Know The Alternative Energy Incentives
If you’re looking into investing in personal renewable energy sources, such as home solar panels, you should make sure to look into what your area offers. Many individual companies and many states offer a variety of incentives for installing a solar panel, ranging from the ability to sell power back to the electric company to full out rebates for the cost of installation. This article will examine the incentives for solar power in MA, but residents of any area can gain from investigating government and company policies on the matter.
There are many incentives for solar in MA, more so than in many other states. The incentive of the most immediate interest to a home owner is the rebate from the state government. Residents installing solar panels in their homes can apply to the government for a rebate that can cover a great deal of the cost of the panels. The MA system also reduces this initial cost by allowing homeowners to store the power they produce during the day with the electric company, rather than having to purchase a battery to use their power at night. Many cities within the state, including Boston itself, offer additional rebates to help even further with costs.
One of the other, more continuing incentives for solar in MA is the fact that the electric companies will pay a homeowner for producing power, even if that power is being mostly used by the home in question. Most locations will pay for power produced in excess of what the house uses- the idea of the meter running backwards is common in discussing personal solar cells. However, MA’s program pushes companies to pay homeowners for all of the power. MA has created a system of Solar Renewable Energy Credits, and each power company must produce a certain amount of these, equivalent to a certain amount of power, each year. If they fail to do so with their own resources, they must pay a large fee to the government for each SREC they are short- or pay a smaller amount to buy the remaining SRECs from homeowners with solar panels. The choose the option that is cheapest for them, and it benefits homeowners who choose to install solar panels as well, since the average residential solar panel produces about 5 of these SRECs a year.
They have been fairly blatant about their incentives for solar in MA, but that’s not a bad thing. Parts of their program have been going on for five years, and they are still going strong- and more importantly, proving effective. The state now produces a substantial amount of its electricity through solar power, making it a paradise for environmentalists. Incentives for solar in MA don’t require a huge amount of research to find, since they are some of the best, but even areas with less cohesive programs may have some incentives, so even if you can’t move to MA, you should investigate what your area may have- or start a movement to create a similar program in your own state.
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