In The New York Review of Books for June 11,  Bill McKibben of 350.org has published a thoughtful review of the new Nicholas Stern book, The Global Deal: Climate Change and the Creation of a New Era of Progress and Prosperity. Stern, former chief economist of the World Bank, made headlines in October, 2006, on the release of his Stern Report, commissioned by the British government, on the potential economic effects of climate change. Briefly, as McKibben says, Stern [...]

SRP’s Solar Hot Water Rebates Have Not Decreased

Even though there is still time to take advantage of the current SRP solar rebates, I’ve had many people tell me they can’t make the financial commitment before the end of the month. If you want to become energy independent, but need to wait on installing a solar system, there are small steps you can take. A solar water heater is less expensive than a complete solar system, and is a step in the right direction. Not to mention, the SRP rebate decrease does not affect solar water heating systems, at least for now.

SRP customers who install a solar water heating system qualify for a payment of $.50/kilowatt hour of energy savings. On top of that, the Arizona government gives a 25 percent credit, up to $1,000, and the federal government offers a 30 percent credit, up to $2,000. These credits and rebates can save you a lot of money! For example, a $5,000 solar system would only cost $1,590 and could save more than $200 a year (depending on energy usage) on your electricity bill. This means the solar water heating system will have paid for itself in less than 7 years. While this option does not completely eliminate an electric bill, it can shave off a chunk of the expense.

There’s no telling when these incentives will decrease or disappear altogether. If you’re curious to know how much a new solar water heating system would cost for your home, give a certified solar installer a call for a quote.

Holly
Public Relations

It seems to be the topic of conversation lately: APS increased our electric rates again! Everywhere I go I seem to be having the same conversation as the summer heat is upon us. Everyone is tired of paying their electricity bill. Perhaps it’s the economy that has all of us talking about our bills more? We’re all looking for ways to cut back, be more frugal and save money.

The idea of having virtually no APS bill is hard to imagine, but it’s finally a reality. Now with the solar energy rebates from APS and SRP, which are huge, along with the Federal and State tax credits, the average homeowner can finally afford solar energy for their home. The key change to the incentives is that now we can take all of the 30% Federal tax credit on next year’s taxes. By removing the cap of $2000 a year, the flood gates have opened up to a huge market that really wanted to Go Solar, but couldn’t afford it before.

In the future, those of us who have invested in a solar energy system for our home will no longer be concerned with the utility company’s rate hikes. We’ll just enjoy a greater return on our investment!

Lisa
Harmon Solar Sales

It’s now widely recognized, if infrequently mentioned, that it takes water to make energy, and energy to transport and treat water.
Michael Webber of the University of Texas has been mentioning it a lot. In a recent Scientific American article, he wrote at length about the ecological death spiral that results when energy and water utilities chase a stressed resource.

Thermoelectric power plants are the largest consumers of water in the United States, Webber pointed out in a talk on [...]

Olivier Drucke, 43, the Franco-German marketing whiz who runs the European Solar Thermal Industry Federation (ESTIF) in Brussels, gave a rapid-fire talk on Thursday to explain how his coalition managed to get solar water heating mandated at 50% of all heating demand by 2050.

As a baseline, Drucke said, in 2007 China had the equivalent of about 80,000 MW of domestic solar water heating, and the United States about 22,000 MW – but it was mostly pool heating, outside Hawaii. Turkey had 7,000 MW, [...]

In case you hadn’t heard, beginning June 1, SRP is decreasing the rebates for customers investing in solar systems. Right now, they are offering a big incentive to install solar on your home. SRP is giving a rebate of $3.00 per watt, up to 20,000 watts. Sadly, this great deal goes away at the end of this month. In June, the SRP rebate will decrease to $2.70 per watt, and a cap will be placed at 5,000 watts.

While 30 cents doesn’t sound like much, when you crunch the numbers the total amount saved with the current SRP rebate is huge! Most desert dwellers use much more than 5,000 watts of electricity per year. On my home for example, my average monthly SRP bill is $350. This is equivalent to a 15,000 watt solar system. If I waited until next month to secure my SRP rebate, I would lose out on more than $31,000. I don’t know about you, but I can’t afford to lose that money! If you are an SRP customer, now is the time to take advantage of the solar rebate!

Although the deadline is right around the corner, it’s not too late to get your hands on the SRP rebate. A local solar installation company such as Harmon Solar can help with all of the details and should be able to get it done in about a week. Thankfully, you only need to have the solar panel design and plan postmarked by May 31, and the system can be installed and certified later. To speed up the process, contact SRP to find out your total electricity usage for 2008. This will help a solar installation company design a system that works best for you.

If the rebate savings is not incentive enough to make the change, keep in mind the solar system will pay for itself in a few years depending on your average electricity use. Even better, if a system is designed well, it’s possible to eliminate an electric bill altogether! Who knows where energy rates will be 10 or 20 years from now or how readily available electricity will be. Every time I turn around, I hear of another rate hike, and it’s likely only going to get worse. A solar system not only saves money in the long run, it eliminates energy dependence, which in this day-and-age is priceless.

Holly
Public Relations

What if people ordinarily unable to install photovoltaic systems because of the initial cost or lack of an unshaded, well-oriented roof could buy into a community installation and receive a corresponding offset on their utility bills?

Speakers at today’s SOLAR 2009 session on community solar described first steps at making this model a reality. Two examples already provide valuable lessons, and more models are emerging.

Dana Hall of Pace Law School’s Pace Energy and Climate C [...]

For decades, solar power companies have worked hard to drive the cost of solar-generated electricity downward, to compete with “conventional” central power plants. “Grid parity” is considered to be 8 to 10 cents per kilowatt-hour – the average cost of utility-supplied electricity across the United States.

Speakers at the opening plenary session of SOLAR 2009 said we’ll be at grid parity within a year or two – but that it may not matter.

Ajeet Rohtgi, winner of this year’s Hoyt Clarke Hot [...]

The real estate bubble has burst. Denis Hayes, president of The Bullitt Foundation and a pioneering solar engineer and advocate, thinks the world will work its way out of the its economic morass “in three months or three years.”

But, he warned a large audience at the SOLAR 2009 Awards Banquet on Tuesday evening, “Recovery is mostly bad news. Behind it is an ecological bubble. Economic bubbles inevitably lead to collapse, and so do ecological bubbles – and there’s no recovery from an ecologica [...]

David Zach is a futurist, not a psychic.  When he speaks next Friday at SOLAR 2009, the American Solar Energy Society’s National Solar Conference, he says “I’m not going to tell people what’s going to happen in the future, but I am going to tell them how to think about the future.”

Zach will talk about looking at the world in terms of fads, trends and principles. Fads, he says, are like flavors, giving our lives color. Fads serve as anchors to a moment in time, but those who live entirely by [...]

The SOLAR TODAY staff shuffles off to Buffalo over the weekend. We’ll post daily reports on SOLAR 2009 events, right here on the Advances blog.

In addition to speeches, we’ll sit in on a lot of policy updates, technology introductions and training sessions.  There’s always something lively and interesting going on, so check this space daily.  

Blog readers are welcome to join the discussion — I hope you’ll post comments and questions as the week progresses.

&n [...]

Jigar Shah, founder of SunEdison, says the theme of his keynote talk will be that “We got everything we want except respect.”

Shah explains that a progressive administration and energy-minded Congress are happy to provide incentives and stimulus funds to promote solar energy projects. But in spite of a seven-year track record of 40 percent annual growth, Washington officials still don’t regard solar industries as grown-up, responsible businesses that can meet their targets.

Ev [...]

Good news and bad news from our English-speaking cousins:

First the good news: Jim Prentice, Canada’s environment minister, announced last week that his Conservative government will institute a cap-and-trade system for coal-fired power plants, effectively forbidding new coal-plant construction without carbon sequestration and leading to the phase-out of existing plants.

The bad news is that Australia has delayed its cap-and-trade system by a year, until 2011, repor [...]

Since October 2007, Kansas has waged a war over the issue of a new coal-burning power plant for Sunflower Electric. The utility company lobbied aggressively for it, and Gov. Kathleen Sebelius repeatedly vetoed enabling legislation.

Sebelius has now moved on to become secretary of health and human services in the Obama administration. Her successor as governor, Mark Parkinson, instantly reached a compromise with Sunflower to permit the coal plant. The power company agrees to shut dow [...]