Mesa is preparing to bolster incentives to residents and businesses who want to cut their electric bills by installing solar panels.
The city’s current approach hasn’t made solar a popular option. Of the 15,000 customers in the Mesa-owned utility, only five homeowners have solar panels. But other homeowners are considering solar panels if the city offers the right incentives, said Frank McRae, Mesa’s energy resources director.
Now, Mesa doesn’t allow homeowners to get credit when solar panels produce more energy than a house consumes. The meter simply stops.
But the city is looking to have meters spin backward at time of excess energy production, which McRae said is an important financial consideration for those considering panels.
“There is more of an incentive for them,” McRae said.
Some homeowners have probably put off solar panel installation until the city allows them to get credit for that extra energy production, he said.
Mesa’s initial round of incentives will be small. It will offer rebates of $1,000 per kilowatt of solar production, with a limit of 5kW for a home and 10kW for a business. The program is capped at $100,000 of incentives, split evenly between businesses and homes.
The city will study the financial impact to avoid losing money if its solar customers begin producing large amounts of energy. After evaluating that, Mesa will look at the possibilities of industrial-level solar production.
“Then we’ll use that data to see how the city can invest in solar in larger scales, whether buying large power plants or put in our own facilities,” McRae said.
The solar program will include energy audits. It’s more cost-effective to address leaks or poor insulation than to install excess solar panels on an inefficient building, he said.
“We feel that’s really important when customers are contemplating solar to make sure they’ve done as much as possible to make sure they’re consuming energy as efficiently as possible,” McRae said.
Contact writer: (480) 898-6548 or ggroff@evtrib.com
popeofchilitown posted at 4:40 am on Sun, Mar 4, 2012.
We nearly put solar on our home, but in the existing economic climate in Mesa, there is no financial advantage for our family to do so, and let's face it... family economics drive what gets spent and what doesn't. When you have to put bread and milk on the table and gas in your car first, solar power is way down on the priority list. Without clear evidence of real support from Mesa's leaders, this will always be a dead issue. [angry]
Accuracy posted at 4:56 pm on Sun, Mar 4, 2012.
When I first moved to the Valley 25 years ago, a good number of the homes in the neighborhood had solar panels on their roofs for water heaters. Apparently these solar panels did not provide homeowners with low-cost energy, because all of the old solar panels, in this neighborhood and others in the Valley, have been removed over the year.
Local solar companies have advertised that today new solar panels can provide homeowners with low-cost energy, and cut energy demand for air conditioning. Advertising that an average residential solar system costs between $15,000-$25,000 after solar rebates and solar incentives:
• Federal Tax Credit: Investment Tax Credit (ITC) allows individuals to deduct 30% of the cost of a solar system from individual federal income taxes.
• Individual State Rebates: Rebates from Arizona Public Service Co. that are either flat amounts or based on the size of your solar power system.
Either way, solar power panels/systems require big up-front investments.
downtownresident posted at 1:26 pm on Tue, Mar 6, 2012.
Although this may have changed, the city has a reputation of refusing to hook their utility lines up the the solar powered homes for fear of "unproffessional" installations by contractors.
Still, it's a huge investment that may never pay off.
hljmesa posted at 4:45 pm on Sun, Aug 19, 2012.
Excellent idea. Here is a video of my installation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4C5qWwFTFY
I get a 10% return on my investment.