DWP Commercial Rebate going forward

DWP announced as of February 3, 2012 the LADWP Solar Incentive Program (SIP) will no longer be accepting non-residential solar incentive applications.

Since it’s relaunch in September 2011, over $33 million in rebate requests for solar power for commercial use had been received. The DWP SIP non-residential program has a $20 Million limit each fiscal year.

In effect, the budget of $20 million went within the first couple of months. Taking into account the built up demand because of the well documented previous issues, we still think there is a very strong case for:

a) Reducing the overall maximum size of the rebate, maybe to 250KW.

b) Reducing the amount ($/KwH) paid from $0.129 to $0,08-10

The speed at which the 2011 rebate for commercial solar installation was applied for, leads us to think this needs further consideration. Considering LADWP comments that this could be the last of the commercial rebates for LADWP, slower and smaller might be better this time around.