Generous incentives and government rebates are seeing the rooftop solar market in California rocketing and prices of solar panels plummeting.
In January 2007, California embarked on a USD$3.3 billion effort to install 3,000 megawatts (MW) of new solar power installations over the next ten years. The California Solar Initiative (CSI), a part of that effort, was a product of ex-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Million Solar Roofs” vision for the state and has a goal of 1,940 MW of solar capacity by the end of 2016.
The initiative has proved to be very popular – last year Californians installed 194 megawatts (MW) of new solar electric generation systems; more than any other year in the State’s history. This translates to solar panels being installed on nearly 20,000 rooftops statewide in 2010. The CSI Program received applications for 425 megawatts (MW) last year, more than double any other year and the program looks set to break another record this year.
Another goal of the CSI Program was to achieve substantial cost reductions in solar photovoltaic (PV) equipment. For systems smaller than 10 kW, a cost reduction of 18 percent has been realised and for systems larger than 10 kW, prices have dropped by 27 percent so far.
According to a recent report from CPUC’s California Solar Initiative team, the total installed solar capacity in California as of the first quarter of this year stands at 924 MW of distributed electricity generation at nearly 95,000 individual sites throughout the state.
The CSI program has a total budget of USD$2.167 billion between 2007 and 2016. The scheme offers different incentive levels based on the performance of their solar panels, rather than system capacity alone. As with Australia’s Solar Credits program, the level of rebates are in part dictated by the location of the installation, as different areas within a region will experience different levels of solar radiation and therefore varying levels of electricity output.
