New business strategies are starting to emerge in the U.S., in the wake of the winding up of the Section 1603 Federal Government solar incentive, which provided tax credits for a third of the cost of a solar installation. While some efforts have been made to revive the tax credit, businesses are not waiting around to create new models to keep solar installations attractive.
One such model has emerged from New Jersey, with installer GeoGenix launching a de-facto solar lease program, under a 15-year PPA. Businesses in the mid Atlantic region of the U.S. can now have a photovoltaic array installed at their business without any upfront costs. GeoGenix will cover the equipment, installation, operation and maintenance costs.
Under the PPA, the business will them purchase electricity off GeoGenix for 15 years, at below-market rates. In a release announcing the new model, GeoGenix claims that the electricity rates will be up to 40 percent below market rates. The rates charged by the solar company will increase by two to three percent under an escalator clause.
GeoGenix will also reap the benefits of the Solar Renewable Energy Certificate (SREC) scheme. SRECs are financial instruments that are awarded for every 1,000-kilowatt-hour of electricity produced by a photovoltaic array and are purchased by utilities. There has been a high degree of uncertainty regarding SREC pricing in states such as New Jersey and in particular Pennsylvania, with an oversupply seeing prices plunge.
Avoiding the SREC fluctuations and uncertainty, claims GeoGenix, is an advantage to its commercial rooftop PPA scheme. Gaurav Naik, principal of GeoGenix, said in a statement announcing the scheme: "Because electricity prices are locked in, customers know exactly what they have to pay and don't have to worry about utility rate hikes. Also, since the PPA provider handles the SRECs [Solar Renewable Energy Certificates] there is no uncertainty about fluctuating SREC prices."
Popular content
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
Share
Jonathan Gifford
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.