Triangle Sustainable Business posts blog regarding SEM’s response to changes with Progress Energy’s SunSense Program.
A Jan. 25 announcement from Southern Energy Management (SEM) of Morrisville, N.C., warns that Progress Energy is trying to cut back homeowner rebates for solar installations in North Carolina. While acknowledging that this development is “a sign of the strength of the solar industry in North Carolina,” SEM’s CEO Maria Kingery warns that the solar industry in the state is “not yet playing on a level field.” The announcement quotes her as saying that
Incentives have always played an important role in market development and are designed to help promising industries grow and create the jobs of the future; the day will come when we don’t need them, but it is not here quite yet.
On Jan. 22, Progress Energy filed a request to the North Carolina Utilities Commission to “adjust the upfront rebate of $1/watt AC installed to $.50/watt AC” for its SunSense Solar Rebate program. The company would continue to grant a credit of $4.50 per kW-AC per month for homeowners for five years. Progress Energy claims that the lower upfront rebate is justified by “recent dramatic declines in the cost of solar energy.”
Kingery says that “Solar prices have dropped more than 35 percent since 2006, while conventional electricity costs rose three percent per year during that same period.” Research shows, she says, that “solar will be cost competitive with all other forms of electricity by 2020, with or without the help of government incentives.”
Graham Alexander, senior energy specialist at SEM, writes on his blog that Progress Energy’s filing could be approved within a matter of weeks, and that homeowners who submit a SunSense application after that “will very likely miss out on an extra $2,000-$4,000 in rebate incentives.” Alexander says SEM has been expecting this change for some time and that “solar will probably never be incentivized to the level it is right now.”
To read the full article, click here.
