Solar Incentives and Rebates

There are plenty of subsidies and incentives available for solar photovoltaics (PV) as well as other renewables. The big incentive is the U.S. Federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC) of 30%. If you install a PV system at your home, you will get a 30% credit on your income taxes the following year (i.e., the tax credit is not a deduction; it is like a tax refund). The Federal ITC is available through 2016.

There are also incentives for solar and renewables offered in/by various states. But the general rule is "first come-first served", which means, the earlier you get in, the higher the incentive. So there is a big reason to buy solar now as opposed to waiting.

The DSIRE (Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency) website is a good source to find incentives (not just for solar) for your state.

California Incentives
In California, the state sponsored program is called the California Solar Initiative. California Solar Initiative (CSI) Trigger Tracker is a convenient tracker for the incentives for the big utilities (PG&E and Southern California Edison). The incentives are done based on "steps". The tracker shows the current incentive rate and where they are in the current step in terms of megawatts (MW) under review and MW remaining. The earlier steps in the program had significant incentives ($2.50 per Watt), but now they are down to Step 6 ($1.10 per Watt) for SCE and step 8 ($0.35 per Watt) for PG&E. These are still good incentives, but they are quickly being taken by others.

LADWP is still paying incentives for solar, but there are delays and the process and calculations are more cumbersome.

Pasadena Water & Power is still paying high incentives of $2.00 per Watt. They use the same basis to calculate the incentive as the CSI Calculator. You just apply it at $2.00 per Watt. So get it while the gettin is good.

Burbank Water and Power still has significant rebates available. They are on Step 4 which provides $2.36 (assuming BWP keeps the renewable energy credits).

Glendale Water and Power is currently on hold until July 1, 2011. If they keep with the same rebate schedule, 2011 incentives are still very high at $3.22 per Watt.