Included as part of the $700 billion bailout package for Wall Street is a bill which provides for an eight-year extension to federal clean-energy tax credits! Homeowners installing solar electric after 121/31/2008 can expect a 30% tax federal tax credit, no longer limited to $2,000. The tax credits were set to expire at the end of 2008. There is also a credit for qualified geothermal heat pumps. [This was discussed here on PriusChat yesterday . . . http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-h...ate-bill-700b-sets-plug-in-rebate-7500-a.html . . . buried in the string about the plug-in portion of the bill. But the home solar deserves its own topic thread. ] Environmental Capital - WSJ.com : Green Bailout: House Passes Rescue Plan and Clean Energy Credits Environmental Capital - WSJ.com : Eclipsed: Solar Power's Celebrations Cut Short by Market Carnage Search Results - THOMAS (Library of Congress)
i now have people at work telling me that i qualify for tax breaks because of my Zenn. now i bought mine in 2007... do i qualify?? or is it for purchases going forward?
probably going forward. I hate that this stuff was tacked onto the bailout but I'm chuffed that it passed. BTW, the 8 years is for solar ITC. The PTC only got extened for a year IIRC. Geothermal ITC got extended 2 years, which is something good too.
Likewise. The removal of the cap is potentially huge! Our local power company has two examples on their website, one for residential, one for commercial. The commercial payback was 8 years, the residential 23 years. The only difference was the tax cap, which always cheesed me off. Now both get 8 years! I really have to think about taking the plunge next year..... Rob
yeah, I'm really looking now that we'll probably be staying put for a long time. We don't need a huge system, 2.0kW will probably cover 100% of our needs, esp once we replace our refridgerator.
I wonder if we can get a retroactive credit for the system we put up last year (grumbles). The gov't can make taxes retroactive, but I'm guessing not the rebates. Feh! I could use the extra $7k we would have saved.
Yeah, I have some friends who just installed 8 and 10kW systems. I'm sure they'd love the extra cash. I'm waiting until 2009 to have any system I put in place turned on so that I can take advantage of the new rules. We'll probably install something on the order 2.5-3.0 kW. Our average monthly use is about 386kWh and once we replace our dinosaur refrigerator we'll save an additional 50kWh/mo. I'm hoping we can whittle it down even more, but I'm not sure what's left to optimize. Probably better insulation so the furnace doesn't run as often.
