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Solar Power Long Island
New York State Adds $6 Million Funding For Long Island Power Authority
On Dec. 17, New York State Governor David A. Paterson added $6 million in funding to the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) via a grant which will allow LIPA to continue helping homeowners and businesses install solar photovoltaic systems to lower energy bills and reduce carbon emissions.
The funds were provided through the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, or NYSERDA, in response to unparalleled demand for solar energy on Long Island, and will allow LIPA’s solar installation program, Solar Pioneer/Entreprener, to continue providing solar rebates. Limits on system size/funding are now effectively set at 50 percent of installed cost, or 10 kilowatts (residential, 100 kilowatts commercial), whichever is less. In January of 2010, the rebate will likely be capped at $2.75 per watt for both residential and commercial systems – a move necessitated by the aforementioned rising demand.
Other commercial limits likely to be imposed next year include $1.50 per watt for 10- to 50-kilowatt systems (to a maximum of $60,000), and $1.00 per watt 50- to 100-kilowatt systems (to a maximum of $50,000). LIPA funding for solar comes from the state’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), whose pollution allowance auctions represent the nation’s first market-based, mandatory program aimed at reducing greenhouse gases.
The funding is also a response to Governor Paterson’s stated renewable energy goal of 45 percent of the state’s electricity from renewables by 2015 – a remarkable goal given that the fact that the nation’s solar power leader, California, mandates a mere 33 percent by 2020.
LIPA, which already has 13.5 megawatts of funded solar installation under its belt, also has about 450 solar energy applications pending, and has won a slot of the Solar Electric Power Association’s (SEPA’s) list of the nation’s top 10 utilities for clean energy.
Two of those installations, on a utility scale, include the proposed $298-million, 32-megawatt ground-mounted installation at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York by BP Solar, and a distributed, $125-million, 17-megawatt installation by enXco Development Corp. at government-owned facilities in Suffolk County – both proposed projects now secured by 20-year power purchase agreements, or PPAs, between the solar companies and LIPA signed during the third week in December.
BP Solar is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BP, a global, integrated energy company. BP is best known for its service stations selling gasoline, but is also highly diversified into alternative energy production, including solar and wind.
enXco Development Corp., a distributed renewable energy firm located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is largely vested in wind but has, more recently, diversified into building and operating solar, geothermal and biomass energy plants.
Both LIPA projects are slated to come online by the middle of next year.
Solar Panels Long Island
Questions and Answers - 18 August 2010
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