Current House Budget Bill kills the ITC for residential solar

S

solarken

NABCEP PVIP
Location
Hudson, OH, USA
Occupation
Solar Design and Installation Professional
electrofelon said:
If it passes, I would think that would make for a very busy year for us solar people
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Yeah, it will be the last year for a lot of residential installers. I was around when the only reason to install residential solar for the homeowner was to make themselves feel good and show off to the neighbors how progressive they were. As you might guess, a lot fewer installs then.
 
pv_n00b said:
Yeah, it will be the last year for a lot of residential installers. I was around when the only reason to install residential solar for the homeowner was to make themselves feel good and show off to the neighbors how progressive they were. As you might guess, a lot fewer installs then.
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Hardware costs are much lower now than they were back then, but I agree that many solar companies will likely not survive if this goes through as written.

I'll just add that the notion that alternative energy projects are somehow in competition with fossil fuels for market share is way off the mark. We need it all.
 
ggunn said:
I'll just add that the notion that alternative energy projects are somehow in competition with fossil fuels for market share is way off the mark. We need it all.
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Well that's the plan. Promote fossil fuels and kill everything else.
 
pv_n00b said:
Yeah, it will be the last year for a lot of residential installers. I was around when the only reason to install residential solar for the homeowner was to make themselves feel good and show off to the neighbors how progressive they were. As you might guess, a lot fewer installs then.
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Electric rates from utilities will still cause some more interest in areas with higher rates?

We have some the lowest rates in the nation here and there is little PV around so far. A few commercial solar farms here and there and some in planning but not many at all at single family dwellings or even light commercial facilities.
 
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80% of the solar installers around here have gone out of business since the new rate structure (NEM3) 2 years ago.
Or I should say my distributors sales have shrunk that much.
 
augie47 said:
I'm possibly standing alone on my soapbox but I'm more of a free market individual. If the product does not stand up financially without subsidy then it's a personal choice to select it.
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My livelihood has been dependent on solar for 20 years, but I'm with you: I don't think other people should be forced to pay for solar.

However, I'm 100% in support of any and all tax credits for anyone that can get them. Gas oil wind solar whatever.

so it's sad to see the 30% tax credit go away.
That isn't money we're given, it's less money the government takes from us ....and I'm fine with that.
 
augie47 said:
I'm possibly standing alone on my soapbox but I'm more of a free market individual. If the product does not stand up financially without subsidy then it's a personal choice to select it.
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There is no such thing as a free market.
 
hillbilly1 said:
If I’m not mistaken, they exempted Solar from the tariffs.
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I did not hear that, and given the attitude of the current administration toward renewable energy, I would be surprised if solar equipment would be exempted from tariffs.
 
ggunn said:
I did not hear that, and given the attitude of the current administration toward renewable energy, I would be surprised if solar equipment would be exempted from tariffs.
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Follow the money, solar has lots of lobbyists, he probably had some friends call up and complain. All politicians are like that, doesn’t matter which side of the aisle. If any of the politicians were serious about green energy, micro hydro would be included.
 
A local utility installed a good number of arrays next to the highway about 14 years ago. I noticed that the disconnects were never on. I went by today, and they still are not on. Talking with one of the utility guys, he said they were on for about a week and then they sent a crew out to turn them off. Never been on since. I wonder if someone got some money to install them on paper, but someone else lost some money when they were on.
 
augie47 said:
I'm possibly standing alone on my soapbox but I'm more of a free market individual.
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The thing is about most electric utilities is to us the consumer there is no free market, its a monopoly and in most cases owned by private equity or share holders. Here in Oregon some utilities are owned by a local town or there are rural cooperatives run by a public board.
I have herd of some places out east where you can choose what utility you have, however I am not sure how that works?
I doubt anywhere has two sets of primary distribution owned by two or more competing companies in a free market?

In exchange for the privlage of being a 'monopoly' (public or private) is it unfair to ask for clean air and water in return? Now how thats best accomplished could be up for debate, here in Oregon I believe the utilities pay a tax and the revenue from that tax go to a independent energy conservation non profit that then funds grant programs like LED lighting, heatpumps and solar. But I am not sure exactly how it all works.
 
tortuga said:
I have herd of some places out east where you can choose what utility you have, however I am not sure how that works?
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Can't speak for other states, but in Ohio the generation and transmission aspects were split into separate entities. The transmission utility is whoever your incumbent was at the time of deregulation (generally a member of the FirstEnergy conglomerate of Ohio Edison, Toledo Edison, and one or two others in the northern part of the state, or American Electric Power in the southern) and they're responsible for the wires, switching, metering, billing, and all that other fun stuff you'd normally associate with a power company. Generation was split off from the incumbents into their own companies, and they along with whoever else meets the state PUC requirements are allowed to compete to actually provide the electrons to the transmission company for your usage, using whatever methods and rates they feel like quoting (so you can buy purely based on cheapest, or renewable content, or whatever).

Edit: Natural gas was done in pretty much the exact same manner, around the same time.
 
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