LA County's Response

Ms. Rank reported that indeed the LACEP program is presently on hold. However, there is much activity underway in an attempt to both revitalize PACE and find alternative means of financing renewable energy and energy efficiency projects in LA County. At the direction of the Board of Supervisors, on July 22, 2010 the Chief Executive Officer issued a Report to the Board (attached) with initial recommendations on how to deal with the present situation.  Some highlights from that Report are the following:

• Legislative attempts to "fix" PACE  are underway in Washington, D.C. (more below).
• The National Association of Counties adopted a resolution urging Congress to fix PACE.
• The County is exploring Alternative Financing mechanisms including:
  • An FHA Title I loan program directed at renewable & energy efficiency projects. The loans could be either secured or unsecured with "some degree of federal subsidy."  The anticipated interest rate (based on the current market) is 6-7%. HUD indicates that loans could be available in 3-6 months. If that is true, for qualifying home owners, this might be an attractive option. However, as of now we know nothing about the qualifying criteria that will be required.
  • California Energy Commission Grant Reallocation - the CEC had previously allocated some $35 million in State Energy Program grants for various PACE programs (not including LA County) but those grants are now on hold. The CEC is considering reallocating those funds to PACE jurisdictions "where they may make the most impact." This reallocation might assist LACEP.
  • PACE with Subordinate Liens - since the sticking point is on the priority of PACE liens versus the existing mortgage, one possible solution is to issue PACE loans that are subordinate to the mortgage. That solves the Fannie/Freddie issue, but jeopardizes the ability to sell the municipal bonds needed to fund the program. The County Treasurer & Tax Collector's office is warning that this is not a viable option.
  • Statewide Whole House Retrofit Program - the State of California has set aside $140 million for the Investor Owned Utilities to implement more comprehensive, whole-house retrofits instead of simply providing rebates on individual appliances. Unfortunately, it does not appear that any of this money could be spent on financing solar installations.
  • PACE funding on non-FNMA/FMAC loans - some loans are not subject to restrictions from Fannie and Freddie and in theory these loans could move ahead with PACE funding. However, since some of those loans could subsequently be sold to Fannie or Freddie, this is not considered a particularly viable approach.

While there is clearly a great deal of effort being expended, for the near term the only option that appears to have potential to assist homeowners in adding solar is the FHA Title I loan program. As we learn more details about that program we will report on them here.

Legislative Response

The clearest path to a resolution is legislation from Congress. In the House, both Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Barney Frank (D-MA) have indicated their support for PACE protection and action by their committees is to be expected after the recess.

The bill in the House, HR 5766 by Rep. Michael Thompson (D-CA), has some 48 cosponsors (47 Democrats and 1 Republican) as of today, while the corresponding legislation in the Senate, S 3642 by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has five cosponsors (all Democrats). As there is nothing partisan about helping homeowners make their homes more energy efficient and installing renewable energy systems, those cosponsor numbers will surely increase once Congress returns from its August recess. (Of course, it would not hurt for those reading this post to contact their members of Congress and urge them to support the legislation.) The widget in the box above will update with the current status of the bill, or you can click on the "View" link to see the updated status. (Thanks to the govtrack.us website which provided the code.)

The text of both measures is identical and very short. In its entirety, here is the text of the legislation as it exists today:

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the 'The PACE Assessment Protection Act of 2010'.

SEC. 2. TREATMENT OF PACE PROGRAMS BY FANNIE MAE AND FREDDIE MAC.

(a) Adoption of Underwriting Standards- Not later than the expiration of the 60-day period that begins upon the date of the enactment of this Act, the Federal National Mortgage Association and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation shall adopt underwriting standards that are consistent with the Guidelines for Pilot PACE Financing Programs issued on May 7, 2010, by the Department of Energy. Liens or other property obligations that secure property taxes or assessments under a PACE program and are consistent with such standards shall be considered to comply with the Uniform Instruments of such Association and Corporation and shall not constitute a default on an existing mortgage or trigger the exercise of lender's remedies for a property with such a lien. With respect to a property that meets the underwriting criteria of the Association and the Corporation without consideration of the PACE program lien, the Association and the Corporation shall not require repayment of a PACE program tax or assessment in order for a property owner to finance, refinance or transfer the property. The underwriting standards shall provide that, in the event that a tax or assessment under a PACE program is delinquent, only the unpaid delinquent amount along with applicable penalties, interest and costs will be subject to foreclosure and not the entire amount.

(b) Prohibition of Discrimination- The Federal Housing Finance Agency, the Federal National Mortgage Association, and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, and all Federal agencies and all entities chartered under Federal law shall not discriminate against communities implementing or participating in a PACE program, including by prohibiting lending within the community or requiring more restrictive underwriting criteria for properties within the community.

(c) Definition of PACE Program- For purposes of this section, the term 'PACE program' means a property assessed clean energy program under which a State or political subdivision of a State levies taxes or assessments on residential, commercial, agricultural, and other real property to finance the installation of renewable energy and energy efficiency improvements.

Not so fast. Mortgage companies, led by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, have cried foul. Since the programs operate as a property assessment, they have priority over the existing mortgage in the event of a default and subsequent foreclosure. Using such a program could put a homeowner at odds with the terms of their existing mortgage and might, all by itself, result in a technical breach of the mortgage contract. Faced with such resistance, PACE programs have come to a grinding halt. A story in the August 19, 2010 LA Times reflects the chorus of bad news that has been trickling out now for many weeks. Does this mean that PACE financing is dead?

Perhaps - but is the position of the mortgage industry reasonable? After all, the LA County program had some pretty stiff requirements for participation that were designed precisely to prevent foreclosures. In particular, the LACEP required that the debt to value ratio for the home could not exceed 80% and that the loan to value ratio could not exceed 10%. Assuming that those valuations were for recent market conditions, they are very conservative requirements. In addition, the homeowner needed to be current on both the mortgage and prior property taxes. Since the LACEP would have allowed the homeowner to substantially reduce their energy bills with either zero or little up-front cost, it is hard to see how participating could have pushed the homeowner closer to default, but if default had occurred, the mortgage holder would have still been protected. Indeed, by putting more money into the homeowner's hands, it would seem that the risk of default would have been substantially lessened.

While legislative fixes are potentially in the works, in the meantime many projects are now on hold and with them, the jobs that are so badly needed during this difficult economy. Here's hoping that the Obama administration can talk some sense into the mortgage industry and get these programs back on track.

The Run on Sun philosophy is a bit more complicated and considerably less cynical.  We are committed to providing the best-performing solar power systems on the market.  That is reflected in our preference for Sanyo solar panels for residential systems and our adoption of Enphase micro-inverters to overcome shading issues.  We are also committed to having the most professional installers in the industry - and that is reflected by our pursuing and achieving NABCEP Certification for all three principals of the company.  Taken together, we are designing and installing systems that produce more energy than their rebated rating would predict.  We are proud of these systems and we are equally proud of the great comments we get from our customers.

And yet, it is hard to get past the notion that we might not be connecting with the broader customer base that wants to add solar, but is daunted by the price. To serve that customer group we need to provide a system design that maintains our exacting standards yet can be priced at a more attractive level. That is a real challenge, but we are now in a position to make such an offering using the new Conergy P-series solar panels. Conergy is the world’s largest distributor of solar power products - and these new panels are built to Conergy’s demanding specifications in China, providing substantially lower cost without sacrificing quality.

The addition of these panels to the Run on Sun line of products will allow us to offer lower-cost systems where space and shading constraints permit. Combined with our long-standing reliance on SMA inverters, these new panels will allow us to provide high quality but much lower priced systems that will help make solar more affordable than ever before.  For those settings where space or shading requires a more sophisticated approach, we will still be offering our top-of-the-line Sanyo/Enphase systems that allow homeowners to wring every Watt available from their location.

We are very excited about these new panels and we hope that they will help even more folks add solar so that they too can Run on Sun.

The answer lies in the deployment of rapid-charge stations throughout metropolitan areas so that the car can be fully recharged in a matter of minutes, not hours. Nissan has just taken a major step forward in this area with the rollout of its first rapid-charge station in, of all places, Portland, Oregon.  Although the details are limited, here is the video that Nissan released of the event:

The Leaf’s onboard navigation system will be able to inform the driver of the location of the nearest public charging stations and the distance to each.  Of course, we hope that their home charging station will be solar powered and it is only a matter of time before you see public charging stations that are also solar powered.  You can learn more about making your EV Run on Sun at our website.

So begins the latest piece from Michael Hiltzik at the LA Times and he is, once again, on to something. Just as with Prop 16 - the misleadingly labeled “Taxpayers Right to Vote Act” that was actually the “Protect Pacific Gas & Electric’s Monopoly” measure,  Hiltzik reveals who is behind Prop 23 and explains why their motives might not be consistent with their rhetoric.

As folks who read this blog surely know, AB 32 is the California law that seeks to reduce our contribution to greenhouse gas emissions while making the state more attractive to green businesses (like this one) that represent the state’s economic future. Given that transportation is the single largest source of GHG emissions in the state, it is not surprising that oil companies might be concerned about a requirement to substantially reduce those emissions.  Now the Texas oil companies seeking to block AB 32 may not be interested in hastening the emergence of a renewable, non-fossil-fuel based economy, but surely the rest of us are.  Hopefully the voters will see through the deception and reject Prop 23, just as they rejected Prop 16 last month.

If you needed any more incentive than you already had, perhaps this will help.  Today the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA) released a study of world-wide climate data and concluded that “Global warming is undeniable.”  Analyzing data collected in 48 countries by more than 300 scientists, the NOAA report - titled State of the Climate in 2009 - concluded that “the past decade was the warmest on record and that the Earth has been growing warmer over the last 50 years.”

Apart from the climate change implications of implementing AB 32, it should be remembered that burning fossil fuels - particularly the gasoline peddled by those Texas oil companies - contributes to the creation of smog here in the LA Basin.  Cutting back on those emissions will make all of us healthier, particularly those with asthma and other respiratory conditions.  Indeed, when I was a child growing up in Alhambra during the 60’s, after lunchtime recess my classmates and I would come back to the classroom and cough repeatedly - such was the state of the air that I was breathing as a boy. We should not forget that the tremendous improvements in air quality here in LA came over the objections of the very same interests that now tell us we cannot afford to implement AB 32.

But they were wrong 40 years ago, just as they are certainly wrong now.

The crossover point occurred at 16 cents per kilowatt hour.

A New York Times article discussing the study notes that estimates of construction costs have gone from roughly $3 billion per reactor in 2002 to an average now of roughly $10 billion.  But since no one has ever built and commissioned a nuclear power plant in the United States according to present standards, no one actually knows what the final cost of a new nuclear power plant would be.  Of the five proposed designs for new nuclear facilities being considered by U.S. utilities, only one has ever been built, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Thus nuclear power presents an inverted learning curve - whereas most technologies, such as solar, get cheaper over time as developers learn how to produce more and better products with fewer raw materials and less labor, it would appear that the more we learn about nuclear power, the more expensive it becomes.

This is certainly not for a lack of nuclear subsidies from the government. According to a 2000 report by Marshall Goldberg of the Renewable Energy Policy Project, from 1943 to 1999 the U.S. Government paid nearly $151 billion (in 1999 dollars) in subsidies to the wind, solar and nuclear power industries.  Of that, 96.3% went to support nuclear power.

In the quest to deliver cheap and clean power to supply future needs, it is clear that solar has taken the lead - a lead it is not likely to surrender anytime soon.

In that spirit I give you the CO2 Toaster and its creator, Franke James:

I came across this wonderful piece of whimsy at the equally wonderful website created by Ms. James called My Green Conscience.  (The CO2 Toaster widget can be installed on any website and the necessary code to embed it is available at her website.)  There is good science supporting the toaster, and clicking on it takes you to the science-heavy website CO2 Now where you can review the data behind the widget, and lots more.  But it starts with the graphic that draws you in and makes you want to know more. There is a lesson there for all of us advocates for action on climate change - sometimes you can do more to bring people along with art than anger.

Ms. James is a Canadian artist with a very active “Green Conscience” and she creates stunning visual essays about climate change and environmental degradation with an eye toward illuminating what we as individuals can do about it.  (For example, check out her more recent essay, Ending the Climate War, that is up on her website now.)  If you have not already done so, I encourage you to check out her work and share it with your friends.

More highlights from the Assessment after the break.

• CSI Incentives have Economic Leverage - For every dollar spent on incentives, there has been another $2.62 invested in solar power systems from other sources.  The CSI incentives have leveraged an additional $5.06 billion in other capital investments.
• System Costs are Declining - using inflation adjusted data, costs for systems smaller than 10kW (i.e., most residential systems) have fallen by 15% from January 2007 to December 2009.  For larger systems, system costs declined by nearly 10% over the same period.
• Backlog in Projects - Completed projects make up 20% of the goal while pending projects (i.e., projects for which a rebate has been reserved but the project is not yet complete) account for another 22%.
  • There are some concerns that this is not an accidental condition.  We will have more to say about this in a future post.
• 2010 is the Strongest Year Yet - In just the first six months of this year, nearly 300 MW of project applications have been received by CSI and nearly 60 MW has already been installed.  April of this year saw the highest MW total for new applications of any month in the program - over 134 MW.
• Solar Systems Work - for both the grid and their owners:
  • California has over 600 MW of solar power connected to the grid at nearly 65,000 customer sites.
    • But here is an eye opener - 598 MW of that is installed in IOU territory - only 11 MW is installed in publicly owned utility territory!  (I.e., the so-called “Muni’s” which include LADWP, PWP, BWP & GWP!)
  • In 2009, CSI projects generated more than 390,000 MWh of energy - three times the amount produced in 2008.
  • Based on a review of actual performance data, both large and small CSI-funded systems are performing above estimates and solar customers rank their systems at a ‘9′ on a scale from 1 to 10 for system performance satisfaction.

It would be nice to see similar analysis coming from the Muni’s - which up until now tend to keep their data to themselves.  That too is grist for another post.

Please pass this along to your friends - it deserves to be seen by every American.  As we come up on the 4th of July, it is time to get serious about Energy Independence and that will not come from a business as usual approach.  We need comprehensive climate change and energy independence legislation to grow American jobs, reduce our dependence on dirty fossil fuels, and protect our environment from catastrophic climate change.  Now is the time to Act!

So we were thrilled when the Founder & Editor of SolarChargedDriving.com, Christof Demont-Heinrich, contacted us for an interview about our efforts to cross-market solar power systems with this next generation of EVs.  The result is a wonderful article that is now up on the web, aptly titled: “He wants your next car to Run on Sun.”  So true!  Please check it out, and if you like what you see, please add a comment and share it with your social network.

On Monday, June 14, with little fanfare or public attention, the Pasadena City Council approved a Resolution making Pasadena the first city to join the LA County Energy Program (LACEP).  The Resolution clears the way for Pasadena residents to apply for Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) funding under the County’s AB 811 program, LACEP.  As we have reported here before, the LACEP will allow homeowners to borrow money from the County (funded through the sale of bonds) to finance energy efficiency measures and solar energy projects.  Those loans are then paid off over twenty years as part of the homeowner’s annual property tax assessment.  If the owner sells the property, the assessment “runs with the land” and the new homeowner (who receives the benefit of the improvements) assumes the assessment.  The County expects to begin accepting applications under the LACEP in the Fall.

Run on Sun has been a strong supporter of the LACEP concept and we are working hard with County officials (meeting with them as recently as this past Tuesday) to make the program work as well as it can for residents and small businesses alike.  While we still have some concerns over the details in the program - including the interest rates that will be charged (9% or more?), eligibility requirements for homeowners (at least 20% equity in the home - but based on what assessment?), the process for certifying qualified contractors to do the work (to protect the county’s investment, the homeowner’s property and the reputation of the solar industry), and the timeliness of payments to homeowners and contractors - we believe that if done correctly, this program could be a great benefit for all involved.

Run on Sun is pleased and proud that Pasadena - our hometown - has become the first of the 88 cities in LA County to get on board.  How about your city?  When will they get in?  If you need more information on what your city should be considering, here is a link to the Staff Report that was submitted to the Pasadena City Council.

For directions and to RSVP, please send an email to info.lares@gmail.com or register with LARES at their website.

Agenda and speaker description after the break.

Here is the agenda:

1. SoCALSEIA & AB 811 (LA County Energy Program) Update
2. Information/discussion about Valero Oil Company’s campaign to gut AB 32
3. Brainstorming session on standing committee formation
4. Guest speaker:

We are so lucky to have Architect Extraordinare and Environmentalist David Hertz as our Guest Speaker. David is the founder and president of Studio of Environmental Architecture - S.E.A., a Santa Monica based practice devoted to green building. He has a Bachelor of Architecture degree from SCI-ARC, and worked in the office of Architect, John Lautner FAIA (formerly an apprentice to Frank Lloyd Wright), Frank O. Gehry and Associates FAIA before opening his own firm, Syndesis Inc., in 1984.

David Hertz and the work of Syndesis has been widely exhibited and published and has received numerous awards for architectural and materials design work. In 2008, David was elected to the prestigious College of Fellows of The American Institute of Architects as the youngest member in its 152 year history. David has been an active participant in the environmental and design communities for over two decades. After selling the Syndecrete® technology in 2006, Syndesis Inc. evolved into the Studio of Environmental Architecture. David is currently on the Academic Advisory Committee for UCLA’s Extension Program and teaches a studio focused on prefabrication at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.

David will talk about his experiences as an architect using Solar as well as “The vision for the future of solar technology: What needs to happen for solar to be more widely accepted and deployed by Architects.”

Hope to see you on Tuesday.

But interest rates cannot remain that low for long, can they? According to at least one expert they not only can, they probably will - from the article:

Economist Edward Yardeni, head of Yardeni Research in Great Neck, N.Y., figures the Fed won’t move before 2012. Another 18 months of paltry cash returns? “It could really start to get very painful for those who don’t expect to get rich [off cash savings] but who do expect to earn some kind of return better than zero,” Yardeni said.

We feel that pain and are here to help! Investing in a solar power system for your home or business makes perfect sense, as in dollars and cents. According to the California Public Utility Commission, between 1970 and 2004 (last year in the study) the compound annual growth rate for electricity prices for large businesses was 7.2%.  With increases in fuel costs, tighter regulatory controls, and the need to update/replace aging infrastructure, even higher annual increases are likely.

But not when you own a solar power system.  For every kilowatt-hour of energy you avoid purchasing from your local utility, you insulate yourself from those rate increases.  Your cost of energy remains constant for the next 25 years while your savings increase year after year.  And there is no risk in this investment - solar power systems are so reliable that they require no routine maintenance more involved than directing a hose at the solar panels to keep them free of dirt and debris.

It is time to un-park that money and let it start working for you again.  A solar power system is a great way to turn that parked cash into long-term savings.

Even looking at the companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index of blue chips – and stripping out financials, which are required by regulators to keep large cash reserves in order to cushion against risk – the cash on hand number is still rather monstrous: $1.1 trillion. To put that in perspective, as a percentage of companies’ total market capitalization, that $1.1 trillion is more than double the ratio seen before the crisis.

“Cash is piling up faster than companies can figure out what to do with it,” said David Bianco, head of U.S. equity strategy at Bank of America.

We have the perfect answer for companies sitting on cash and wondering what they can do with it to generate a safe return - invest in a solar power system on your building(s).  Don’t think that is much of an investment?  I think I can show you that it is, but let’s first look at the competition.

If you were going to invest that cash you would want safety and a decent return. But if you put it in a CD, the highest interest rate available today would be around 3% for a 5 year CD. That’s it - three percent.  Not much of a return, and to get it you have to lock-up your money for five years.  So how does that compare with installing a solar power system?  Let’s look at an example from a real world customer.

Imagine a small business like a printing company.  Takes a lot of electricity to keep the presses running.  For our example we will assume a $35,000 annual bill from SCE and to partially offset that we will install a 30kW solar power system on their roof.  (The economics would work even better with a larger system but in our example we are constrained by the physical size of the roof.)  What would that system cost and what would the savings be?  We estimate a price tag of around $175,000.  Applying rebates and the 30% federal grant brings the out-of-pocket cost down to $108,000.  Based on our SCE rate model, Energy savings in Year 1 would be $7,900.  When you apply the CEC’s historical average electrical cost increase of 6.8% per year and account for the accelerated federal and state solar depreciation rates, you wind up with payback occurring in Year 6 and an Internal Rate of Return over the 25 year lifetime of the equipment of 15.1% By Year 10 you are $57,000 to the good.

Here is another way to look at it.  For many businesses, one of the major monthly costs is electricity and over time you know that the cost will continue to go up.

In the example above, Year 1 electricity costs from SCE were nearly $0.27/kWh.  Over the lifetime of the solar power system, not even factoring in the additional savings from depreciation, the cost per kWh from solar is only $0.15  and that cost is fixed for the next 25 years. (Click graph image for a larger version.)

Unlike that puny 3% return on your money from parking it in a CD, your investment is a solar power system will pay for itself in just a few years and continue to give you ever increasing returns year after year!

If your company, like the companies in that report, has been hoarding its cash while looking for a safe place to put it, now is the time to invest in solar.  Click on the button at the right or call us and we can help you start saving now.

Here are some facts that are not mentioned in the ads:

• PG&E has spent more than $44 million rate-payer dollars to promote this proposition.  As they said during Watergate, “Follow the Money!”
• Municipal utilities - which PG&E is desperately trying to keep from expanding - invariably charge their customer LESS for energy than do the Investor-Owned Utilities like PG&E (think PWP’s rates versus SCE’s)
• Voters already have a say - no City could create its own utility without a significant public process that would have to culminate in a public vote by the local city council - if they vote against the public’s will, they will be voted out of office.  (Representative democracy at work!)

We urge a No vote on Prop 16!

(Interestingly, you see no conduit coming into or out of this inverter because we were able to bring all the conduit into the back of the disconnect through the garage wall, leaving a very clean installation.)

The string inverter requires all of the panels to be closely matched with preferably identical pitch and azimuth.  The inverter handles a great deal of power which means that it gets hot.  If exposed to summer sunlight, it gets even hotter.  String inverters, like this one, typically have electric fans to provide additional cooling - but that creates another possible failure point for the inverter.  String inverters come with ten year warranties.

The micro-inverter is a very different approach.

Micro-inverters, like these from Enphase, mount underneath the solar panels, so there is no large box to mount on a wall.  Since there is one micro-inverter per solar panel there are no mismatches, portions of the array can have different orientations without difficulty, and most importantly, the problem of shading is greatly reduced.  Those advantages come at a price - a micro-inverter system will typically cost 10-15% more than a string inverter system.

The question is - in the real world, is it worth that cost?

At Run on Sun we are starting to see some answers to that all-important question - and the answer is YES!  We have been monitoring three of our Enphase installations and compiling our data to see how the actual energy produced tracks with the predictions that we made based on the CSI calculator and our Solar Pathfinder analyses at these sites.  (In other words, the same prediction that the utilities make in calculating your rebate.)  Here’s what we have seen so far:

For the three systems combined, we are seeing nearly a 17% improvement in energy yield overall - with a peak exceeding more than 50% improvement.  While these results are still preliminary - after all, the oldest of these systems has only been in place for 8 months and none of them has yet gone through a summer season - we are very encouraged by our data so far.

Bottom line - if you need to maximize your system’s yield and/or are constrained at your site due to substantial shading issues, a micro-inverter system could well be the best choice for you.  At Run on Sun, we can help you evaluate the trade-offs and whichever way you decide to go, provide you with the best possible solar PV system.  Oh, and did I mention, all of our principals are NABCEP Certified Solar PV Installers?

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky offered a friendly amendment calling on staff to work with the contractor community to address the concerns that we have been raising these past few months.  Noted Yaroslavsky’s amendment:

We have heard from local contractors and business owners on a range of topics that include licensing requirements for participating contractors; the mechanism and timing of disbursing loans to homeowners (for example, should payments be made as one lump sum or in multiple installments, and should the payments be disbursed to homeowners before or after work is completed); and, concern over the interest rate that will be charged to participating property owners.

(Frankly, the only concern of ours that was omitted from that list was the high equity requirement in the program that we believe will exclude many otherwise qualified and eager participants.)

Yaroslavsky’s amendment requires the Director of Internal Services (the folks designing the Program) to meet with interested local contractors and other appropriate business owners within the next three weeks to work on these issues.   We will keep you posted as those meetings occur.

More after the break.

PWP has explained that these reductions are necessary due to the applications from a few large commercial customers that have locked-up rebate monies for projects that are scheduled to come online later this year.  Nevertheless, PWP is lowering their rebates in every category.

What does this mean for potential customers?  It is important to understand that filing a rebate application does not mean that the project must start right away.  To the contrary, once rebate applications are approved, customers have nine months to complete the installation under PWP regulations, longer for new construction.  But acting now is critical to locking in the higher rebate amount that will be paid when the project is completed (or over the next five years for larger systems receiving PBI rebates).

PWP is insisting that it must receive complete applications by June 30 to qualify for the current rebate amounts.  At a minimum, this requires residential customers to have signed a contract at least one week before the deadline to ensure that all of the rebate paperwork is complete and in PWP’s hands before the deadline.  For commercial customers, a more realistic deadline is June 10th given the greater complexity inherent in any commercial solar rebate application.

At Run on Sun, we have geared up to handle the anticipated rush.  Said Brad Banta, President and COO of Run on Sun, “The last time we saw this type of rebate deadline with PWP was the end of 2008 and we handled 5 times as many rebate applications in the final six weeks as we had in the previous six months.  Given the improving economy and the anticipated increase in PWP’s electric rates later this year, we expect an even greater flood of applications this time around.  We are confident that we will be able to serve all of these new customers in the timely fashion needed to meet this deadline.”

Here are some relevant quotes from the NAS press release announcing the publication of these studies:

• “Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for — and in many cases is already affecting — a broad range of human and natural systems,” [one] report concludes.  It calls for a new era of climate change science where an emphasis is placed on “fundamental, use-inspired” research, which not only improves understanding of the causes and consequences of climate change but also is useful to decision makers at the local, regional, national, and international levels acting to limit and adapt to climate change.
• An inclusive national policy framework is needed to ensure that all levels of government, the private sector, and millions of households and individuals are contributing to shared national goals.  Toward that end, the U.S. should establish a greenhouse gas emissions “budget” that sets a limit on total domestic emissions over a set period of time and provides a clear, directly measurable goal.  However, the report warns, the longer the nation waits to begin reducing emissions, the harder and more expensive it will likely be to reach any given emissions target.
• A carbon-pricing system is the most cost-effective way to reduce emissions.  Either cap-and-trade, a system of taxing emissions, or a combination of the two could provide the needed incentives.  While the report does not specifically recommend a cap-and-trade system, it notes that cap-and-trade is generally more compatible with the concept of an emissions budget.
• Some impacts [of climate change] – such as rising sea levels, disappearing sea ice, and the frequency and intensity of some extreme weather events like heavy precipitation and heat waves – are already being observed across the country.   The report notes that policymakers need to anticipate a range of possible climate conditions and that uncertainty about the exact timing and magnitude of impacts is not a reason to wait to act.  In fact, it says boosting U.S. adaptive capacity now can be viewed as “an insurance policy against an uncertain future,” while inaction could increase risks, especially if the rate of climate change is particularly large.
• Adaptation to climate change should not be seen as an alternative to attempts to limit it, the report emphasizes.  Rather, the two approaches should be seen as partners, given that society’s ability to cope with the impacts of climate change decreases as the severity of climate change increases.