SOLAR REBATES AND MORE
Created by admin on 29 Mar 2008 | Tagged as: Uncategorized
As part of the 2006 Florida Energy Act, the Solar Energy Systems Incentives Program provides rebates for purchase and installation of solar energy systems in homes and businesses, which are administered by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Energy Office.
Any resident of Florida who purchases and installs a new solar energy system from July 1, 2006, through June 30, 2010, is eligible for a rebate on a portion of the purchase price.
The system must meet one of the following requirements: Two kilowatts or larger for a solarphotovoltaic system. The rebate amount is $4 per watt based on the total wattage rating of the system.
- The maximum allowable rebate per solar photovoltaic system installation is $20,000 for a residence and
$100,000 for a business, a publicly owned or operated facility or a facility owned or operated by a private, not-for-profit organization, including condominiums or apartment buildings. - A solar energy system that provides at least 50 percent of a building’s hot water consumption for a solar thermal system. A solar thermal system qualifies for a rebate if:
- The system is installed by a state-licensed solar or plumbing contractor.
- The system complies with all applicable local building codes.
Authorized rebates for installation of solar thermal systems are $500 for a residence and $1500 per 1,000 Btu up to a maximum of $5,000 for a place of business, a publicly owned or operated facility, or a facility owned or operated by a private, not-for-profit organization, including condominiums or apartment buildings. Btu must be verified by approved metering equipment.
Solar thermal pool heater provides authorized rebates for installation of solar thermal pool heaters of $100 per installation.
$450 Solar Domestic Water Heating Rebate
This program promotes clean, green solar technology. On a south-facing rooftop with good sun exposure, a solar water heater provides about 70 percent of a family’s hot water needs. Local installed costs are around $5,000 for a freeze-protected system that can withstand Tallahassee’s winter low temperatures. Low interest loans are available through the City, in addition to rebates. These rebates are not available for pool heating systems.
If you’re generating your own power with rooftop solar photovoltaic panels, watch your electric meter “spin backwards” with Net Metering. [see below] *
Most home PV systems are sized around 2 or 3 kilowatts. In north Florida, installed costs of small PV systems have been running about $6 to $8 per peak watt, or about $18,000 to $24,000 for a 3-kilowatt system.
Net Metering Rules
The State of Florida Public Service Commission adopted revised rules for net metering for investor-owned companies that became effective April 2008. These rules do not apply to electric cooperatives [such as Talquin] or city owned utilities.
*The City of Tallahassee has adopted its own rules on net metering for residential and commercial customers who generate energy through PV. Any customer net excess generation (NEG) is carried over to the customer’s next bill at the utility’s retail rate for a moving 12-month period. At the end of this 12-month period, any remaining customer NEG is granted to the utility without compensation for the customer. Refinements specifically to net metering billing for commercial customers are still needed.
CLICK THIS INTERACTIVE GOOGLE MAP TO VIEW LOCATIONS OF
SOLAR INSTALLATIONS IN TALLAHASSEE
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Solar Calculator
PVWATTS calculates monthly and annual energy production in kWh and savings in dollars. The user may also choose to output hourly AC power data which can be saved to a text file.
Tallahassee Solar Tour of Homes
PURCHASING GREEN POWER
After electric utility restructuring in the 90’s “green-power” marketers emerged in the market. This provided customers an opportunity to purchase power generated from renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power, geothermal, hydropower, and various forms of biomass. See Public Power for a comprehensive history of The Evolution of Green Tags.
Today, when a customer purchases green power from a utility, for example, the City of Tallahassee, one purchases the electricity generated by mostly natural gas and pays an additional fee. The City of Tallahassee offers green power for the city’s residential and business customers in conjunction with Sterling Planet, a Georgia-based green power marketer. The City offers two options: a power blend of solar and biomass or a solar-only product.
Customers can purchase the blended product, 95% biomass and 5% solar resources, to meet 50%, 75% or 100% of their electricity needs at a premium of 1.6¢/kWh. The solar-only product, which is supplied from solar systems in Tallahassee and other areas of Florida, is offered at a premium of 11.6¢/kWh in increments of 10% to 100% of a customer’s electricity use. [A customer can decide what percent of the electricity would come from solar.] See Sterling Planet’s Sign-up Page for Tallahassee for explanation of fees.
In their December 2007 report, the National Renewable Energy Lab, indicated that more than 750 utilities, or about 25% of utilities nationally, offer green power programs to customers and that in 2006, over 700,000 electricity customers in the US purchased green power.
