Tag Archives: solar financing

REAP 25% Renewable Energy Grants Deadline Approaching

Do you own a small business in Montana (outside the city limits of Missoula)? The USDA Rural Development, REAP (Rural Energy for America Program) offers up to 25% grants for total eligible project costs, as well as loan guarantees.  Partnered with the 30% federal tax credit your savings really add up.

This program helps increase American energy independence by increasing the private sector supply of renewable energy and decreasing the demand for energy through energy efficiency improvements. Over time, these investments can also help lower the cost of energy costs for small businesses and agricultural producers.

Application Deadline: 

  • Grants of $20,000 or less: October 31, 2018 and March 31, 2019;
  • Unrestricted Grants (up to $500,000): March 31, 2019;
  • Loan Guarantees are competed continuously throughout the year.

Don’t miss this unique opportunity to invest in the long term health of your business with an investment in solar energy and energy savings.

Call Dan for a free solar consultation today 406-541-8410.

Financing Solar – Montana Department of Environmental Quality

Solar Energy Missoula MontanaMontana Department of Environmental Quality offers $0 down, low-interest loans for solar and other alternative energy systems. Call 406-444-6586 or click here for details. 

 The Montana Department of Environmental Quality offers $0 down, low-interest loans for solar installations and other alternative energy systems to individuals, small businesses, nonprofit organizations and government entities. For details about the Alternative Energy Revolving Loan Program, call 406-444-6586, or click here. 

Federal Tax Credits
Residential 30% Renewable Energy Credit (thru 2019)This tax credit is applicable for all primary and secondary private homes.  It includes all associated costs, such as installation and electrical work.

State (Montana) Tax Credits
Montana State provides a 500.00 per tax payer tax credit, or 1000.00 per couple for your solar installation. 

Solar Electric System Missoula Montana

Solar Electric (Photovoltaic) Modules and Snow in Montana

It is December in Montana.  We received our first snowfall that stayed with us.  Temperatures have dipped.  We received a call:  “Help.  It is a beautiful day outside and my inverter is in nighttime mode.”  We asked if there was snow on the modules.  Sure enough, they were covered and the modules were shut down.

Not to worry.  In Western Montana, grid-tie, net-metered homes make a majority of their solar power in the summer months.  Winter power generation is a bonus, rather than a necessity.  The days are shorter, the sun is lower and the sky is often overcast.  This does not mean that we don’t generate any power, it just means that we generate significantly less in the months around solstice. Our sizing programs illustrate this well.  December sunlight is summarized as 1.7 equivalent average sun hours while July data shows 7.5 average hours.  So relax.  Modules are generally set at an angle that enough snow will begin to shed, temperatures permitting.  The cells are of dark colors that increases melting and with enough consecutive sunny days your modules will be generating power once again.

Fun Facts:  Net-metered homes in Montana, energy production and usage are reset annually April 1st.  So your solar electric photovoltaic system generates power in July (running your meter backwards) and you can use that generated credit now when your modules and you are snowed in.

The State of the Solar Grant in Missoula, And Beyond…

There has been much talk about solar grants in our region this summer.  It’s no secret that solar sales were up by near triple in first quarter for most solar installers in the greater Missoula and Western Montana region, as seen in this article in April 2012 in the Missoula Independent.  And then the grants suddenly went dry in July of this year.  Another article in the Indy shares the details.

Here’s the gist:

  • Northwestern Energy gave out $3/watt up to 2000 watts (or 2kw) for grid-tied Solar PV installs in their territory.  This amounted to the $6000 grant folks would commonly ask for.
  • After the 2010 election, some state legislatures threatened to cut the state tax credits of $500/tax payer, $1000/couple, but it stood true.  And the 30% Federal tax credit remained strong.
  • In 2011, hard costs dropped nearly 40% for Solar PV, taking that $6k grant on a 2kW from a 30% coverage on an $18.5K system to a 50-60% coverage of install total on that same 2kW system, now costing under $11K.
  • By early 2012, solar energy was hitting an all time high in popularity on a national and global scale – everything from solar in China and India to solar on the White House, to solar farms in the southwest and solar financing companies popping up.

At this point at SBS Solar, like most local installers, we were selling our grants faster than we could get them.  At the same time, Northwestern Energy was having more requests than ever for solar grants, especially in the Missoula area, and they were maxing out their grant fund.  This, coupled with the drastic drop in pricing, brought things to a (temporary?) standstill in early summer of this year.

What we do know is that Northwestern Energy asked the MREA for a recommendation on how to proceed.  We at SBS Solar, and many of our fellow installers, weighed in with similar sentiments.  Cut the grants per watt in half to $1.50, but keep the maximum grant at $6000.  This would mean that a 2kW system now gets a $3000 grants ,and someone could get a $6000 grant for a 4kW system.   This would be awesome!  A triple-bottom-line here: Customers get a great grant and are now incented to go with a larger system instead of stopping at 2kW, Installers are now selling larger systems (and perhaps more often) and Northwestern Energy is getting double the renewable energy put back into their grind for half the cost, thereby getting them to their renewable energy mandate faster.

Win-Win-Win.

So…. here we with no grants, a state tax credit and a federal tax credit that could be in jeopardy depending on the outcome of the November election, and little action in the market.

Enter the SBS Solar Private Solar Rebate.  We are offering a rebate for solar customers that is competitive with the aforementioned MREA recommendation to Northwestern Energy.  Roughly $1.50/watt.  We also have two different solar financing options, one state sponsored and one private.

If you’re interested in solar today, don’t wait for an answer until November (at the earliest), when you can get our rebate today:  www.sbslink.com.  406-541-8410.  Ask for Dan.

Thoughts from our Intern: MT Renewable Energy Factoids

Our Energy Intern/Office Manager, Nick Bowman, recently gave this short talk for one of his classes at UM.  We thought it made for an interesting blog post which has some talking points about renewable energy you might not have heard or might find interesting or useful:

Montana, with its huge potential for renewable energy, could do more to use its resources to help strengthen the economy.

Montana is currently ranked 22nd in the nation for the amount of renewable energy produced, yet has enough available resources to become 3rd in the nation if properly developed and invested.

Montana potential for wind is due to its topography. High mountains combined with spacious plains are perfect for developing wind farms. Wind Energy alone has enough power to produce 370 times the amount of electricity used by the state. Here is a great potential for economic growth.

In places where buildings are a barrier, as they decrease the amount of wind which can be harvested, we could use solar power to create renewable energy gains.  We need to increase the monetary incentives for solar installation, particularly in light of the cancelation of energy grants by Northwestern Energy.

Montana is also one of 13 states which can produce energy from geothermal hot spots. The technology of geothermal is constantly improving and needs to be developed in order for this technology to be effective without compromising the environment.

Yet with all this in mind Montanas still spend 4.7 billion dollars to produce fossil fuels every year.

Increased implementation of green energy is only possible through the contribution of the average American who wants to better this great nation. Political activism, alternative energy advocacy and service are among the few ways which people can contribute to helping renewable energy succeed in this struggling economy. I would recommend that, if nothing else, each and every person reminds their representatives that they support sustainable energy.

Let’s make a difference.

Nick Bowman

Demistifying Solar Tax Incentives

I recently gave a talk for the Montana Sustainable Business Council on the incentives available for energy conservation.  I touched on federal and state tax credits, utility based grants and rebates and the state of Montana DEQ Revolving Loan Fund for renewable energy.

In the talk I mentioned that there has been some question as to whether the 30% federal tax credit for renewable energy installation (which is no cap and can be carried forward for multiple years), is to be taken on the gross cost of the system or the net cost (after applied utility grants) of the system.

Turns out it’s either — depending on your system, residential or commercial, according to Kenton D. Swift, PhD, CPA, Associate Professor of Accounting, The University of Montana, School of Business Administration.

He was in the audience at my talk and was kind enough to approach me afterward to further discuss this question.  After some research he got back to me via email with the following information:

I wanted to give you a little information about one part of your presentation. When a homeowner installs a solar pv system, and receives a utility rebate, they need to reduce the cost of the system by the utility rebate before calculating the 30% federal tax credit. For instance, if the system costs $13,000 and the utility rebate is $6,000, the credit would be 30% of $7,000 or $2,100. This is actually the way you calculated the credit in your presentation, but you hinted it might be possible to take the 30% credit on the full cost. This seems to be a common confusion.

There are actually two separate 30% federal income tax credits, one for personal residences (IRC Code Sec. 25D), and one for business (IRC Code Sec. 48). Generally, the credits are the same except for this one issue about netting utility rebates. The law requires that the rebate be netted against the cost before calculating the 30% credit when taking the residential credit (IRC Code Sec. 25D). I have attached a recent letter from the IRS chief counsel’s office which describes this netting process. Again, it is the same way you actually did your example at the meeting, which is great.

For the 30% federal BUSINESS credit (IRC Code Sec. 48) there is no specific requirement to net the utility rebate against the cost of the system, before calculating the credit. Actually, there does not seem to be any current law explaining what to do. Thus, I believe that when taking the business credit, most taxpayers take the credit on the full cost of the system, before utility rebates. This is a better result than one can get when calculating the residential credit.

I hope that helps to clarify a confusing issue, which you have handled very well.

Someone at the meeting also asked about the property tax exemption for solar pv systems in Montana. Kent went on to clarify that “such systems are exempted from property taxes for 10 years.”

At SBS Solar we go to the DSIRE database for all of this information and have even been referred to this site by the IRS when we called them about the above questions!  This is also the site that Kent relies on for much of his information, or confirmation of information.  He notes that he has “checked their information for many states, and it always seems to be up-to-date, when I compare their explanation to state law.”

Feel free to be in touch with SBS Solar on your energy conservation incentive questions, or to get a project started in Montana.

Green Blocks – Final Phase

SBS has had a wonderful and successful time on the side-order list for the City of Missoula’s Green Blocks energy saving program.

We began work back in the Fall of 2010 by getting 2-inters from the University of Montana’s COT Energy Program and got them fully trained on doing a basic solar site assessment.

Our Team ended up doing over 120 assessments over the course of 3-months last fall.  They braved blazing sun, side-ways rain and blowing snow from October – December.  But, it was well worth it.

This spring 2011 marked the final phase of this project.  The City added about 60-90 participants to get to their total count of 300.  We got ourselves another COT Energy intern for this past Spring and he went out and did about 48 more solar site assessments.

Half way through this phase we saw an 18% REDUCTION in the cost to install solar, plus the state and feds decided to KEEP the tax credits in place for renewable, Northwestern Energy gave us a dozen more $6k grants to hand out to customers in good standing, and the MT DEQ revolving loan fund keeps on chugging along (although they are 8-10 weeks out on funding).  To top it off, SBS starting taking credit cards for deposits.

The wet cold spring made for a slow start, and with the unseasonably cool summer, folks were not thinking about solar.  But with the aforementioned incentives, and a little 90 degree weather, we are in full swing.  Over half of the installs we’re doing in July and August came from Green Blocks leads and SBS is now booked out until September.

Thanks to the City of Missoula for this great opportunity!  We’d love to do it again.

If you’re interested in information about solar – get in touch: www.SBSlink.com or info@sbslink.com.

SBS Intalls Solar for Ravalli Co Habitat for Humanity

According to the Bitterroot Star, last week the the fifth home by Ravalli County Habitat for Humanity was completed and keys handed over to the owners. The new home is on Cherry Street in Hamilton and now belongs to Travis Sanderson and his family.

Much of the materials for the home were donating, including a Solar PV system – made possible through the work of Sustainable Building Systems (SBS) and Northwestern Energy’s Solar PV grant.  This system will reduce the family’s prior heating bill of $350/month in winter to around $80/month.

Read the entire coverage from the Bitterroot Star here.

Solar Prices drop up to 25%!

After a PV module industry wide cost reduction, sourcing a lower cost mount system and dealers giving better pricing on all balance of system components, SBS has new numbers for potential Solar PV customers in MT that represent up to a 25% reduction in installed costs for PV systems!

If you couple the new lower prices with a $6000 Northwestern Energy PV grant, the 30% Federal Tax credit for renewable energy and the $500/$1000 (single/couple) State Tax credit, the costs are lower than every before.

And here in Montana, we can add to that a 10-year, 4% financing option (oac) from the MT DEQ revolving loan fund for renewable energy.

For a 2kw, 9 module system, total cost to the customer is in the $12,000.00 range.

After incentives this is roughly 3,200.00 out of pocket.

This on average powers about 25-40% of the average Montana home.

Here is an example of plausible breakdown for that $12,000 system

$12,000 GROSS
– $1000 (deposit to SBS to begin work)
=$11,000 NET
-$6,000 (NWenergy PV grant)
=$5,000 – Financed w/ MT DEQ loan
120-months
4%
=$51/month

Yes, that is correct, for at little at $51/month for a 10-year period, you can cover up to 40% of your energy bill. Awesome.  Check out this PV for more information: SolarPVFinancing-Basics-final.

And, when you file your taxes at the end of the year on that system, you’ll still get the $1800 Federal credit and the $500/$1000 state credit back.  You can keep these to use however you’d like, or put that money into your DEQ loan for early pay off (there is not penalty for early pay).

For a free solar site assessment, or to learn more, contact us at SBS today: info@sbslink.com, www.sbslink.com, 406-541-8410.

To get a general estimate of your solar or other renewable energy needs, try our Solar Calculator here.