CEC Funding on hold [RE-wrenches]

matthew tritt solarone at charter.net
Mon Oct 28 19:58:16 PST 2002


Nick,

This really is going to cause some big problems for a lot of our businesses
I fear. Personally, many of my off-grid customers have kind of petered out,
thanks to the ever-expanding power grid and the ever popular bargain
basement internet supply houses. Let's hope that the revised buy-down
amounts don't scare our clients out of the solar market!

Matt
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nick Nicholas" <APS at SBCGLOBAL.NET>
To: <RE-wrenches at topica.com>
Sent: Monday, October 28, 2002 2:40 PM
Subject: CEC Funding on hold [RE-wrenches]


Hello wrenches:
    Thank God for off grid solar systems, otherwise, we in California would
be looking forward to a very slow winter.
    I have good news and bad news.  The good news is that California has
seen an increased interest in renewable energy systems.  The bad news is
that this increased interest in RE has far surpassed the CECs annual budget.
CEC staff mentioned that present interest in CEC rebates is 50-60 million a
year, with only 24 million legislated.
    It appears that the CEC has given out all the reservations that it can
this year, other than a few which will result from out dated reservations
which pass up the nine month reservation period.
    On Sept 26, ten million was legislated for funding CEC programs.
Unfortunately, these funds will be issued at a rate lower than $4.50 per
watt, probably $3 per watt.  Unfortunately, the CEC is not able to confirm
what the future rate will be.
    This is inconvenient to me for several reasons.  First of all, of the UI
contracts I have lined up specify that I will receive the $4.50 per watt
rebate!  This means that I will have to re-negotiate my contracts at a
higher cost to my customer.  It is likely that these customers will not end
up installing solar on their homes.
   The second inconvenience is that the CEC is unable to tell us what rate
we can expect future reservations to be at.  This means that I will not be
able to re-negotiate my contracts, because I do not know what the future
rebate will be.
    Also, the Buydown Staff told me that all unfilled reservations will be
returned to the applicant with a letter saying "Try again next year."  This
is not only inconvenient for California installers, but this looks badly for
all of the solar industry.
    This puts quite a wrench in the machine.  I would appreciate it if the
CEC could notify us as soon as possible regarding the rate that the future
reservations will be set at.
    For now, APS has many projects at various stages of the design process,
and we would love to be able to continue bidding and installing systems.
Or, at least, filing the reservations so that we install the systems early
next year.
    I would appreciate any info you have on this subject.
Nick Nicholas
Alternative Power Systems
www.alternativepowersystems.com
aps at sbcglobal.net
135 Colfax Ave.
Grass Valley, CA 95945
(530) 274-0588 phone
(530) 274-0589 fax
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

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