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Editor's Notes

• #3: At federal level the biggest ¡°subsidy¡± is the Investment tax credit that will sunset on 12/31/16, UNLESS extended by Congress. At the state level, the direct incentives to solar contractors to lower the customer¡¯s contract price is measured in $ per installed watt of PV generation capacity. The average capacity of a residential system is about 6000 watts (6kW). The state is getting out of the direct incentive business by ramping down the value of the incentive by 10 cents per megawatt block on first-come-first-served basis. We are likely to drop from 90 cents to 80 cents sometime in next month or so and from there to 70 cents and so on until incentive hits $0/watt.
• #4: The cost (pre-incentive) of installing solar in Westchester County has fallen dramatically in the past few years, but this rate of falling will slow down (as the business matures). The state incentives that reduce the customer¡¯s contract price have fallen as well and will drop to zero sometime in late 2015 or 2016.
• #5: After a period of relatively stable electric rates (during the oversupply of the recession), with ConEd residential rates hovering around 22 cents/kWh, the rates begun to be more volatile. In Feb 2013, they rose to 28 cents. In Jan-Feb of 2014, they rose to all time highs of over 30 cents! 6 of the highest monthly rates of all time have come in the past 20 months. In short electric rates in ConEd service territory have risen 17% since 2012. That makes any and every kilowatt-hour you can generate off your roof-mounted system much more valuable as an avoided cost and hedge against future volatility in the electric rates.
• #6: The Solarize Permitting assistance is underway for all cities, towns and villages in Westchester County. The first Solarize Campaign will kick off in 4 teams of communities in January 2015: Town of Bedford/Village of Mt.Kisco Town of Cortlandt/Village of Croton-on-Hudson Town of Mamaroneck/Village of Larchmont Town of Ossining/Village of Ossining/Village of Briarcliff Manor
• #7: The Solarize Permitting assistance is underway for all cities, towns and villages in Westchester County. The first Solarize Campaign will kick off in 4 teams of communities in January 2015: Town of Bedford/Village of Mt.Kisco Town of Cortlandt/Village of Croton-on-Hudson Town of Mamaroneck/Village of Larchmont Town of Ossining/Village of Ossining/Village of Briarcliff Manor
• #10: Find Solar Density base numbers (kWh/year/person) for every community in Westchester (first bar chart at top of ¡°Solar in Westchester¡± infographic). Methodology: Add up all the solar production per community (in kWh/year) and divide by the population, yielding a Solar (Energy) Density base value (kWh/year/person). Average household in Westchester consumes 7,500 to 8,000 kWh/year or about 3,000 kWh per year per person. If a community has a Solar Density base value of 30 (kWh/year/person), that yields a Solar Density Index of 1% of the total electric consumption of each person in that community (30/3000). Leader: As of 9/30/14, Town of North Castle leads Westchester with 34.2 kWh/year/person base value or about 1.1% on the Solar Density Index (34/3000). In the Solar Density Index, 1 = 1 % of kWh/year/person is generated by solar and 100 = 100% is by solar. If Solarize Westchester campaigns meet its targets (400 new installations by early 2016 generating 2,800,000 kWh/year) that adds roughly 2.8 kWh/year/person in Westchester (and improves overall Solar Density just under 0.1% of annual average consumption).