solar users will have to line up with non-solar customers to pay for the energy they use - at peak times, for example - at the same (higher) rates.

Current solar users under the NEM program will be allowed a 20-yr max "Transition Period". The Legislature confirmed that this Transition Period will remain with the panels, meaning selling one's home transfers the remaining years of NEM subsidies to the new owner. If the panels are moved, then the NEM terminates.

You can read about the Net Energy Monitoring program on PG&E's website, with all the details/dates of phase-out, at: http://www.pge.com/en/mybusiness/save/solar/nemtracking/index.page

A good background to the discussion of eliminating the NEM/Net Zero is at: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2013/12/131226-utilities-dispute-net-metering-for-solar/

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Comment (1)

Jim Gagnepain
10 years ago
I'm amazed that National Geographic could publish such a one-sided argument against Netmetering. Their arguments represented only the interests and opinions of Public Utility representatives and Public Utility commissions. Their argument, totally without merit, I might add, is that other customer's bills will increase, due to renewable customers using the grid at no cost. In theory, this sounds like a plausible argument. It serves to anger customers without renewable installations.

I have first-hand with renewables. I installed a solar PV system, and a wind turbine, with my new home.

When I installed my system, the monthly fixed fee, the fee everybody pays, prior to usage fees, was $9.95 per month. A year or two later, this fee increased to $19.95 per month. A year later, it increased to $29.95 per month. All of these increases were accompanied by USAGE FEE REDUCTIONS. So Utilities have already figured out a back door around the mandatory Netmetering. And yet, they continue to whine. It's nothing more than pressure from the coal industry. Solar installations have become a threat to their status quo. Per the National Geographic article:

"In the United States, there were at least 302,000
"distributed" solar installations—essentially, systems on rooftops, not
at power plants—installed across the United States in 2012, and the
number could grow by a third in 2013, according to the Solar Electric
Power Association (SEPA). More than 99.5 percent of those installations
were net metered. Those solar systems add up to 3,440 megawatts of
capacity, nearly as much as the largest nuclear power plant in the
United States, Arizona's Palo Verde."

The other factor that this article fails to mention is that solar PVs produce at their peak, on sunny summer afternoons and early evenings. This is exactly when the Peak Load of Utilities is the highest. Power companies size their power production for peak loads. As such, solar installations, financed by the home-owner, curtail the need for construction of new power plants. Who would have paid for these new power plants? The consumer - that's who. In reality, renewable customers, are paying more than their fair share. It's hogwash, if anybody tells you otherwise.
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