Monday, March 13, 2006

San Diego--lots of demand for BIG solar rebate money



Hey solarDwellers:
An interesting thing to do is to go to one of the public utility's websites, where you can keep track of how fast the rebate money for solar/photovoltaics is being claimed or "reserved" for each year.

For example, I just went to the San Diego Regional Energy Office website, which admisters the solar rebate program to check out the status of BIG project money, which means commercial projects over 30kW(kilowatts), which is roughly equal to enough solar power for 12 homes. So, looking at their "Budget Status Summary Report" for their rebate incentive funding for these big projects, we learn the following:
*They have a solar budget for rebates of $46 million for 2006

* Of those $46 million, $42.3 million for proposed projects have already been reserved. Translation: it's only March and rebates are almost . . . "all gone." If you want to do a big installation, your installer has gotta get that rebate request in early each year

*$46 million equals about 16 MW(megawatts) of San Diego solar rebates, or 16% of a projection of 100MW for all regions of California in 2006.

Remember, this is just for San Diego, and only for very large projects. To get an update on funds for smaller or single home projects, you or your installer has gotta check out California's "Emerging Renewables Program."

--the solarDweller

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