Solar sector predicts big boost from stimulus bill

[irishbobcat]

Solar sector predicts big boost from stimulus bill
 


Feb 17, 2009
The Arizona Daily Star
 

Tom Beal

Feb. 17, 2009 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- When Congress extended solar-energy tax credits while bailing out the banking system in October, solar-energy advocates said that move would produce 440,000 jobs in the eight-year life of the extension.

This week, as President Barack Obama prepared to sign a stimulus bill that changes those tax credits into outright grants, the Solar Energy Industries Association said the bill would allow its members to "create 67,000 jobs in 2009 alone and a total of 119,000 jobs over the next two years."

Some of those are the same jobs.

The boom that was supposed to immediately follow the October extension was squashed by the same economic reality that hit just about every business in America. Those solar tax credits did not look all that appealing to investors who had no income to offset.

"All these renewable-energy deals were built on tax credits. Without commercial banks with tax appetite, all these deals were stopped in their tracks," said Jake Stephens, director of development for US Solar. "This was a fix to the fix."

The bill Obama is to sign today in Denver converts those tax credits into outright grants for solar-energy projects. Stephens predicts that all those stalled projects will soon be back on track.

At a meeting Monday on the effects of the stimulus package for renewable energy, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., said the bill would help energy companies and individuals to double renewable-energy-generating capacity over the next three years.

She specifically mentioned the Solana Project near Casa Grande, where utility giant Arizona Public Service plans to build a 280-megawatt concentrating-solar-power plant to supply electricity to 70,000 homes.

That project, announced this time last year, needed the fix to proceed, she said.

Residential-scale solar could also benefit from the changes, said George Villec of GeoInnovation, though Villec said he hasn't noticed a downturn. "We're crazy busy," he said.

He is not expanding his business, but only because he doesn't want it growing to an unmanageable size. He was his company's only full-time employee when he opened in 2003 and now employs six people full time, he said.

Villec said some of his customers have told him they are investing their money in solar because it's the best investment they can find at the moment. "It's physical," he said. "It's not going to go away tomorrow because of some 'fat cat' on Wall Street. It's a safe-haven investment."

Giffords said the changes made in the stimulus package will also spur manufacturing of renewable-energy components, which receives an investment-tax credit of 30 percent.

Homeowners can also claim a 30 percent tax credit for purchases and renovations that increase the energy efficiency of their homes, she said.

In addition, the bill increases federal funding on research through NASA, the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.

Researchers, local inventors and utility company representatives packed a University of Arizona conference room to hear Giffords' presentation.

Contact reporter Tom Beal at 573-4158 or tbeal@azstarnet.com.

Newstex ID: KRTB-0014-31870266
   
   

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It's time to go solar........and stop focusing on dirty coal technology!



Dennis Spisak

Mahoning Valley Green Party

Ohio Green Party



www.ohiogreeens.org



www.votespisak.org/thinkgreen/