Virginia solar energy takes off with incentives
Incentives offered by federal, state and local governments coupled with a new market for selling energy credits to utilities are propelling a boom in the residential solar market in Virginia and surrounding states. The Washington Post reports that last week major mid-Atlantic solar installer Astrum Solar wrapped up installation of the largest residential solar system in Washington D.C. thanks to generous federal and municipal incentives.
Astrum says homeowners across the mid-atlantic, and especially in Virginia and Pennsylvania, are taking advantage of a 30 percent federal tax credit and various municipal grants to make solar installations in their home more affordable. Astrum, which has 500 installations planned for the rest of the year, has also seized on the emerging market for renewable energy credits to help reduce the cost for residential consumers even more. Astrum sells the renewable energy credits accumulated by their customers to utilities to reduce the cost of solar installation by as much as 25 percent. The utilities often need the credits to fulfill municipal mandates for clean energy utilization.
Combined, these various incentives have slashed the price of solar installations by as much as 90% for some of their customers, says Astrum. Thanks to these incentives, business is booming.
Stimulus funding, providing more than $271 million for solar energy investment, made it more cost-effective for homeowners to tap into the energy of the sun. Polikov credits the federal grants with the increase in business Astrum is seeing in states like Pennsylvania and Virginia. “We have ramped up a lot because of incentives,” Polikov said, noting that prior to the flow of federal dollars, the company was averaging a few hundred installations a year.
In addition to seeing more municipal and state tax credits and grants, the Virginia solar energy industry would like a mandatory renewable portfolio standard for utilities that would require them to produce a certain percentage of their electricity from solar. Industry representatives believe this would have a dramatic effect on reducing the cost of installation to residential customers as utilities would rush to buy more renewable credits from users and even buy more excess power generated by homes and businesses. Virginia currently has a voluntary renewable portfolio standard.
