Rebates for Los Angeles solar panel installations are 60% lower under the newly relaunched Solar Initiative Program, which will start accepting applications next month. The program was put on hold in April as the demand for incentives hovered around $112 million, far outpacing the program's $30-million budget. During the hiatus, the Department of Water and Power was able to catch up with a backlog of applications and identify alternative financing options.
A mixture of bond financing and lower incentives will allow the DWP to double the budget to $60 million. The department's general manager, Ronald O. Nichols, said the lower rebates, which previously covered as much as 45% of the costs for residential buildings are "more in line with market pricing and allow greater participation."
DWP ratepayers, who pay for the incentive program and feed-in tariff, will see their monthly bill go up by $4.59 by 2016. The feed-in tariff allows business owners and eventually homeowners to connect to the electricity grid and sell their unused electricity back to the utility at a fixed rate for 20 years, about $0.19 per watt
"We also want to grow solar at a steady and sustainable pace while being prudent about the cost to all customers who pay for this program through their rates," Nichols said in a news release.
Of nearly 8 million single-family homes statewide, 60,000 have solar panels. Fewer than 2,000 homes in L.A. are solar-powered.
When the rebate program first started in 2007, incentives were $3.25 per watt, or $13,000 for a four-kilowatt system. Under the September relaunch, the rebate will be $2 to $2.20 per watt, depending on how efficient a system is -– a reimbursement of $8,000 to $8,800.
Rebates for commercial buildings went down by 8%, and rebates for government and nonprofit facilities went down by 32%. Although home and business owners will see smaller rebates paid over 11 to 15 years, they have larger federal tax incentives to offset the lower returns, now ranging from $7,000 to $8,000, up from $2,000.
"Our rebates for residential, commercial, government and nonprofit customers will still beat the state incentive levels when you consider that DWP will continue offering a higher incentive to customers who elect to sell their Renewable Energy Credit to LADWP" –- an additional $0.40 per watt, said Lorraine Paskett, DWP senior assistant general manager.
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