"Peak Solar" Hits Tennessee as Grant $$ Run Out

Nashville -- "While the state has put great emphasis on solar technology in recent years, bringing that technology to bear in Tennessee homes and businesses is proving a difficult task because of the high cost of installation, which is becoming increasingly hard for the state and its citizens to swallow.

Wednesday, the Tennessee Solar Institute announced it would stop processing applications for further grants as it exhausts about $10 million of stimulus funds encouraging businesses to invest in solar technology.

This news arrives as Tennessee Valley Authority officials continue to mull alternatives for the future of the Generation Partners program, which pays incentives to those who install solar systems at their homes or businesses. The program is funded by customers who voluntarily pay more money on their electric bills to support renewable energy.

With the tough economy pinching customers, the contributions haven’t covered the costs, and the solar incentives are costing TVA about $5 million a year."

MP: This story helps illustrate the reality that solar energy is produced by mixing sunlight with tax dollars. 

Update: "Peak solar" hits Oregon as well.  

"A solar boom was spawned by the Legislature's supersizing of Oregon's controversial Business Energy Tax Credit in 2007, under which the state covered 50 percent of the cost of renewable energy projects up to a maximum credit of $10 million.

But solar developers in Oregon say solar projects will no longer be feasible, now that lawmakers have put the state subsidies system on a starvation diet. With the state budget in free fall, the Legislature cleaved its commercial renewable energy subsidy pot by 99 percent for the current budget cycle, from a cap of $300 million in credits for 2009-2011 to $3 million in 2011-2013.

Without the tax credits, the economics of commercial solar projects don't work, for electricity buyers or investors who underwrite the projects."

HT: Wayne Sanman