Connecticut Solar Power Rebates, Tax Credits, and Incentives

waterbury connecticut Connecticut Solar Power Rebates, Tax Credits, and Incentives
Connecticut College, Waterbury

Solar Legislator Score:  Connecticut Solar Power Rebates, Tax Credits, and Incentives Connecticut Solar Power Rebates, Tax Credits, and Incentives Connecticut Solar Power Rebates, Tax Credits, and Incentives Connecticut Solar Power Rebates, Tax Credits, and Incentives Connecticut Solar Power Rebates, Tax Credits, and Incentives

UPDATED 12/30/09

STATE LEGISLATION

The Connecticut Clean Energy Fund was created by PA 98-28, an act which restructured the state’s electrical utility industry to permit retail competition. A provision in the act established a small surcharge to be added to consumer electric bills, providing funding for grants and other incentives to promote renewable energy technologies – including solar power. Since Connecticut businesses are important economic drivers in the state, legislators decided to support energy progressive business owners. A corollary objective was to educate consumers on benefits of clean energy.

The CCEF was created in 2000 with those aims in mind, but that was neither the beginning nor the end of Connecticut’s significant efforts to address its energy needs with solar power and other renewables. A host of rebates, grants, and other incentives, and continuing progress on the solar front earn the state’s legislators a solar rating of “Excellent”.

STATE INCENTIVE PROGRAMS, UTILITY REBATES, UTILITY LOANS, and UTILITY INCENTIVES

The “Mass Energy Renewable Energy Certificate Incentive” is a program under the Energy Consumers Alliance of New England (ECANE) which purchases Renewable Energy Certificates from solar-electric power generation in Connecticut’s commercial, industrial, residential, nonprofit, schools, and institutional sectors. ECANE will purchase the RECs for 3 cents/kWh for a period of three years, and become a marketable item thereafter. That amounts to quite a chunk of change in your pocketbook. The program is described here.

Since 2007, Connecticut has offered a 100% property tax exemption for renewable energy. The exemption applies to just about everything under the sun (pun intended): passive solar space heat, solar water heat, solar space heat, photovoltaics, landfill gas, wind, biomass, hydroelectric, fuel cells, geothermal heat pumps, tidal energy, wave energy, and ocean thermal. Details here.

The CCEF “On-Site Renewable DG Program” provides state grants to support the installation of systems generating electricity at commercial, industrial and institutional buildings, including schools and local and state governments. Photovoltaics qualify for grants up to $4 million (plus other incentives) out of a program budget of $32.75 million. Onsite Renewable DG provides further info.

The CCEF “Project 100 Initiative” also provides grants from the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund for solar thermal electric, photovoltaics, landfill gas, wind, biomass, fuel cells, small hydroelectric, tidal energy, wave energy, and ocean thermal installations. Commercial, renewable energy project developers are eligible. More info is available here at Project 100.

The DPUC Capital Grants for Customer-Side Distributed Resources was established in July of 2005. This program rewards retail end-user customers of electric distributors who (A) install photovoltaic and other clean energy generators on their premises, and (B) who reduce energy consumption through conservation and other methods. This applies to commercial, industrial, residential, nonprofit, schools, agricultural, and institutional sectors, as well as local, state and federal governments. Awards can be up to $500/kW on installations with a 65 mW maximum capacity. More details here.

Another grant program is offered by the Connecticut Office of Policy and Management to encourage and reward businesses for using virtually any clean energy technology:

Each grant is limited to $10,000. However, it’s worth checking into if you’re a Connecticut business owner. Further information is available through the OPM.

Several state loan programs are listed below:

The CT Solar Lease Program provides zero-money down, 15 to 20 year solar lease.  Not a bad deal, unless you plan to move within the next 15 years. If not, the lease can be transferred to a new owner. Aside from income restrictions, this program has been known to shut down temporarily when it reaches its yearly funding.

The “CCEF Solar PV Rebate Program” provides fairly generous rebates on residential photovoltaic (PV) systems up to 10 kW in size. Maximum rebates are $15,000 for residential installations. Currently, the rebate amount is $1.75/DC watt for the first 5kW, and $1.25/watt there after, up to 10kW. See example below.  Details here.

A sales and use tax exemption for solar applies to solar water heat, solar space heat and PV. The 100% tax exemption, available to commercial, residential, and general public/consumer sectors, became began July 1, 2007.HB 7432 (Sec. 68, 69) provides the applicable statutes.

Net Metering Rules have been in effect since 1998 and apply to solar thermal electric and PV installs up to 2 mW in generating capacity. You get a credit for excess power generated that is applied to your next month’s bill; or purchased by your utility at the end of a 12-month billing cycle at an avoided-cost rate. Section 16-243h contains provisions of the act.

EXAMPLE OF A 5KW DC PTC RESIDENTIAL SOLAR INSTALLATION

We’ll consider a residential solar installation here, where Connecticut Light & Power is the major provider. The state’s customers use an average of 9,660 kWh of electricity at a rate of 13.64 cents/kWh, numbers which argue favorably for the economics of solar power.

For a current $100/month electric bill, a solar installation of 5ooo watts (5 kw watts) will cost about $35,000 and offset about 87% of the home’s current electrical needs.  $35,000 may sound high, but that’s BEFORE rebates and incentives, which make going solar in Connecticut far outweigh the cost:

Estimated NET cost: $18,943

  • Average new monthly utility bill with solar: $15.37/month in the first year. Remember how it used to be an average $100/month? Nice.
  • Payback period based on electric rates and 5%/year escalation: 12.7 years (Remember that solar PV  systems last 20 to 25 years or more.)
  • Exempt from property tax increases due to solar improvement: YES
  • Increase in Property Value: $16,300 to $34,743
  • Greenhouse Gas (CO2) Saved 5,233 lbs of CO2 per year or like planting 17,621 sq.ft. of trees a year.

CONSENSUS

The above listing of incentives and the resulting impact on solar installation costs say it all. Keep up the good work, Connecticut!

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Read the 11 brilliant comments below or add yours!

Pingback on April 9th, 2008.

[...] Connecticut [...]

Guy Identicon Icon Guy
Comment on October 15th, 2008.

My thoughts are that the Connecticut Solar Grant program has been subverted by the agency that administers it.
There is NO provision for owner installed systems- without regard for the skill level of the owner and there is no suggestion of inspection.
I’m not even sure it’s legal to restrict it in this way.
Considering the costs, it looks like a cash cow for the “approved” installers.
It should be the person who is put to the expense that receives the incentive.

Guy gpr123@chartewr,net

Comment on October 22nd, 2008.

Well, not sure it will be all that comfortable for me when I make this statement, but when it comes to installing PV systems there is a great deal of danger to life and property at play. If an installer has not gotten the training in electrical code it is very likely that the installation will not be safe. But it really can be seen as a fine installation anyway, until someone dies or an installation causes damage due to fire or systems damage due to improper handling of the demands that conditions of use, ampacity, voltage place on the installation.

Getting the light bulb to come on is the easy part. Having the light working 24/7 and never putting life, limb or property at risk under every condition an installation will be exposed to during its lifetime is another matter entirely.

There is a reason why the electrical trade is an apprenticing trade and not a book learning trade. The state that I work in requires that I had to be trained for 8,000 hours directly under the supervision of a single licensed person, plus an additional 600 hours of theory and code instruction before I could sit for the written test, then take a practical one on top of that.

With so much more energy, no pun intended, going into PV and other energy alternatives, the numbers of installations that will take place will surely make it clear how dangerous the average untrained person can be, the odds of failure and harm to life, limb and property go up as does the number of projected installations.

There are absolutely some folks who are pure genius when involved with these kinds of things, but they are not the “average” and the population size is looking like it will be increasing so radically that those that are of the genius type will be insignificant compared to the needs of the many that will be wanting these systems. The pioneers of PV all pretty much earned their PHD’s though community exploration, with out worry of a law suite because of their own installations. What about the general public? It is a pain, but consumer protection is a very realistic need. To allow someone to install these systems as a “friend” or for hire with out appropriate training is, in my opinion, far to dangerous to allow.

Whew… didn’t realize “my two cents” was going to be so long winded. Mean no offense to anyone, hope none taken.

Paul Identicon Icon Paul
Comment on November 13th, 2008.

Guy is right just another way for the state gov to regulate income earned for a few. But the thing is we don’t need the CCEF there are other rebates and insentives to be had by a home owner. An as for Contractors all is legal as long as a Lic electrition is on staff. Money can be made all around and money can be saved for the home owners. But the way I see it is the people in the Biz now do not want the compatition of new Biz. It’s called greed.

Fred MW Identicon Icon Fred MW
Comment on April 13th, 2009.

We are a CT State registered, privately owned training school that teaches various greening classes including solar energy, wind generators and other energy efficiency subjects and also trains energy auditors for residential and commercial properties. How and to whom do we apply for supporting grants in CT?

John Carollo Identicon Icon John Carollo
Comment on August 13th, 2009.

Having lived in Connecticut for 43 years i find it difficult to understand that Ct dones not have Connecticut Solar Rights laws. We have it in Florida and no one can stop one from installing solar systems. http://WWW.Floridarightlaws.com Ct needs to step up to the plate and protect the homeowners and business. No one can stop the installation…

John Carollo Identicon Icon John Carollo
Comment on August 13th, 2009.

Cost Comparisons

Lease Monthly Costs
42 panels 9.7 KW DC = will produce about 10,078 Kwh per year
Estimated CT Rebate $35,780.00
Lease Payment 15 years fixed $181.39 per month
Lease Payment Year 15-20 $54.42 per month

5KW DC = will produce about 5195 Kwh per year
Estimated CT Rebate $19,944.00
Lease Payment 15 years fixed $82.41 per month
Lease Payment Year 15-20 $25.00 per month
there is a company in New Haven that is involved in that program. no down payment. win win win situation

Comment on August 13th, 2009.

John, thanks. We actually did cover the CT Solar Lease in two post series and will one day combine. But for those interested in reading, see:

http://www.solarpowerrocks.com/affordable-solar/ct-solar-lease-basics/

Joyce Christie-Taylor Identicon Icon Joyce Christie-Taylor
Comment on September 6th, 2009.

Please provide sources for grant money, for CT solar energy projects, for an elderly woman, who lives alone, and on fixed income. Thank you!

Comment on September 7th, 2009.

Hi, Joyce,

Not sure about grant money, but Connecticut has a terrific solar lease program that we’ve written about. See:

http://www.solarpowerrocks.com/affordable-solar/ct-solar-lease-basics/

and the follow up:

http://www.solarpowerrocks.com/affordable-solar/ct-solar-lease-get-it-while-you-can/

This a good deal that costs 0 down and is restricted to individuals that earn LESS than $250,000 a year. Hope that helps.

Steve Earle Identicon Icon Steve Earle
Comment on October 7th, 2009.

I’m a licensed Electrician in MA & CT where could i find training for the installation end. Thank You.

Comment on January 24th, 2010.

Connecticut is due to end the solar lease program January 29th 2010. This is a moving target date due to people signing up and dropping off.

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