By Mickey Walker-October 18, 2009
There’s a lot blowing in the wind these days about Green
Energy and how to get it off the ground here in the good old USA. There are many incentives to go green. The US Government gives a flat 30% off
the top in tax credits to individuals who put up solar panels on their
roofs. This federal tax
credit to offset income taxes is stunning. Say you put up a solar panel array that will produce 5
kilowatts of electricity. That
should do it for over half the energy needs for the average family in a 2000
square foot home. Typically, such
a solar panel array might cost $50,000.00 on today’s market. So you get a tax credit of $15,000.00
dollars against your tax bill you can file the following year. Then after that federal tax credit
which is good in all 50 states, the fun begins. Some states from that point on, pay the homeowner additional
lucrative tax rebates up front in the form of a check. Entergy Texas Inc. pays the homeowner
up front, and it is a big whopping $2.50 per watt. In our 5 kilowatt example that would be a check written to
the homeowner up front for $25,000.00 but the rebate check is capped at $13,500.00. But that ain’t hay and starts you off generating
power from the sun thanks to Uncle Sam and Entergy, a hefty $28,500.00 or over
half the cost of your solar panels. Depending on the state in which you live, there are other credits to
encourage the homeowner to get his solar panels up and running. New Mexico Power will charge you $.0935
per kilowatt hour of electricity used, but if you generate more than you
use, NMP will cut you a check for the excess power you put back on the
electrical grid at the rate of $.13 per kilowatt hour for the excess net
metered back onto the grid. Such a
deal. The electric company pays
you more for your solar power generated than it charges you as a normal rate
for electricity. That little
incentive sees massive numbers of panels going up all over New Mexico.
Many states get high marks for being green energy
friendly. And many states get
failing grades. For a peek at the rock
star states in solar friendly energy as well as who the “black hat” states
are: rock star solar friendly states in the
USA. One bullet on the website
is the poorest grade of all which means these states don’t give much if
anything in the way of incentives to individuals or businesses who buy and have
solar panels installed to help save the planet. Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Kansas, Nebraska and others get
failing grades for not only refusing to give incentives for installing solar
panels on your roof, but some will not pay you for any EXCESS electricity you
generate and don’t use that the homeowner puts back on the grid by “net
metering.” Net metering means you
are hooked up to the grid through your solar panels to begin with, and your
electric service box with the spinning disc is integrated with your solar
panels and the main electric wire dropped from a pole from your service
provider. Several states, as we
saw with New Mexico, will pay you for excess power you generate from your green
solar panels or even windmills and hydro (water) power generation from a
backyard waterfall or spring that flows through a Pelton Wheel generator. We
all should be so lucky. And some
states will pay you more than the going rate for power that they charge the
public. Such a deal. But the idea is not new. Germany, Spain, France, and other
European countries encouraged the individual and even towns and villages to
create their own solar power micro grids. If the going rate for electricity from the electric company was 15 cents
per kilowatt hour, Germany typically paid the private generating towns and
villages, a whopping 55 cents for excess power put back onto the grid. The result? Many countries in Europe became instant solar heroes in the
cause of reducing greenhouse gasses and CO2 emissions. And they will be selling carbon credits
when cap and trade grabs us all by the short hairs and we have to buy carbon
credits and pay taxes on air pollution that is of coal, oil, and other fossil
fuels. If you live in America, you
will be buying credits from Spain in the form of a world tax. It has already begun.
Well, as private electric solar energy coops in Europe
flourished, the rate the electric companies paid them for excess energy fell
back to a price closer to the going rate the electric company charged everybody,
which is only fair. But the result
was many megawatts of free clean energy spread over much of Europe. Lots of new clean green hardware to
help the old electric grid that fails all too often on its own. No more mercury in the trout in Ireland
or Germany. No more acid rain due
to coal smokestack emissions. And
a reduction in greenhouse gases and other pollutants has been significant just
in the past few years. But we in
the USA are still up against Big Brown, you know the fossil fuel burners of
coal, natural gas, heating oil, and other dirty smokestack belchers of
contaminants into our air and water. I have spoken with many electric company executives and engineers in the
past few months about solar incentives for the homeowner, and if nothing was in
place, I asked them “Why not?” Today I spoke with a representative of Entergy, Inc. of Arkansas. I asked him why was it that Entergy
Texas would give homeowners who installed solar panels $2.50 per watt up front,
when Entergy Arkansas gave nothing. He told me it had to do with the laws on the books in Arkansas and said
I should take it up with the state legislature which he said won’t convene for
another year. Many already have
and have been writing their congressmen about their concern that Arkansas as
one of many states, is not promoting the growth of solar energy as it
could. He told me what I already
knew that Arkansas and Entergy does not have a plan to pay the individual who
produces more power than he uses for the amount of the excess electricity he
sends back to the grid. So the
power company gets free electricity, and the homeowner who generated it gets
nothing for it. Bummer. Not much incentive to go green, is it?
Texas is no white knight when it comes to solar power
incentives for the homeowner, either. There aren’t many rebates of any significance thanks to tightwad
senators Cornyn and Hutchison and their partners in stifling solar energy growth
in Texas, the State Legislature in Austin. Heck they ain’t even scheduled to be in session for another
two years. And you got to ask,
“What is the holdup?” Many,
including me, think that Big Brown (the fossil burners for power) and Big Oil
lobby our elected officials to keep the water all muddied up so green energy
just creeps along at a snail’s pace while they make billions before they have
to sing their swan song as the world hopefully, for the sake of humanity, goes
green and stops polluting. In
following the money, I saw a statistic that said Big Brown gets 10 times the
federal incentive funding that Green (solar, wind, hydro) gets. What’s wrong with this picture? America is acting like a bunch of
hillbillies. There is no good
reason why we don’t, with our technology and engineers, kick Big Brown in the
butt and tell them to retool, get in step with Green or else suffer some big
fines. And we need to monitor like
hawks the money changing hands from Big Brown lobbyists to the Lege, and get
tough with penalties for infractions. When America decides to eliminate private campaign funding maybe we
begin to act like we have a brain when it comes to slam dunk methods we already
know in how to save the planet. After kicking all the lobbyists to the curb.
Funny, but we all know what we need to do. And the lobbyists with money taken from
Big Brown still run the United States of America even when we know we are at
peril to allow them to continue. Money talks. The rest of
the world, as they soar with solar and other green applications to produce
megawatts of energy across the globe must think us goofy. How can Germany own more windmills
generating power in the United States than American companies do? They can and do. How can Spain create vast fields of
solar furnaces created by mirrors that follow the sun and produce enough power
to light up Barcelona, Madrid, and Seville all at the same time? They can. And we don’t have enough solar panels in New Orleans to
light up half a block. That could
have been a nice touch after Katrina. Instant power. But George
Bush was big on closing down solar panels being utilized on government lands
because he all-of-a-sudden became environmental and wanted studies run on the
effect of solar panels out West. Say what? Anybody smell a
rat in bed with Big Oil here?
Bush
halts solar energy projects on federal lands
Somebody, Obama for openers, needs to take Big Brown by the
scruff of the neck and tell them to get with the (green) program. So that the USA won’t lag behind Taiwan
by 100% in solar cell production. So that we can begin to use the vast deserts of New Mexico and Arizona
for solar furnace generation of megawatts of new energy for us and the rest of
the world. Somebody needs to give
Big Brown and other corporations accustomed to buying a place for their
smokestacks through lobbyists paying off congressmen, their walking papers. It was good while it lasted dudes. But the world demands that we as a
country grow up. And do the right
thing. Or else fall behind less
advanced countries in the production and implementation of green energy
hardware essential to our survival. 