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Business & Tech

LIPA Restarting Solar Energy Cash Rebates Dec. 1

Solar contractors scurry to prep homeowners' LIPA solar applications.

The Long Island Power Authority recently announced that its residential solar cash rebates will be offered again beginning Dec. 1.

These rebates will be at the $1.75 per watt level, or up to $17,500 for a 10 kilowatt home solar electricity system.

Funding for the LIPA Solar Pioneer program had been suspended on Oct. 1 when the last batch of cash rebates totaling $1.75 million were fully subscribed by customers in contract with solar energy companies in just 11 minutes.

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LIPA had previously announced that it would not restart the program again until its budget year began in January, but federal stimulus funds came through to enable LIPA to open the program as of Dec. 1.

This came as a pleasant, if sudden, surprise to Long Island solar energy contractors, including Gary Minnick, owner of Go Solar in Aquebogue.

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"Customers definitely wait for the rebates, especially if they know more will be coming in the near future," Minnick said. He added that his company has in between 15 and 20 applications ready to send in to LIPA to take advantage of the rebate. And he's not the only one.

Said Dan Sabia, president of Wantagh-based Built Well Solar Corp: "Many of our customers were waiting for LIPA rebates to be reinstated to move ahead with their solar energy systems, and are excited that now is the time."

The added business is welcome, though bitersweet for Minnick, since LIPA's decision when to offer and when to cut rebates affects his own ability to do business.

"Between federal and state government, 55 percent of solar cost is already covered," Minnick said. "The industry is going to grow, rebate or not. So sitting around and waiting for somebody to make a decision is hard. But we're trying to stay loose and ready."

When rebates ran dry so quickly in October, Long Island Solar Energy Industry Association chair Sail Van Nostrand said high demand for the LIPA solar incentives was "testimony to the increasing public awareness that solar energy is a good investment and good for the environment." LISEIA is the area's industry trade association.

Recognizing the strain the wait was putting on the local solar energy industry, LIPA made the request to New York State for funding earlier this month. The governor made the announcement last Tuesday that $8.3 million in federal stimulus funds from the U.S. Department of Energy would be earmarked to LIPAs residential Solar Pioneer program. LIPA announced the next day that the utility would begin accepting applications Dec. 1. 

As a result, in view of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, solar energy companies are now hurrying to help their customers fill out the rebate applications, sign contracts for solar-electricity installations, and complete the other required documents to submit them to LIPA that opening morning in hopes that their customers will benefit from this new batch of rebates. Minnick said some employees at Go Solar gave up vacation time to prepare applications.

Once a solar contractor submits the application package to LIPA on behalf of a homeowner, it takes several weeks for the utility to process the documents and to issue a rebate award letter. When the homeowner receives the LIPA rebate letter, then the solar energy contractor is greenlighted to apply for permits, and to design and customize the system engineering drawings enabling installation of rooftop photovoltaic (PV) solar panels connected to inverters. The utility grid-tied PV system then seamlessly converts the light from the sun into regular household electric current, the production of which LIPA then credits to the homeowner. 

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