Solar-bent San Franciscans Will Not Be Deterred
Foggy San Francisco may not seem the likeliest city to lead the nation’s solar energy march, but in July 2008, Mayor Gavin Newsom signed off on a ten-year, multi-million dollar plan to encourage businesses and homeowners to go solar.
The Solar Energy Incentive Program was developed to solve the ever-present conundrum: how do you get people to go solar when it costs so darned much for those photovoltaic (PV) panels?
Their solution? Give them money.
The task force, which was first convened in 2007, drew up a proposal for what is believed to be the largest municipal solar incentive program in the country. Over the next decade, it will provide between two and five million dollars in annual subsidies for solar installations.
Funded by the Mayor’s Energy Conservation Account (MECA), the program offers grants of up to six thousand dollars for residents and up to 10 thousand dollars for businesses to install solar panels.
Together with California’s rebate program and federal tax credits, the city grant may cover more than half the cost of an entire solar power system.
Also included in the package is a one-year pilot program for low-income households and non-profit organizations, which would receive an extra five- and ten-thousand dollars respectively.
Gregory Kennedy owns San Francisco-based Occidental Power, which has installed hundreds of solar systems in the city since 1996. He says that a San Francisco home using 10 kilowatt hours of energy per day would require a two-kilowatt solar system to meet its power needs. Installing that system costs about twenty-thousand dollars.
But as the city’s renewable energy program manager Johanna Partin points out, after the state rebate, federal tax credit, and city grant, the total cost is around eight-thousand dollars.
“For a two kilowatt system, that is really, really cheap,” says Partin. “If you look at how much energy your system is going to be generating, and if you look at how much electricity rates have gone up … That is a really good deal.”
For homeowners who still can’t swallow the eight-thousand dollars up front, Partin points out that installing PV panels increases a home’s value without changing its property tax level, according to state law.
Also, she says, tax deductible home equity loans paired with electricity bill savings, mean some homeowners would end up with a little money in their pockets at the end of the month.
“That means you’d be saving more on your energy bill than you’d be paying on your loan,” says Partin.
In the program’s first month, 28 people filed applications, according to program administrator, Angela Patane. Occidental Power has fielded a number of inquiries as well.
“It has generated a lot of calls and sales,” says Kennedy. “It’s good.”
The city is currently developing a loan program modeled after one devised by its eco-forward neighbor, Berkeley. It would offer long-term, low-interest loans to homeowners wanting to make energy efficiency improvements to their houses. Loans would be paid back through annual property taxes.
Despite San Francisco’s fog, most households in the city are able to produce at least 50 to 75 percent of their energy needs through PV panels, Partin says.
The program’s goal is to install 35 megawatts of solar power in the city over the next ten years.
As of August 2008, San Francisco has completed about 800 solar installations. City officials hope for ten thousand by 2018.
Photo Caption: Andrew Damele installs solar panel modules on a home in San Francisco's Noe Valley neighborhood. (Photo courtesy of Occidental Power).
