To encourage a greater adoption of solar, the federal government, a number of states, and even some utilities offer incentives to make solar more affordable. Common incentives include solar rebates, tax benefits, and performance-based incentives. These offerings can significantly reduce the cost of a solar system, and can help convert even the most hesitant or frugal homeowners.
We’ve compiled some Aurora resources below to help you educate your solar prospects on some of the federal and local offerings currently available.
What You Need to Know About the Solar ITC Extension
The Federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC) gives back 26% of what a homeowner paid for solar in their taxes. Instead of a deduction, which reduces taxable income, the ITC directly offsets what would otherwise be owed in taxes, and can even come back as a refund.
The ITC extension will provide an extra incentive until 2023. Installers will continue to have this useful tool to convince even the most frugal prospects to go solar. Here’s a quick breakdown of how installers and homeowners can benefit.
The Power of SRECs in Your Solar Sales Discussions
Some states offer additional tax credits for homeowners interested in going solar. When state tax credits are paired with the federal ITC, the savings on installing a solar system can really add up!
Many states now have renewable portfolio standards (RPS), which require utilities to procure or generate a certain percentage of electricity from renewable resources. If your prospect lives in an RPS state, their solar panels will create solar renewable energy certificates (SRECs) for the amount of electricity produced by your solar panel systems. SRECs significantly increase the return on investment for homeowners, and should be an integral part of your sales conversations.
Selling SRECs can result in hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars more per year in income for a homeowner, depending on the SREC market in their state.
This article explores a number of SREC benefits you’ll want to bring to a prospect’s attention.
7 California Solar Incentives You Need to Know
California offers quite a few solar incentives and savings benefits, including property-assessed clean energy (PACE), property tax exemption for PV systems, and net energy metering (NEM). With incentives like these, going solar can be both financially feasible and beneficial, even for the most hesitant prospect. Read more about the California incentives here.
Financial Incentives for Installing Solar
This article offers a sweeping overview of common solar incentives so that you can educate your customers on the benefits available to them. It’s important to note that these policies benefit customers who purchase their solar installation and are not available to customers who finance their system with leases or PPAs. Read more.
This month in The Current, we’ll be exploring more resources to help your solar business educate homeowners — and hopefully turn them into customers. Stay tuned for next week when we’ll dive into financing options. In the meantime, subscribe to The Current to get this information delivered to your inbox.