Officials celebrate after making sweeping changes to traffic, street lights: 'Significantly lower electricity bills'
Residents of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, have something to be excited about. As of early March, the municipality has achieved 100% renewable power for all of the city's electric operations, as reported by WMTV 15 News.
"Now we have significantly lower electricity bills," Rose Daily, Sun Prairie sustainability manager, told the local outlet.
The Madison suburb is moving away from oil and coal in favor of solar and other clean energy sources to power its municipal systems, "from traffic lights to street lights." The effort is in line with similar projects across the state.
Last month, Wisconsin Public Radio reported on communities like Sun Prairie that are committed to switching to renewable energy sources, including River Falls, which reached its own goal of powering municipal buildings with 100% renewable energy in 2020. The sizable cities of Madison and Milwaukee are also working to run on renewables.
Though Daily said Sun Prairie's solar panels made for a large initial investment — mainly funded by grants — the cost savings over time should be significant. According to WMTV, the city's electricity bill has already dropped by $40,000 since the solar panels "and other renewable energy infrastructure" were installed. These savings have the potential to translate to lower tax bills for residents.
Sun Prairie is also seeing more homes and businesses choosing to run on renewables, Daily shared with the local news.
Installing solar panels or drawing on a community solar program are impactful ways to reduce a building's environmental impact. Solar power can help replace the dirty energy that releases heat-trapping pollution into our atmosphere and harms human health.
In addition to reducing pollution from sources like oil, coal, and gas, using solar panels can save consumers money on their electric bills, just as it has for Sun Prairie. EnergySage's solar calculator is one tool that might help determine that savings potential. For additional savings, U.S. residents may also be eligible for tax benefits through the Inflation Reduction Act.
It's worth noting that the Trump administration has expressed the intention to undo IRA programs, so acting sooner rather than later may be the best bet for anyone hoping to utilize related rebates or credits. However, it would take an act of Congress to repeal the act.
Anne Rodriguez of the not-for-profit WPPI Energy told WPR, "Often in the background there is a sustainability committee in the community that is advising the municipality and its utility on what it is they want to achieve." Community members looking to encourage their city or town to prioritize renewable energy might consider getting involved in this kind of initiative.
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Sun Prairie's sustainability efforts are expected to have positive impacts on the environment and the economy. WMTV says the city's next goal is to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
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Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Clean energy tax credits are critical for SC businesses
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3 hours ago
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IRA incentive boosters take to the airwaves
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Boston Globe
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Why rooftop solar could crash under the GOP tax bill
'This sets us back,' said Ben Airth, policy director for Freedom Forever, one of the country's largest residential solar installers. 'I've been in this industry 22 years and remember when it was only rich people, doomsday preppers and environmentalists installing solar panels on their roofs.' Advertisement One analysis by Ohm Analytics, an energy data firm, estimates that residential solar installations could fall by half next year if the House bill becomes law. Without the tax credits, it would take 17 years, on average, for homeowners to earn back their solar investments. A more pessimistic analysis by Morgan Stanley projects that rooftop solar demand could fall by 85 percent through 2030. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up While Republicans want to curb tax breaks for other renewable energy technologies like wind turbines and large-scale solar farms, the consequences for rooftop solar could be more severe. Rooftop solar can cost two to three times as much per unit of electricity as large solar arrays on farms or in deserts, and the residential industry is more vulnerable to shifts in subsidies. Advertisement The Senate is now writing its version of the domestic policy bill, and solar executives have descended on Washington to plead for a more gradual wind-down of the energy credits. They note that the solar industry employs roughly 300,000 workers and that rooftop systems can help homeowners cut their electric bills. Yet some conservative Republicans have made clear they oppose any restoration of tax breaks for renewable energy. 'Those God forsaken subsidies are killing our energy, killing our grid, making us weaker, destroying our landscape, undermining our freedom,' Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said on the House floor last week. 'I'm not going to have it.' The uncertainty is upending an industry that was already struggling with tariffs and high interest rates. Last week, Solar Mosaic, which provided loans to homeowners to install rooftop panels, declared bankruptcy. On Monday, Sunnova Energy, one of the nation's largest rooftop solar companies, followed suit. Some experts say rooftop solar will eventually rebound, even without subsidies, if electricity prices keep rising around the country, which would make the economics of going solar more favorable. But the adjustment period is likely to be painful, with more bankruptcies and layoffs. 'We're not expecting residential solar to go away,' said Zoë Gaston, a principal analyst for residential solar at Wood MacKenzie, an energy research firm. 'But it will be smaller.' Major tax changes For two decades, Congress has offered tax breaks for people who put solar panels on their roofs. But Democrats supersized those subsidies in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which plowed hundreds of billions of dollars into technologies meant to fight climate change. The law extended the residential solar credit, which allows homeowners to recoup 30 percent of the cost of a solar system they own, through 2032. It also expanded an investment tax credit for companies that build low-emissions sources of electricity like solar and batteries. Advertisement The latter change fueled a boom in solar leasing, in which homeowners don't have to pay the upfront cost of a rooftop solar system that can run $30,000 or more. Instead, a company owns the panels and keeps the tax credits. The homeowner leases the equipment from the company and ideally saves money through lower energy bills. More than 50 percent of home solar systems are now financed this way, and the rise of leasing has made rooftop solar more accessible to less-wealthy households, as well as to schools, hospitals and small businesses. The House Republican bill would terminate the residential solar tax credit by the end of 2025. And, in a last-minute change pushed by fiscal conservatives, solar leasing companies would be immediately ineligible for the investment tax credit. The House bill would also forbid companies from claiming the tax credits if they use components from China, which dominates solar supply chains. Because that provision is so broadly written, many companies say it would effectively make the credits unusable. 'Catastrophic is a fair way to describe the industry impact' of the House bill, said Gregg Felton, CEO of Altus Power, which develops solar projects on rooftops and parking lots. If Congress slashed support for renewable energy, experts said companies would continue investing in large-scale solar arrays, since even without subsidies those plants are often one of the cheapest ways to generate additional electrons. Rooftop solar, which is costlier and requires more labor, faces greater risks. Advertisement Kenny Pfannenstiel, the chief operating officer at Big Dog Solar, an Idaho-based solar installation company, said that rooftop solar has lately grown popular in newer markets like Montana and Idaho. 'We see a lot of interest from people who want to control their own energy future, or who worry about the grid being available when they need it,' Pfannenstiel said. Once the tax credits were expanded, he said, 'the economic argument for those customers to install solar and battery systems became a lot stronger.' If the credits vanished, some customers might still want panels, he said, but the market 'would shrink drastically.' The ripple effects could be significant. If solar leasing companies go bankrupt, customers could be left in the lurch, with no one left to service their panels. Thousands of installers and electricians would find themselves out of work. More than three dozen solar factories have opened in the United States in recent years, but some could shutter if demand slows. A debate over rooftop solar The fight over tax credits in Congress isn't the only challenge facing rooftop solar. While the technology remains popular with homeowners, some states have started pulling back support amid a barrage of criticism. Electric utilities and some analysts say that rooftop solar users raise costs for everyone else, because solar households pay less on their monthly utility bills but still rely on the broader grid for backup power. That shifts the cost of maintaining the grid to other households, which are often low-income. (Solar proponents disagree, saying that utilities ignore many benefits of rooftop panels, such as avoided transmission costs.) The fight has been especially fierce in California, the country's biggest rooftop solar market. In 2022, regulators slashed the compensation that new solar households could receive for the electricity they produce. In the months that followed, rooftop installations fell 85 percent statewide, straining installers, manufacturers and distributors. Advertisement Even now, some officials are looking to cut support further, including for existing homes. 'We have to reevaluate how our current solar subsidy programs impact Californians who may not be able to afford solar-panel systems,' said Lisa Calderon, a Democratic state lawmaker. The rise in interest rates has further squeezed the rooftop solar industry, by making it more expensive to borrow money to finance new installations. The Trump and Biden administrations also increased tariffs on solar components from China, which aids domestic manufacturers but makes panels more expensive. 'At some point our industry can and should be able to function without tax credits,' said Chris Hopper, co-founder of Aurora Solar, a software company that designs home solar systems. 'I do think we could get on board with a phase-down of these credits over an appropriate time period that gives us time to figure out how to find efficiencies and lower costs.' 'But an overnight change would be devastating,' Hopper said. 'It's just not possible to adapt that quickly.' This article originally appeared in .
