Mysteries of on-bill financing revealed! 4

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1. 

   Gar Lipow Posted 8:25 am
   20 Dec 2008

   RatesWhat do you think of the proposal to finance efficiency improvements along the line of British rates. Rates are the British version of property taxes with one key difference. The liability for them belongs to occupants  not owners.
   Set up a what amounts to an efficiency utility, possibly owned by existing utilities, or perhaps independent cooperatives owned by customers, or public utilities owned by municipal or state governments.  
   Let this efficiency utility offer audits, and then (with owner and tenant consent) perform efficiency upgrades. The utility would borrow the money for the upgrade, possibly financed by the Federal governments ability to borrow money at extremely low interest rates. In turn liability to pay the efficiency utility would belonged to whoever occupied the building. The required payment would have to be slightly higher than the nominal interest rate would suggest to compensate for expected vacancy rates.
   So it does not appear as a loan on the books of either an owner or tenant. Yes it is the same payment, but a utility bill rather than a loan payment which affects credit rating, credit limits and credit availability much differently. It makes it easier to sell buildings, because even in owner occupied buildings, buyers and lenders treat utility bills differently from second or third mortgages. And from a tenants point of view, they still have the advantage they would have the other systems. They are liable only while they occupy the building or space. They have no liability when they move.

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2. 

   stopgreenpath Posted 4:00 am
   21 Dec 2008

   AB 811 could be way betterYou mention the AB 811 "loan" program in CA, but you miss a key opportunity to highlight the 3 factors that will make sense of it in a SERIOUS way:
   
   
    you need to allow people to oversize their systems.  Big Energy has insisted that we are NOT allowed to build systems that will feed excess power into the grid, and if we accidentally do, we have to give it for free.  this, of course, means NO conservation, and false "demand" for building wilderness-killing, eminent-domain stealing Big Infrastructure (profit center for utilities), rather than clean, green power, generated by the people.
    if we are allowed to generate power, we need to be PAID for it.  we need generous feed in tariffs that reward investing in oversized generation and conservation.  this will obviate the need for more power plants, more power lines, more GHG emissions and ruined lives.  the rate will depend on when we get number 3, below.
    why, since cities and counties have ENORMOUS purchasing power, should they not do an RFP for BULK purchasing/installation of PV and Microwind, and pass the COSTS onto the property owner, rather than loan us the money to go and struggle to pay on our own?  it's like mandating that everyone must buy health insurance but not making it affordable.  
   
   
   example:  LADWP should be doing an RFP for 100,000 10 kW residential systems and 10,000 50 kW commercial/industrial systems.  They can easily get the price into the $3 - $4/watt range (SCE is paying $3/watt for their bulk installations), and homeowners can get 10 kW systems for about $13,000, repayable at $1,300/year (tax deductible!) for 10 years through their property taxes.  this is less than half the cost if we all have to buy separately.
   between total offset of electrical bills, and a modest cash profit from the FIT (in #2), EVERYONE will want to do this.  conservatives are some of the biggest adopters of roooftop solar in Germany, you know.  this is a TOTAL WIN.  and best of all, LADWP will not need to raise rates 1 cent, and will not destroy the Joshua Tree area with it's ill-conceived massive power corridor "Green Path" (snort).
   This solution saves wilderness, GREATLY reduces the GHGs that remote power (including Big Solar and Big Wind and Big Transmission) will pour into our environment, it GREATLY stabilizes the grid, makes solar and wind AFFORDABLE for property owners to install and ratepayers to buy, won't force families from their homes, improves property values, saves views and rural communities, and ENGAGES all of us in our sustainable energy future.
   the best of environmentalism meets the best of free market economies of scale and reduces the chokeholds of rapacious Big Energy monopolies.  this is a REAL solution, with REAL, current feasibility, that EVERYONE wants.  so, how can we make this work?
   
   the greenest energy is that which you needn't ever produce.

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3. 

   Jon Rynn Posted 7:00 am
   21 Dec 2008

   stopgreenpath --how did you get $13,000 for a 10kw system?  and that's PV? I thought it was more like $5000 per kw, are you saying bulk brings it down?  And do you have any info on microwind, that's always seemed to be a problem

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4. 

   stopgreenpath Posted 4:35 am
   22 Dec 2008

   jon rynnSCE is paying $3/watt for rooftop PV, installed, for their bulk installations in CA, so i just added 25% to accommodate the additional locales.  even at $5/watt, CSI is $2.40/watt and the feds give an uncapped 30% tax credit.  10kW X $4 = $40K - $24K CSI = $16K X 70% = $11,200.  i added a few grand for miscellaneous (inverters, administration, declining CSI, etc.).
   to my knowledge, nobody has contracted for bulk microwind, since they go from rooftop to 50+ acres/mW, so all the pricing is currently retail, but why wouldn't economies of scale work for this manufacturing and installation process, just like all others?
   FITs just need to be in proportion to up-front costs, so that the system owner has incentive to produce more energy than they use, and to install a larger system with a guaranteed buyback...
   
   the greenest energy is that which you needn't ever produce.

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