Sunday, June 21, 2015

Happy Solstice! (Act fast to get your own solar system installed quick, federal support likely to disappear)

12 noon on Summer Solstice 2015 at LOVESalem HQ: 54 Month's output of 4.4 kW system (351 kWh/mo)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, it isn't going to go to zero (probably, but then again, there is still a burning need by many Republicans to punish Solandra for something or other), but it is set to drop from 30% to 10% on January 1, 2017. THAT MAY NOT BE SO TERRIBLE given that the 30% credit has been in place for ?? 5? 10? years. In that time, the cost of solar has dropped precipitously . . . A system that was installed 5 years ago with the 30% credit may actually be more expensive than a system installed in 2017 with only the 10% credit.

Walker said...

Thanks for the note; you're certainly right that a system today is much less expensive than when LOVESalem HQ acquired it -- though we also enjoyed, atop the federal 30% credit, additional federal rebates AND state tax credits. These brought the net installed cost after four years to less than $1.40 per watt.

Bottom line is this:

1) No one knows what the future holds, so trying to guess what the markets and Congress and the Oregon Legislature will do is a fool's errand.

2) The main reason that solar system prices dropped was economies of scale, scale provided in response to rising demand from people who were willing to install solar because it was the right thing to do, regardless of whether the Wall St. Casino was offering better returns elsewhere.