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Solar Power Will Become Affordable with SREC Trading and a $12,000 Solar Tax Credit

In our humble opinion, the mixture of SRECs, an Arizona SREC Trading System as well as a $12,000 personal solar tax credit, will be a win-win situation for the state of Arizona, Arizona utility companies and every ratepayers that pays an electric bill or wants to generate cash flow by selling SRECs for a profit.

The State of Arizona Can Use SRECs to Fill Up State Coffers

In our beginning discussions, many people were concerned how Arizona would pay for a $12,000 solar tax credit. But when examining an SREC Trading System, Arizona voters many decide to follow other states such as New Jersey and Vermont liked what they saw when building an economic model around solar power. And when voters look at the prices that Arizona SRECs could be sold for in other states, an SREC Trading System looks like a very cost-effective way to export solar electricity, or in this case SRECs, to other states and make a fair profit at the same time.

1. To break even on providing a $12,000 solar tax credit, Arizona would need to sell their SRECs to the utility company at $80 per SREC. Setting the price at $100 would allow the state of Arizona to make $20 per SRECs. A 5-kW solar system produces 150 SRECs over 25 years. This means that Arizona would make a profit of $3,000 for allowing each homeowner to go solar.
2. The $100 price is also very fair for the utility companies. Like other solar power producers, all Arizona utility companies can sell their excess SRECs to utility companies in other states via an SREC Trading Exchange. The average price for an SREC in other states ranges from $200 to $400 in most states to as high as $600 in New Jersey. So the "Go Solar in Arizona" initiative also offers the utility companies a very good way to recoup their investment in solar by selling their SRECs for a nice profit in other states.

Tremendous Value for Utility Companies to Buy and Resell SRECs

Allowing Arizona utility companies to sell their excess SRECs to other utility companies, corporations and investors should make solar a very profitable business for even the utility companies. Buying SRECS at $100 and being able to sell them for $200, $400 or $600 in other states should be a very lucrative business model.

One 5-kilowatt system generates 150 SRECs over 25 years. If a utility company buys 150 SRECs for $100 and then sells them for $270 each, a utility company would generate a profit of $25,500 per household. If they sold them to a utility company in New Jersey at a price of $600, the utility company would make a profit of $75,000 per household.

If the utility companies try to say that the "Go Solar in Arizona" initiative will increase your electricity bill, make sure you call their bluff. While they may lose a little short term money on lower electricity bills, they stand to make a tremendous profit from selling SRECs to out-of-state utility companies.

More Value for Ratepayers to Selling SRECs vs. Taking Solar Tax Credit

For the same reasons, it will not take long before residential customers begin to realize that if they decide not to accept the Arizona tax credit and install a 5-kW system using their own money, they will be able to produce 150 SRECs over 25 years at a price tag of $15,000. Add the 30% federal investment tax credit of $7,200 and the ratepayer suddenly has $22,200 to pay for a $22,500 solar power array. This means that the solar industry would be self-sustaining with no solar incentives needed.

Ratepayers with Tax Liabilities Will See More Value in Tax Credits

The tax credit would break down to passing a $2.25 per watt incentive with a maximum tax credit of $12,000. The 30% federal investment tax credit will provide ratepayers with a $7,200 discount. At $4.50 per watt installed, a 5,335-watt solar system would cost $24,007.

This means that ratepayers will still have to pay $4,807 out of their own pocket. Requiring ratepayers to invest some of their own money to pay for the solar system will help make sure that the solar adoption does not grow too fast. Encouraging consumers to spend money stored in their savings accounts is critical to recovery. The more money that flows into our local economy the better off every business and voter will be in the next 25 years as Arizona will be set to bypass Germany as the top global solar economy.

Large Corporations Will Also Invest in Both Tax Credits and SRECs

Large corporations such as Google will be able to invest $280 million with the state of Arizona to offset their carbon footprint in similar agreements to the one that Google executed recently with Solar City. Tax equity investors will also be interested in trading investment capital, something that Arizona has always been short on, for the state's new solar tax credits.

SRECs Are Also a Good Way to Export Solar Electricity

Instead of building expensive high-density power transmission lines to export physical electricity to other states such as California, which lose 30% of their power through line loss and heat during transmission, Arizona instead can export its SRECs and not lose one electron of power.

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Your Donations Help Us Pay for Voter Signature Collection

To get the "Go Solar in Arizona" Economic Development initiative on the Arizona 2012 ballot we need to collect a minimum of 172,800 signatures. To collect these signatures, we have signed a contract with a professional Arizona petition signature firm that charges us $1.50 to help us gather signatures from valid registered voters.

Please help us raise enough money to pay for our signature collection drive. It costs us $1.50 per signature. Donating $15 helps us collect 10 signatures. Donating $30 helps us collect 20 signatures. Donating $1,500 helps us collect 1,000 signatures. The more money we can raise, the more signatures we can collect.

Please help us, help you save money on future electric bills!

If you don't have a job right now, please call 602-326-0940 to find out how to volunteer to help us collect signatures for the "Go Solar in Arizona" initiative.

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Find a "Go Solar in Arizona" signature collection table near you:

Ahwatukee, Anthem, Apache Junction, Avondale, Bisbee, Buckeye, Bullhead City, Casa Grande, Cave Creek, Chandler, Chino Valley, Clifton, Colorado City, Coolidge, Cornville, Cottonwood, Douglas, El Mirage, Flagstaff, Florence, Fort Huachuca, Fountain Hills, Gilbert, Glendale, Globe, Golden Valley, Goodyear, Green Valley, Higley, Holbrook, Kingman, Lake Havasu City, Laveen, Litchfield Park, Littlefield, Marana, Maricopa, Mesa, Nogales, Page, Paradise Valley, Parker, Payson, Peoria, Phoenix, Prescott, Prescott Valley, Queen Creek, Safford, Sahuarita, San Manuel, Scottsdale, Sedona, Showlow, Sierra Vista, St. Johns, Sun City, Sun City West, Surprise, Tempe, Tolleson, Tuba City, Tucson, Vail, Wickenburg, Window Rock, Winslow, Yuma, and other cities and towns through out Arizona.

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