After a year of stalemate that threatened to strangle the nascent United States solar industry, the U.S. Senate on Tuesday passed energy legislation that extends a key investment tax credit until 2016.
The 30% solar tax credit was part of a package of green energy incentives that includes a one-year extension of the production tax credit crucial to the wind industry and a $2,500-$7,500 tax credit for people who buy plug-in electric vehicles. (That should make General Motors (GM) happy as it prepares to roll out its ever-increasingly expensive Volt plug-in electric hybrid.)
Homeowners also won an extension of a tax credit for installing solar panels and the $2,000 cap on such systems was lifted. Put in a small wind turbine or a geothermal heat pump and you can claim up to a $4,000 and $2,000 tax credit, respectively.
The big winner was the solar industry. Congress’ failure to extend the investment tax credit threatened to scuttle scores of multibillion-dollar solar power plants in the pipeline and undermine mandates that utilities like PG&E (PCG) and Southern California Edison (EIX) obtain a growing percentage of their electricity from renewable sources.
The legislation now returns to the House of Representatives, which earlier passed a similar version of the Senate bill.
Good
It was passed by a 93-2 majority. The 2 Senators who voted against it were Kyle from Arizona and Crapo from Idaho. None of the Senators in the presidential election showed for the vote. Disappointing that Kyle wouldn’t vote for this considering the HUGE potential for solar in Arizona. McCain ended up 0 for 9. It took too long but it was great to see something get passed in a bipartisan manner. This will create a tremendous number of jobs.
Hurrah- the senate gets something done which may actually benefit individuals and the planet, not just greed laden corporate short-termism.
This is helpful, but I really wish we could have given wind a longer tax credit than one year!
YEAH!!! The Senate finally did something right by passing the green energy tax credits..good for them..THIS IS WHAT WE NEED!! Now the House needs to do the same and make it LAW..LET’S GET THIS COUNTRY MOVING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION..building our infrastructure, mass transit, money into green energy,green conversion to natural gas for car and trucks, green infrastructure, green JOBS, will all create US JOBS WHICH ARE STRONGLY NEEDED NOW and can’t be sent overseas. In addition, this can SAVE OUR PLANET. Global warming is real, we are running out of time…NO TO THE WALL ST. BAIL OUT!! It won’t work and is the wrong direction. AGAIN! We as a nation need to learn to live within our means, balance the budget including government and corporations. No more corporate welfare. WE cannot afford this bail out!! Put MAIN ST FIRST NOT WALL ST.
Yay, one year of PTCs! Enough time to get another few projects into the ground at a profit, but not enough time to actually ramp up wind turbine manufacturing. Another luke-warm victory for green energy.
The Greens, the Senate, and the public lose. The development of renewables and alternatives will use up much oil and natural gas (mining ores, manufacturing, transportation of solar panels and wind turbines) and only yield electric power, which is not what we need for tractors/combines, 18 wheel trucks, trains, planes, and ships. Using oil and natural gas to get solar/wind = electric power is stupid.
We are facing the collapse of the highways that depend on diesel trucks for maintenance of bridges, cleaning culverts to avoid road washouts, snow plowing, roadbed and surface repair. When the highways fail, so will the power grid, as highways carry the parts, transformers, steel for pylons, and high tension cables, all from far away. With the highways out, there will be no food coming in from “outside,” and without the power grid virtually nothing works, including home heating, pumping of gasoline and diesel, airports, communications, and automated systems.
This is documented in a free 48 page report that can be downloaded, website posted, distributed, and emailed: http://www.peakoilassociates.com/POAnalysis.html
I used to live in NH-USA, but moved to a sustainable place. Anyone interested in relocating to a nice, pretty, sustainable area with a good climate and good soil? Email: clifford dot wirth at yahoo dot com or give me a phone call which operates here as my old USA-NH number 603-668-4207. http://survivingpeakoil.blogspot.com/
Thanks! One glimmer of rational hope in an otherwise dark time. Keep this direction going for us and our kids – vote Obama!
About time the fatcats in washington did something for the earth, and future of our nation, other than bailing out failed, poorly run businesses.
“The development of renewables and alternatives will use up much oil and natural gas (mining ores, manufacturing, transportation of solar panels and wind turbines) and only yield electric power”
Actually, the future of transportation is with electric drive, so what better to spend our last resources on than permanent energy sources like wind turbines?
Can a Mining Truck Be Carbon Neutral?
http://www.matternetwork.com/2008/9/can-mining-truck-carbon-neutral.cfm
And for everyone who is depressed at congress on clean energy, remember that you can change this by electing more Democrats in the Senate. That is where the bills get stuck usually: Republicans always fillibuster the cloture-vote of 60: currently theres only 51 Democrats. They all vote for clean energy, but theres not enough of them to get the 60 votes needed to vote.
You just can’t force 51 people to provide 60 votes, no matter how you curse and stamp your foot.
(This one only passed because it had a load of help to Ike victims who are the constituents of the heavily Republican states.)
This is great for the solar industry but it’s ridiculous that they only extended wind and other technologies for one year. With the fact that it takes longer than that to get through the permitting process, these processes will only grow incrementally as opposed to geometrically as solar will now. We have to make sure that our representatives in the House know how we feel so this bill can be changed before it becomes law.
You betcha – we un’s is gonna get us a wind turbine. If it’s good enough for the Queen, well we’re in on it. Something is better than nothing, it’ll all add up.
The House passed this today and the president is expected to sign it shortly. At long last! (I guess we can say that this is the silver lining to the credit crunch.)