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Throughout today's "National Day of Action," more than 100 advocacy groups and businesses are encouraging U.S. citizens to contact their legislators and urge them to extend the federal renewable energy tax credits that are vital to maintaining the industry's momentum.
The bill that these groups are currently looking at that could extend the tax credits, H.R. 6049, a US $54 billion tax extenders bill that contains a one-year extension of the federal production tax credit (PTC) and a new small-wind investment tax credit (ITC).
The bill that these groups are currently supporting is H.R. 6049, a US $54 billion tax extenders package that contains a one-year extension of the federal production tax credit (PTC) and a new small-wind investment tax credit (ITC). The bill could still face obstacles, largely because there is no concensus on how to pay for the extensions.
The bill includes a PTC extension through December 31, 2009. The bill also extends the 30% investment tax credit for solar energy property and qualified fuel cell property, and the 10% investment tax credit for microturbines through the end of 2014. Biomass, geothermal, landfill gas and other technologies receive a three-year extension under the legislation.
Congress has been trying unsuccessfully for a year to extend tax credits for individuals, businesses and developers who invest in clean power. When the credits expire at the end of this year it’s estimated that more than 100,000 jobs and close to US $20 billion in investment will disappear.
For more information about the National Day of Action, visit Solar-Nation.org.
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The education of corporate America regarding solar replacing a portion of their electrical requirements is a long process. It is a sophisticated installation with sophisticated economics. It takes at least an average of 12 months to complete the process from initial discussions (engineers, operation personnel, finance managers, etc.). Many projects are within that "cycle", but will surely die on the vine if the investment tax credit is not renewed very soon (June).
Most importantly these activities take months. Your estimates for lead time are good approximation, however with more demand that we are seeing these time schedules are increasing.
So to have any incentives retracted would be an enormous failure on the part of our government.
In the big picture though a commercial solar grid tie can be accomplished in less than 2 years, which is an excellent turnaround for any energy conservation measure.
So in the immortal words of the shadetree mechanics "the squeeky wheel, gets the grease", lets all be squeeky wheel today and inundate our politicians with requests for more renewable energy across the board.
jb
www.nrgmanager.com
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