Get Your Solar Net Metering and Rebates While You Can

photo: Flickr/quasai

Generally at SolarPowerRocks.com, we see the beer mug half full. Our cup runneth over with solar’s potential in a growing number of states. But as Dan Hahn’s recent 2009 State By State Solar Report Card shows, we’ve still got a long way to go in many regions, and I personally have a concern about “net metering” going away.

Why should you care if net metering goes away? We’ve defined net metering in other posts, but it’s essentially a virtual battery back-up for your solar. With most parts of the U.S., you don’t need to buy batteries to store the extra power your solar panels produce. Instead, net metering requires your utility to keep track of any excess energy your panels produce during the day and then lets you buy it back at night, usually at the same or lower price per kWh.  Sweet.

At the end of the year, if your panels have produced more power than you’ve used during the entire year, sometimes the utility is required to pay you for that extra solar mojo, and sometimes the utility is allowed to say Tough Twinkies and pockets the power without compensating you a dime.

We believe that net metering is important for solar remaining affordable. Without it, your payback time for your solar investment basically doubles.

Here’s the problem: Most states have put a ceiling on the number of customers allowed to have net metering. Currently in my home state of California, that ceiling or  “cap” is set at 2.5% of the utility’s electric capacity. The good and bad news is that places like San Francisco and San Diego have inspired so many people to go solar that these areas have almost reached their net metering cap. If the State doesn’t pass a new law that says that the utilities have to raise that cap, it will basically shoot new solar customers in the foot.

Here’s the solution(s): The most obvious solution is to go solar sooner rather than later. Again, we don’t like to scare people, but the reality is that there’s only so much rebate money allotted, number one, and number two, there’s only so much net metering allotted unless your State gets its solar act together. It could happen…or not.

The second solution is to sign up for email “action alerts” from organizations like votesolar.org. It’s free, but of course they wouldn’t mind a donation. Vote Solar is dedicated to fighting for net metering and other solar friendly policies in every state. When they email you their action alerts, take 2 minutes to fill out their automated forms. Your legislators will get an email from you and a nudge that you’re watching how they vote for or against solar.

Otherwise, like I said, if you can swing it, go solar now and get a quote from one of our local installers. You can check out your state to the right, but for the latest info, our installers can also give you the skinny on your particular local solar (un)friendly policies. It’s free, so couldn’t hurt.  Thanks.

Sonoma County Municipal Solar Financing

(Disclaimer: I co-founded and manage One Block Off the Grid, so I will be pumping its Sonoma County program in this post… But I co-founded this blog too, so do I even need to disclaim? Better safe than sorry, I guess.)

Sonoma County now has the largest municipal financing program for solar and energy efficiency, modeled after the Berkeley First program, but run by the city themselves instead of a program administrator. $100M and they’ve burned through about $20M of it in a very short period of time. This is our favorite flavor of solar financing. It’s called the Sonoma County Energy Independence Program. First, you get a quote for a solar system or energy efficiency. Then, you apply for their financing. You can get it over 5, 10, or 20 year periods, and the interest rate is 7% (or better, depending on the bond deals they get). Finally, you pay through your property taxes.

Why people love property tax solar financing:

There’s a couple reasons why homeowners love getting solar and energy efficiency through this municipal financing program. First, it’s elegant if you decide to sell your home. The solar system goes with the home as does the tax bill… easy peasy. Second, some people like to use it as a way to take cash out of their home. If they finance, say, a $20K solar system, at the end of the year when they claim their 30% federal tax credit for solar, they get $6K in cash. It’s almost like an equity line. Third, it doesn’t require a credit check. If you can prove you own the home and your title is clean, there’s very few hurdles after that.

One thing that’s cool is that with our new solar panel discount program in Sonoma County with 1BOG, you can get an online estimate for solar, and then use that solar estimate to apply for the SCEIP solar financing program, with no one ever coming to your home.

How to sign up for 1bog’s Sonoma County Solar Campaign:

• Sign up!
• We get in touch with you to answer your questions and help you decide if solar is right for your home.
• If you’re ready to move forward, schedule and receive a free home evaluation from the solar installer.
• Get a proposal under the 1BOG Discount!

(You can always contact Cameron, the Sonoma County Campaign Specialist, cameron@1bog.org or 707-703-1330)

New Jersey Solar Rebates, SRECS, and Incentives – Updated

New Jersey gets bad wrap about a lot of things.  All those turnpike exits, and that glorious smell as you go past the oil refineries in the Northern part of the state. But one thing you can’t fault the garden state is Solar. In fact, New Jersey is at the top of our 2009 Solar Report Card. It got an A, and here’s why:

• It’s got net metering with easy interconnection standards (Little hassle and red tape.)
• It’s got a great rebates and incentives, including a very generous Solar Renewable Energy Certificate (SREC) program that PAYS you for generating your solar power.

Bottom line, for an average size 5Kw system for someone with a $100/month electric bill before solar:

• Cost Before Incentives: $35,000 (5000watts x $7/watt installed) (Don’t panic!)
• State Rebate: subtract $8,750
• SREC value: subtract about $3400/year for 2009 (probably less as years go by)
• 30% Federal tax credit: subtract $7875 (calculated after State rebate)
• Years to Payback: 8-9 years, depending on SREC value.

Estimated NET cost: $ 14,975

Oh, yeah. This helps too:

• Greenhouse Gas (CO2) Saved: 9618lbs/year, or like not driving 11,500 miles a year.
• New monthly electric bill (first year): About $13/month.

Check out the more detailed explanation of New Jersey’s solar rebates and incentives. Or, if you just want to see what it will cost you and your family, just fill out our form, and we’ll set you up with a free quote.

Feel great about yourself, Solar People of New Jersey. You Rock!

The SPR 2009 State by State Solar Report Card

About this report card:

Over the past 20 years, best practices have emerged for connecting to the grid. There’s no need for a particular state to reinvent the wheel. Some states simply need to get their butts in gear and adopt best practices. To hold them accountable, we’ve created a state solar report card. The results are published above.

It’s important to note only 30% of our states received passing grades and only 4 states got ‘A’ ratings: New Jersey, California, Massachusetts, and Maryland.

The first two grading sections of the report (net metering and interconnection) were scored by the Solar Alliance and the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC) in their 2008 report, “Freeing the Grid”. The last two sections (incentives and utility rate policies) were scored in 2009 by Solar Power Rocks.

Grading Criteria:

Scoring criteria were developed by Solar Power Rocks, guided from the Solar Alliance’s Four Pillars to Cost Effective Solar Policy.

Interconnection – The technical rules for solar customers to “plug in” to the electric grid. The more complex, out of date, or nonsensical the state rules are for plugging into the grid, the lower the grade.

Grades reflect: eligible technologies, individual system capacity, removing interconnection process complexity for smaller systems, interconnection timelines and charges, engineering charges, prohibiting the requirement of unnecessary external disconnects, certification, spot interconnection vs. wide area interconnection, technical screens, friendliness of legalese, insurance requirements, dispute resolution, and rule coverage.

Net Metering – The billing arrangement where customers get can sell excess electricity back to their utility for equal the amount they are charged to consume it. The more customer friendly net metering policies, the higher the grade.

Grades reflect: individual solar system capacity, caps on program capacity limits, restrictions on “rollover” of kWh from one month to the next (yep just like cell phone minutes), metering issues (like charges for new meters), Renewable Energy Credit (REC) ownership, eligible customers and technology (the more renewables the better), being able to aggregate meters across the property for net metering, and safe harbor provisions to protect customers from solar tariff changes.

Incentives – Available utility, state, and/or municipality incentives for customers to adopt solar energy. Rated by Solar Power Rocks from 2007-2009. More info on all the states on the right hand side of this page.

Grades reflect: Encouragement of business growth and investment with large-scale, long-term programs, tying incentives to system performance, easement of incentives over time as the market grows and prices decline, support for a broad range of system types and sizes, simplicity, transparency, and ease of program administration, policy development with stakeholder groups, publishing timely, comprehensive and consistent data on installed systems, recognizing the environmental attributes of solar production.

Utility Rate Policies – Strong utility rate policies decouple utility profits from revenues to encourage efficiency and on-site generation. Some states also continue to subsidize large non-renewable, polluting electricity generators which artificially creates lower utility prices. This lengthens payback on a solar investment. Compiled by Solar Power Rocks, 2009.

Grades reflect: Time of use (TOU) billing, and tiered utility rate schedules, aligning utility shareholder and customer benefits resulting from utility solar investments, encouraging rate structures that align peak retail and wholesale costs, eliminating “volume discounts” that discourage efficiency, including commercial rate plans that exchange low or no demand charges for higher energy charges, providing a range of rates to incentivize efficiency and peak reductions, allowing customers to choose a solar friendly rate.

SPR Solar Podcast #4: "How much Solar Fred?"

It’s the most frequently asked solar question people ask us. We’ve answered it previously in the aptly titled post, How much Solar Fred?.

Here, we answer it for your listening enjoyment in our first ever Podcast hosted by Solar Fred. And boy howdy is this enjoyable listening!

Listen to the words and think of Sinatra.

[audio: http://www.solarpowerrocks.com/Podcasts/SPR_Podcast_4.mp3]

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Wisconsin Solar Rebates and Incentives Updated! Sort of.

Updated 9/2009. All that’s in the Wisconsin Solar Rebate and Incentives Page is still good and accurate info, so Solar Fred hasn’t messed with it. Thanks Dave and Dan! You rock for … uhm,  not making Wisconsin change their program before I updated it.

I’ll just add as an example for a 4kW system for solar electric:

• Cost Before Rebates: $30,000 based on $7.50/watt installed price. (Don’t panic!)
• Federal / State Tax Credit: $6,750
• State / Utility Rebate: $7,500
• Net Cost: $15,750
• Cumulative Lifetime Savings: $23,092 over 25 years  (Remember they last even longer, so cha-ching.)
• Investment Return: 5.5%

Your solar electric system may cost more or less expensive depending on your energy usage and other factors.  Bottom Line, whatever your residential usage, if your utility participates in the program, it’s an up to 25% off sale, thanks to the Sate rebate, plus an additional $500 if you go through their site assessment and comply with their recommendations. Not a bad thing to do.

Get a free quote from one of our installers, and they should walk you through all of paperwork. But don’t buy anything until the State approves you and your lovely tree-less/minimally shaded home for the rebate.  That’s the key. But once you do that, get solar, you rock, Wisconsin person. I like your beer an sausages too, but love your solar rebates. Now, if only I could find a Wisconsin girl to love and be able to wear one of those cheese heads.

Solar Fred. 9/2009.

The cost of the "lets wait and see" solar buying reaction

I replied to an email I got this morning from one of our readers who requested to get quotes from solar installation companies a few weeks ago. He was just curious whether there was any new solar technology out there he wasn’t about to miss the boat on by going solar right now.

This is a common reaction among people considering solar. In other realms, it’s referred to as “cognitive dissonance”. People need to feel they are getting the best available option all the way through the buying process.

That’s why whizbang reports of newfangled solar technology can confuse people into thinking installing solar on their roof is now unwise. Continual “solar breaking news” makes it easy to hear the rumble of progress around the corner – even though nobody has seen any of it with their own eyes.

Sometimes I compare this “lets wait and see” solar reaction to someone who is looking to get to a once in a lifetime symphony performance. You have the opportunity to leave now and get there 15 minutes before show time with your friend who drives a Honda, or you could wait some indeterminate amount of time longer for this super sleek hydrogen powered neon limo to roll by and pick you up. After all, a flyer from the sky informed you earlier in the year the hydrogen limo is on pace to cruise by your house around now to give you a supersonic ride anywhere you want to go. Of course by waiting, you risk being late or missing the show.

Investing in solar panels may not seem like you’re biting into the latest nectar filled bosom of solar technology the internet is all aflutter about, but you can rest assured those panels will perform admirably for decades, kinda of like your buddy’s Honda. That neon hydrogen limo might not make it around the corner.

If arriving on time to the once in a lifetime symphony above is equivalent to your payback time on the solar energy system, I can only speak for myself, but I’d rather be in the Honda.

Thank you sun! It's harvest time!

Straight out of our back yard! This is the first year I’ve had a garden since I was about 5 years old – that year my mother taped one of our neighbor’s large tomatoes to our plant cause we couldn’t seem to grow any all summer and she didn’t want me to get all disappointed. Thanks mom! At least we had one that year.

Having a garden has been a very rewarding experience. Something to look forward to every day coming home, just to see how far the tomato plants progressed (I love tomatoes). We planted 10 heirloom tomato plants in a raised bed the previous renter didn’t even bother with for 5 years because it was full of invasive lilies.

Well dammit, I rooted out all those lilies this March, turned all the soil over by shovel. Got all dirty and up close with the worms and we planted some nice little seeds: Radish, carrots, tomatoes (of course), sweet thai peppers, yellow cucumbers, basil, lemon thyme, mint, rosemary, pole beans, snap peas, and sunflowers. We’ve got a nice plum tree in front, an apple tree in the back and some delicious concord grapes growing on the side. Amazing how quickly everything sprouted up here.

So life affirming this experience was and continues to be, and I simply am in awe of biology, what the sun, soil, and water are capable of. So, I couldn’t help but share some enthusiasm with all of you too. There’s nothing like growing your own, the flavors can’t be beat.

One of these Cherokee purple tomatoes, coupled with a Dr. “Somebody” ’s yellow sliced all drippy sweet over mayo toast, topped with fresh ground pepper and I have been in a constant state of bliss for the past 3 weeks.

Thank you sun!

Just think, the same sun energy which grew all this great stuff — you can harvest to farm your own electricity and run your blender to make fresh drinks with too?! What an amazing world we live in.

New York Solar Rebates and Incentives – Updated!

We’ve just updated the New York Solar Incentive and Rebate page, and I gotta say that I’m so proud of my home state of New York for their solar efforts.  They rebates and tax incentives are extremely generous right now, but as of this writing in September 2009, the most generous New York state wide solar rebate is scheduled to go away by the end of 2009.

See our New York Solar rebate page for a full breakdown and explanation of the rebates, tax incentives, and payback, but here’s the bottom line:

Say you’re right now paying $150/month in electricity in Brooklyn, New York. (Yeah, there is sun in Brooklyn. Trees grow there, I’m told.)  So to offset and almost eliminate that $150/month utility bill, here’s what you happens when you go solar in New York:

• You buy a 5kw (5000 watt DC) system that takes care of 93% of your electric costs for the next 25 years or more. Based on $7.50/watt gross installed price, the cost is $37,500 BEFORE tax incentives and the cash rebate. (Don’t panic!)
• After tax incentives and the New York State rebate, you’ll pay a little over $9,500 and get a payback in 2 to 3 years.
• Your electric bill will be $47 for the entire year. Without solar, it will be $1800 for the year.
• The reason why the net cost is so low is a combination of state and federal tax credits, property tax abatement, and a huge $14,000 cash rebate from the State. The payback is fast because of all of that plus the savings in your utility bill. Did I mention it’s only $47 a year with solar? It’s worth repeating.
• Again the full story and example is on our New York page.

Sadly, this very generous rebate disappears at the end of 2009, and as of this writing in September 2009, we’ve heard of no rumblings from the legislator that they will fund the rebate past then. So if you’re going to go solar in New York and you’ve got some home equity, now is definitely the time to get some quotes from one of our installers.

I kid thee not. I swear on the hole of an H & H New York bagel with a cream cheese shmear, right now is the best time ever to go solar in New York and that there is no guarantee that you’ll ever see these kinds of incentives again past 12/31/2009.  So if your house is right for solar, go for it.

SPR Solar Podcast #3: To battery or not to battery?

My goodness! Are all those people lining up to get battery based solar energy systems from the pink bunny? Hope not!

Listen to our third podcast right here to find out why:

[audio:http://www.solarpowerrocks.com/Podcasts/SPR_Podcast_3.mp3]

You might wish to refer to the corresponding post about batteries vs. grid tied solar. It dovetails with this Podacast.

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