Tennessee Solar Power Rebates, Tax Credits, and Incentives

I’m so frustrated!! I was inspired by watching a PBS broadcast the other night indicating the cost for installing solar for the average home was $15,000-$18,000. Now after reading your site it look to be about triple that cost.

While I am interested in solar, the cost still seems prohibitive. Too bad our state offers no incentives and the federal government offers little as well. I was impressed with Germany’s efforts. The U.S. just lags behind, oblivious to what the world and science is telling us. It’s so sad…and maddening.

Hi Bill,

Contact an Installer and get a quote. It won’t be much pain an suffering, and at least you’ll know for sure so you can make an informed decision if you want to do it or not. These numbers above aren’t 100% accurate, although they will be in the next two months or so.

Tennessee was just rated one of the most wasteful energy states. I have been attempting to wake up our local elected officials in Memphis and Shelby County to the need for incentives for renewable energy sources. So far they have fallen on deaf ears. Like wise the our state government is still in the 19th century. I have proposed the Memphis Pyramid be converted to a solar power station. The all glass exterior is perfect. This could generate electricity that could be sold back to the grid creating a new revenue stream for local government. No go to our flat earth officials.

Hi,
I,ve got a question.
To install a PV system in Teennessee state i,ve read you can subscribe “green power switch generation partners” throught TVA.
This is my question:
Can i install a PV system bigger than my home energy needs?
If yes, can i sell all this energy to TVA?
Thanks for all and sorry about my english, as you can see im not from USA, but im so interesting in solar energy market.
Cheers.

Why should the government offer incentives any way. If you want to use solar go for it. If you can’t and don’t like the idea of good clean coal – turn off your lights and AC and truley live in the 19century.

Julio,

First off, call up TVA and talk with someone from Generation Partners. I can’t give you names, because that would be rude of me. Size is limited too 0.5 to 50 kW AC. You can produce as much as you want. I also beleive that they are trying to put a bill through Senate that increases the Residential Solar and Fuel Cell Tax Credit from 2000, to 4000. I do some work as a newbie energy consultant. Email me and I can fill in some spreadsheets for you so you can see ROI and what not.

god what a frustrating state! i just moved to the nashville area from missouri (which wasn’t much better), and i am shocked to see how little concern there seems to be for sustainability and ecology here. my wife and i are actively looking for land to buy so we can build our eco-house… i am very sad to see that we won’t be getting any state help to make solar power financially feasible for us.

well, i hear that over the next two years the cost of solar tech will drop dramatically, making it accessible to practically anyone… lets keep fingers crossed that corporations don’t hijack the tech and hold it back from the public for the sake of the bottom line and keeping investors happy… there is just too much at stake here!

Does anyone know the best way to find a contractor capable of sealing and weatherstripping an old house in Memphis. I know I can go to the phone book, but I wanted to find someone who knew what they were doing instead of throwing up some weatherstripping and saying it was done.

Andrew: The state and Federal governments should offer an incentive because you’ve spent all of your money building your own energy system and no longer burn up all of the coal. Less coal, less emissions, less carbon footprint, less waste, less of everything bad. But something tells me you’re a non-believer.

What’s with the incredibly high estimates from this solar calculator on this and every other solar install website I hit?? I too hear all the time about $10,000 to $20,000 for an install, then this calculator keeps coughing up $60,000 (!!!!!) for a small system supplying half of small house energy needs. OK either all these news reports are wrong or this calculator is a unbelievably harmful POS that is actually DISCOURAGING everyone from going solar. Which is it?

I live in portland and am just as discouraged by the price we have a family with one income in order to help save money for our family and contribute to saving our planet we have to go broke to install a system.how about the state help us help ourselves.But I guess that would be to good to be true since big buisness and the state/government have the most say.

Here in Memphis, MLG&W is a public owned utility.. of course this broke city isn’t going to do anything to prevent money from leaving our pocket and filling theirs. I am not sure but I believe TVA is publicly owned as well. I know MLG&W buys their energy from TVA and as of today (10-1-08) there is going to be a 20% rate increase.

I am equally frustraited ,i have designed out a solar hybrid system to produce clean energy (much more than my home would use) and was looking at it like green with extra income potential and have found all the “gov red tape” that all you can get here in Tenn. is credit on your elec bill…lol they don’t even offer the “R.E.C.s here (renewable energy credits) to give anyone an incentive to spend the money to go green as they keep preaching about it publicly then hide from the issues of actually doing something about it ….i say if they are just lazy (or in big businesses pocket) move over and let us do something …So if anyone has any info on how i can circumvent them and get the credits that are sold or simply sell back to the grid OR have net metering here ,please email me the info (RAVENKNLGHT9@YAHOO.COM),i know for 4 dollars they will sell you what they say is green energy but where does it come from and what is needed to do the same as the producers…in the cumberland elec co. system ,the energy director said one person (living in ashland city) of 98,000 has solar….1 in 98,000 can that be right? ,thank you.

I am really sad I was so excited when I started researching solar power I guess this will not happen for my spouse and I. Way out of our working class budget

We live in Shelby County and I agree with all that was said about the non-existent “green” policy here. Our elected officials would much rather embezzle funds. Is there any organized grass roots group here in Shelby county to keep pushing this idea? If so, I would like to be involved!

Andrew
Comment on June 11th, 2008.

Why should the government offer incentives any way. If you want to use solar go for it. If you can’t and don’t like the idea of good clean coal – turn off your lights and AC and truley live in the19century

Andrew, you are as clueless as it gets!
The Government gives billions to big energy companies that do nothing but give it to their CEOs as huge multi-million dollar bonuses (think TVA, Exxon,etc..) Why not invest that same money in local green power (Oh yeah, greed, corruption, stupid people like you that believe what your told)
CLEAN COAL DOES NOT EXIST and never will! It is another catch phrase to humor STUPID PEOPLE!!!(like Andrew)
Fact is, a lot of greedy CEOs and politician will have to die at the hands of the common person before anything will ever change in this country! Andrew probably thinks he still lives in a democracy. Funny, ain’t it.

Solar power incentives in TN are going to be hard to get do to us not having state taxes. I know it would be nice if we could get some kind of county or city property tax brake but in all reality property tax in TN compared to say Fla. is not that much. I would say I pay ½ the taxes here that I paid in Fla and I only paid county taxes in Fla here I pay both city and county.
At best it would be great if we could get net metering here. The only way we are going to accomplish this is if we work together to make it happen. We need to let the tax incentives go for the time being and work together to get net metering here in TN only after we have accomplished this will we passably be able to work towards tax incentives at the local level.
Now let me start by saying I’m not a web site expert so I will need to do some more research on web hosting but we need to get a web site started with a good message forum to help support our cause. A place ware we can all come to keep each other motivated on accomplishing our goal. I have done some quick research on starting a web site and it will cost around $200 to get it up and running so I have to decide if I can do that now. Maybe we can find a solar power massage board already out there that would suite our needs.
Next we need to type up a down loadable form with some of our key points on why we want net metering and why it is important to help increase the use of residential alternative energy sources.
From here we would need to get our family friend every one we know to send the form to the TN senators and congressmen. We may not even want to stop there we could also send it to the more localized government like the governor and the mayors of the cities.
We have to do this over and over again we need to get a list of names on a potion so that we can prove that there is a substantial number of supporters in TN that want this to happen so that they have to take notice. I will start a new e-mail account for this and post it here for those who may be interested in this and maybe we can get a movement started in TN towards cleaner power.

GOOD NEWS fellow Tennesseans for anyone who has thought about going solar but was shocked at the cost and the lack of help from county, state and federal governments. Federal Bill HR 1424 (the TARP bill) has provisions to change the small $2,000 federal tax credit that was given in previous years to a 30% tax credit of the INSTALLED costs a renewable energy system. I read the bill today and it seems to include residential systems.

I have been loosely tracking solar panel systems for residential use for about a year. My intent is to install a system on my roof (the back of my house is directly south facing) and have been pricing the materials to see if it is even feasible for a solar panel system to pay for itself in 5 years or so.

The Guesstimate for the materials for 2000w system (no battery storage) is around $13,000 but I will have to install the system and get a licensed electrician to hook up the inverter and other miscellaneous electrical services and permits. That will push it up to around $15,000 complete. The problem is that without batteries and without net metering from the local utility company, I’m not getting a good bang for my buck. I will run the numbers and see if this type renewable energy system even makes sense for my location and on-grid energy costs.

And YES, no help from MLGW but unlike the previous comments above, energy is cheap in Memphis thanks to MLGW so don’t give them too much criticism. My brother lives in Texas in the same size house as mine and he pays nearly twice as much per Kilowatt as we do.

So here we have it. 30 percent off your next 2009 year taxes if you invest in a renewable energy system that WORKS (how they verify that it works I have no idea). That’s about all the help we Tennesseans are going to see for awhile so if you’re in the market for renewable energy, this is your chance to run the numbers and see if renewable energy is worth it!

PS, for all the tree-huggers who will probably want to respond in some GREEN way to my self-centered diatribe shown above, please do so with positive comments and suggestions as that is what this website is about. Have a nice day!

Even with the 30% tax refund it is still going to be a large expense in TN we just don’t get the sun other states get. I am looking at an 8,000 DC watt system with a solar thermal system for hot water this would give me around 11,000 AC kWh a year. This would be around 110% of my power usage for the year but since I do not have net metering here and since AEP will not buy my excess power I will need to ether cut back on the system or add Batteries so that I can power the house at night. If I was only 2 miles down the road I would be on TVA and would be able to sell power back to them.
The total coast of my system would be close to 65k installed that is more then I want to spend even with the 30% tax credit. I could shave that cost down some by doing the install my self but I just have too many things going on and don’t have the time to invest now.

I agree Residential systems are not really viable at this time. I am interested to see what the stimulus bill has in store for solar. I have done some calculations on Commercial systems and I can see a payoff of the original investment and a revenue in 9 years without considereing depreciation. Commercially in Tennessee systems should be priced between $8-10/watt installed, depending on the size of the system.

I finished up a 2kw solar install at my house and went online 19 Dec 08. Grid tie with battery backup, spent about 18k on it. You can certainly do a cheaper system by eliminating the battery backup, ( battery bank alone was 2k )but one of my primary reasons FOR the system was backup power in a grid down situation, so I didn’t go that route.

So far, it’s produced about 250 KwHrs/month, but the first month was LOUSY weather here..snow, rain, foggy ( I live in East TN mountains ), and I mounted the panels on a couple of homemade tracking mounts, which I’ve had trouble getting to work so far ( control board issues )but when I do get them running, I expect then to do +/- 350kw/hrs per month on a year round average. Sure loving these LONGER spring days !!

Getting ready to add another 6 panels to up it to 3.1kw total and shooting for 500kwhrs/month total. ( Another $5,000 )

One thing folks might be missing here, and I didn’t catch myself until I did my actual install, is in addition to the 15 cent TVA generation partner credit you get, you ALSO get to use that hour of electricity AFTER it goes thru the buyback meter if your house is consuming electricity at that point ( which ours most likely is, as we have 3 freezers + fridge ), so the money works out BETTER than it seems at first….we pay about 9.5 cents/hr, but since we get the use of our solar hours ( if using while they generate ) + the 15 cents, that works out to around 20-24 cents/hr for our generation…..not a bad deal, folks.

500hrs/month will be over 1/2 our normal 900hr/month use, and the way the money works, it should replace about all of our bill.

If you have questions on my system, email me. Andyd@planetc.com

I just read that there is a photo solar power plant in Memphis on Mendenhall. Sharp I believe. Here is my Idea. Sharp needs to have some sort of contract agreement with Lowe’s or Home Depot, to advertise and sell their products in the stores. They could train employees how to install, and make it like buying a car with a very low interst rate. Also since the supply and demand would both rise at about the same time, the cost should be reasonable. Then if it takes off really well in Memphis, the power plants could open in West Memphis, Arkansas, and spread outward. Abe Lincoln said we are a Government of the people, for the people, by the people. Let’s stop blaming the people we elect not doing their job, and start point some fingers at ourself. If every person in memphis who has a mortgage bought a Solar Roof from Sharp through Lowe’s instead of buying a new car this year, Memphis could be the first city in the US, to say, Hey America, this is how its really done: Self Government, Hooyah!

Found out that AEP will not buy solar power, And there new meters will count the energy you send them as energy you used making your bill even higher, Those greedy XXXXXXXX will not change ther meters to reflect the energy you send to them.

Well, I have to admit I was operating on WRONG information in my above post. I was told by the fellow that sold me some of my equipment the above information about how the payment works, and like SO MUCH ELSE of what he told me, that is ALSO NOT CORRECT.

I got to studying my first few bills with “generation partners credit” on it, and as it turns how, and this NOT very apparent from the bill until you put a calculator to it and REALLY start breaking it down, that NOT ONLY IS TVA NNNNNNNNOT paying you 15 cents NET for your production, you may well be paying THEM to produce it !!!!! WHAT A SCREW JOB !!!!!

How SO you ask ?

Well, here’s HOW it works.

You have two meters. The normal “buy” meter for what you consume….and the “generation” meter for what you produce ( wind/solar ). They take the amount you produce and credit you 15 cents/kwhr……then they ASSUME you do use those hours in your house, and ADD THOSE VERY SAME HOURS to the amount of your normal meter reading ( but the JCPB sure doesn’t put THAT on the bill….you have to take the energy charge, divide it by the local amount per KwHr…if you know it…and come up with the ACTUAL amount of KwHrs they are charging you for !! )…..

SO, here’s the breakdown….we pay our local power board 9.3 cents per hour. When you subtract that 9.3 cents from the 15 cents they give you credit for, your NET AMOUNT ( here ) is 5.7 cents…..that is ALL they are actually “giving” you. They show a “credit” on the bill of 0.15 times the number of hours produced, so you think “hey, this ain’t bad”, BUT what they DON’T show you without you calculating it is the fact YOU are paying for 62 cents of every dollar of “credit” on that deal !!!

AND WAIT…it gets WORSE. Since they “assume” that every single one of those kilowatt hours you produce got used at YOUR house, and charge you for each of them on the buy side of the deal, should your house NOT actually use them, and they escape to the grid, YOU GET TO PAY THEM 9.3 cents per hour for the privilege of that !! WOW>>>WHAT A DEAL !!

For example: Say my system produces 500 Kwhrs/month. Say I went on vacation and flipped the main breaker on my house so it was using NOTHING for 30 days while I was gone…nothing….absolutely zero. The buy meter would show no change from the previous month’s use ( assuming my vacation lined up exactly with the reading period )….but my solar power system kept right on rocking along, and produced it’s average 500kwhrs during that same time period. What would the bill for that month look like ?

Previous reading ( example ) 4911
Current reading 4911
Hours used: 0
Energy charge : $46.50 ( you owe them….for the 500 hours YOU produced )
Generation credit: $75 ( credit to you at 15 cents/hr )

Net amount due -28.50

ALL OF YOUR 500 hours went out to the grid ( had to…you had the house shut off…it COULDN’T use any )and paid them 46.50 for that power that DID NOT come to your….they credit you 28.50 for it. $28.50 divided by 500 hours = 5.7 cents/hr

OK, this is an EXTREME example of one end…..many of the hours you produce WILL actually be consumed by your own house, no doubt….but the deal is, THEY CAN’T TELL how many you actually DO use and how many escape to the grid…..but still bill you for ALL of them as if you DID use them !

With a solar system, it’s quite possible MANY of them flow to the grid.

Take your household demand. Most households, the demand is greatest in 2 periods of the day….6am to about 8am in my house, when we get up, make breakfast, shower, get ready for work, school, etc….but my system is NOT producing electricity right then, so I’m buying power thru the “buy” meter. Then about 9am, my solar power system comes online, produces great until about 4-5pm, about the time we get home, and start up our other demand time…..evening…and my system is producing nothing…..so again, we BUY power thru the BUY meter.

What happened to the power produced during the day when nobody was home ?

Well, some of it surely ran the fridge, and some phantom loads like the TV, the electric clocks, heat/air ( if you leave it on…..we don’t use either ), but let’s assume that SOME of that production actually “escaped” to the grid during your peak production but minimum use period. You STILL pay for that power you didn’t use ! AND the bigger your solar production, the more likely this is to happen….certainly NO incentive to expand your system, huh ?

We have used 900 kwhrs per month, on average, for the last 30 years. IF I were to put in a system that produced 2000 kwhrs per month, average, TVA would only pay me 5.7 cents/hr for that extra 1100 Kwhrs I produced for them even though I spent the $100,000 it would take to put in such a system. Real deal, huh ?

NOTHING like that “15 cents per hour” they tout in the Green Partners literature. In fact, you fool, you are probably producing power cheaper than THEY are at that rate…..but thanks…and have a nice day…..sucker……

SO, the bottom line is the Generation Partner “deal” isn’t that much of a “deal” after all…..

Thanks Andy. I was about to plunk down 5k to get rolling (something to build on). I live in Fayette Cty and Chickasaw Elec Coop is my elec company. They said I could grid tie. Do you think getting a battery would solve this or is it a bust?

Meredith:

Adding batteries will up your cost considerably, as you have to have more components.

I went that way because I wanted backup power if the grid is down ( which happens to us on a fairly regular basis….we are at the end of the line )….in fact, THAT was primary reason for my system, but a straight grid only tie would have been quite a bit cheaper. I probably have 25-30% more in my system because of the batteries…..the batteries alone were 2 grand……two Outback charge controllers ( $600 each ), wiring, extra disconnects, etc….

I’m tied into south west elec in haywood country how its work here is at the current rate of .09kwh they will pay .12kwh for solar power. So when a person installs a solar system the elec company will install a meter in between the system and house let’s say your system produces 2000kwh per month and you use 2000kwh per month you will be charged 360 dollars instead of 180 that was your normal amount of your elec bill then south west will pay you .21kwh (.09 base pluse .12 for produceing renewable power) for every kwh that comes through the meter that’s between the system and the house. They will pay .21kwh x 2000kwh (which you produced) total of 420 dollars you paided 360 so you had a net of 80 dollars plus your base of 180 dollars so each month your saying 260 dollars x 12 months 3120 dollars. That’s at todays numbers in 18 months our elec will increase by 42 percent there’s a new bill going through congress as we speak that will make carbons credits go to 50 dollars a ton when that happens solar panels will be a hot topic (no pun intened) the largest constuction site in tn is east of nashville and cost 2b yes b and will be up for production in 2012 its a japan company that make solar panels and with the 25 m project at the haywood meg a site that will be a 20@ solar field will take 23000 solar panels I believe in the near furture solar will be the norm in west tn area I’m sure the above was clear as mud hope I help alittle hwalden@vzw.blackberry.net