One of the key elements in the incentive programs is a solar “feed-in” tariff that pays people and organizations with solar panels cash for any electricity they feed into the grid. In the United States, utilities offer credits for solar power; a homeowner or business can reduce their electricity bill with these credits, but at best end up owing nothing to the utility.

With feed-in tariffs, solar panels become profit centers. In Germany, the government gives panel owners around 45 cents for every kilowatt hour fed into the grid, which is more than a kilowatt hour costs.

“You can go to financial planning meetings and you’ll see people with spreadsheets calculating hours of sunlight and the potential revenue,” said Jeff Osborne, an analyst with CIBC World Market in a recent interview. “Half of the solar power in Germany comes from farmers.”

Ontario has adopted a feed-in tariff for solar that will provide 42 cents per kilowatt hour. The response so far has been positive. After the feed-in tariffs were unfurled, a North American company has said it will build solar power plants that will produce 60 megawatts of power, said the representative from the Ontario Power Authority. Source: Ontario: The new frontier for alternative energy | CNET News.com

Now if we can get more governments and utilities on board with this, we’d be getting much farther along in our global need to reduce emissions.

Post from: Homely Scientist