It’s a bombshell! Gainesville, Florida is the first town in the United States with a solar feed-in tariff. This is just like having your cake and eating it too!
Up until this moment, if solar panels produced extra electricity, you would only be offered a rebate by the local utility company. However, as of this writing, Gainesville Regional Utilities will pay everyone 32 cents per kilowatt hour that uses a photovoltaic system to generate that power. And, this law will be valid for the next 20 years, so the price is guaranteed no matter what.*
It is expected that this type of legislation will bring in millions of dollars in private funds to go solar. That kind of money from the private sector will be an absolute stimulus to the commercial sector, and as reported by the Gainesville Sun paper, people are lining up to get in on this one of a kind deal, right now.
In Germany, solar cell power electrics are the most implemented and used sustainable energy for two major reasons. Virtually zero maintenance costs, and widespread feed-in tariffs. But it wasn’t the German government that began that program, it started out as a local ordinance, exactly the same way it happened in Gainesville.
There is a tax credit of 30% in Florida already, ** now add that to the new feed-in tariff, and that looks like a hard combination to NOT want to go solar. With that success, is it only a matter of time before the current Presidential administration sees the positives of a solar cell feed-in tariff as a federal law, enacted in every state for a commercial stimulus package?
All speculation aside, this is the first salvo fired for sustainable energy solar cells that clearly adds to the reason to invest in this form of alternative energy. And it certainly looks like there is an exciting future ahead of us in the solar cell industry. I can’t wait!
*http://www.gainesville.com/article/20090206/ARTICLES/902061014/1003/NEWS?Title=Commission_gives_its_approval_to_feed_in_tariff_for_solar_power
**http://www.dsireusa.org/library/includes/incentive2.cfm?Incentive_Code=US37F&State=Federal¤tpageid=1
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The Gainesville Utility ,GRU, has BOTCHED this thing! It is, by far, the most poorly managed incentive program I have ever seen and that means alot. The utility has taken ratepayer money and set it aside for a select few investors who have never installed a system in their lives! Ask GRU how many of the systems currently on the waiting list are done! Ask them how many have even started! What a joke!