kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
- Occupation
- EC
Current House Budget Bill kills the ITC for residential solar
- Thread starter solarken
- Start date
hillbilly1
Senior Member
- Location
- North Georgia mountains
- Occupation
- Owner/electrical contractor
Mostly in the northeast, it called deregulation. Customer can buy their own transformers. There’s a few places around Atlanta that can chose who they buy from. Here in north Georgia, we have EMC’s where the customer owns the utility. The EMC’s buy their power from the TVA, which is mostly Hydro and Nuclear. They dabble in solar, but you have to sign up and pay more per kWh and they have the solar farms. Haven’t seen them offer that program in a long while. I asked a lineman about it, and he just laughed!
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
- Occupation
- EC
You likely choose your energy supplier and are billed via contracts with them and likely renew contract on a yearly basis. Whatever facility owns the local infrastructure still bills you a set monthly fee for them to keep up the infrastructure. They likely send you one bill monthly but have itemized lines for their fees and lines for your energy supplier's fees.
Electric utilities here are all publicly owned and you have no choice, but you do get to vote for board members on a periodic basis and supposedly board meetings are public meetings and you can attend and address the board with concerns.
The natural gas utilities (kind of has all merged into one pipeline operator for a pretty large area over the past 30 years) works mostly like I described above though. You choose your gas supplier, but the pipeline company delivers it, the pipeline company bills you but itemizes their charges and your gas supplier charges on the bill.
I don't think anyone on here said they got panels that say 'made in china' when I asked in the other thread on tariffs.
I think most US PV panels that are listed for a 690 type install are made in Mexico, Canada or Philippines.
Not that make them more 'secure' from hacking but just that I did not see anybody pipe up and say they get panels with 'made in china' stickers.
solarken
NABCEP PVIP
- Location
- Hudson, OH, USA
- Occupation
- Solar Design and Installation Professional
Do you mean inverters? Or solar modules which are often called "panels"?
ggunn
PE (Electrical), NABCEP certified
- Location
- Austin, TX, USA
- Occupation
- Consulting Electrical Engineer - Photovoltaic Systems
There is nothing to "hack" in a solar module.
pipe_bender
Senior Member
- Location
- Boston
- Occupation
- Electrician
I think this is the article Augie was referring to I also saw yesterday;
gadfly56
Senior Member
- Location
- New Jersey
- Occupation
- Professional Engineer, Fire & Life Safety
Let's be fair all the way around. Tax credits are not subsidies. A subsidy puts money in your pocket that you never had. Credits reduce the amount of your money that goes to Uncle Sam. The difference is that subsidies have no upper limit; whatever the congresscritters decide to give you is what you get. Tax credits are limited to the amount of your tax burden or some reduced portion thereof. There may be carry forward provisions, but in the end, you can't get back more than you owe.
ggunn
PE (Electrical), NABCEP certified
- Location
- Austin, TX, USA
- Occupation
- Consulting Electrical Engineer - Photovoltaic Systems
That, and there is no such thing as a free market. All markets are manipulated by governments and moneyed interests (some will say that they are one and the same) for their own enrichment.
wwhitney
Senior Member
- Location
- Berkeley, CA
- Occupation
- Retired
I will disagree. Unless your tax burden is too low, there's no economic difference between getting your taxes reduced by $100 and getting sent a check for $100. And for a refundable tax credit, there is no difference at all.
Cheers, Wayne
Ah right lol
I meant inverter.
gadfly56
Senior Member
- Location
- New Jersey
- Occupation
- Professional Engineer, Fire & Life Safety
True, the effect on the recipient is the same either way. However, the subsidy comes out of the pockets of his neighbors, or by inflating the national debt.
What the heck is a refundable tax credit?
wwhitney
Senior Member
- Location
- Berkeley, CA
- Occupation
- Retired
That's a separate issue, whether the budget is balanced or not. Money is fungible, so it's not really possible to say that when the deficit is 10% of the budget, these particular 10% of government expenditures are inflating the national debt, while these 90% of government expenditures are being paid from current revenue.
Both reducing revenues and increasing expenditures reduce the budget surplus or increase the budget deficit; they are equivalent in this regard.
A tax credit where if it reduces your taxes below zero, you get a check from the Treasury. The Earned Income Credit is a good example.
Cheers, Wayne
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
- Occupation
- EC
That happens a lot with earned income credit. People get refund of more than they had withheld, even if their tax liability itself was zero.