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Thursday, January 04, 2007
California Launches $2.2 billion Solar Electric Program
The California Public Utilities Commission has ordered the state’s three major electric utilities, Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric (Sempra Energy) to buy down the cost of solar electric (photovoltaic, or PV) systems by a total of $2.2 billion. Incentive payments start this year at $2,500 per kilowatt of power for most residential and small commercial (under 100 kW) systems, about 30% to 40% of the initial cost. Full details of the PUC order are online. Please note that the 30% federal tax credit for solar PV is NET of the state’s incentives, so if a PV system costs $7500 per kW, you can take the federal 30% tax credit only on $5,000 of that amount ($7,500 minus the utilities’ $2,500 payment). Please also note that there are a number of large municipal electric utilities not covered by the PUC program that may have their own solar electric incentive programs, including Los Angeles, Sacramento, Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena, Palo Alto, etc.
Posted by Jerry Yudelson on 01/04/2007 at 11:40 AM
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Tuesday, December 26, 2006
If it’s not a green building, is it obsolete?
“Trillions of dollars of commercial property owned by real-estate investment trusts, corporations and other investors around the world will soon become obsolete - and will drop in value,” opens the article by Charles Lockwood, a well known real-estate consultant, in the December 25th Barron’s, America’s definitive financial weekly. Lockwood cites several reasons for this prediction: green buildings have lower operating costs, are more attractive to corporate tenants, produce reduced absenteeism and illnes, enable better employee recruitment and retention, and foster greater productivity. This is exactly the business case for green buildings I set forth in my 2006 book, Developing Green: Strategies for Success, available from NAIOP. Now that the costs of green buildings are falling in line with conventional building costs, is there any reason now for companies and developers not to build green?
Posted by Jerry Yudelson on 12/26/2006 at 01:02 PM
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Thursday, December 21, 2006
Banned In Boston
The New York Times reported December 20th that Boston will amend its building code to require all new private construction above 50,000 sq.ft. (a three story office building) to meet the minimum LEED certification requirements of 26 of the 69 possible points in LEED. This tactic, incorporating LEED into the building code, has benefits and drawbacks. For a drawback, it puts LEED and the U.S. Green Building Council squarely in the camp of the regulators and requires it to have the slow-moving consensus process of code-writing bodies. For a benefit, it is just the beginning of a long-term movement toward upgrading the nation’s building stock, especially its environmental and health impacts, that is way overdue. This move by Boston, and similar moves by other local jurisdictions such as Washington, DC, puts the onus squarely on the private sector to respond to an escalating global warming crisis and to build healthier, more energy-efficient buildings.
Posted by Jerry Yudelson on 12/21/2006 at 07:34 AM
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Monday, December 11, 2006
Are green homes endangered by market conditions?
Building industry insiders report to me that major homebuilders are pushing suppliers to lower costs by 10%, in a bid to keep some profits from new home sales. Does this mean that the growth of “cost-added” green homes is endangered? Energy-efficient products that cost more may be pushed aside by larger builders as the market slide in new home construction continues unabated. Major builders are reported abandoning long-time top-tier suppliers who try to pass along cost increases. With the top 10 homebuilders completing something like 35% of all new homes, is the growth of green building endangered, or will the growth move even more strongly to the mid-size builder, a firm that does perhaps 200 to 400 units a year, and who’s looking for the marketing edge the green differentiator could bring? One of the few bright spots reported to me happens when a small additional investment in energy efficiency can help a builder “over the hump” to claim the $2,000 federal tax credit for homes exceeding by 50% the baseline standard of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Message: if your baseline home is already energy-efficient, you may be willing to spend an additional $500 to reap the $2,000 tax credit, so long as you think you can actually sell the home right away.
Posted by Jerry Yudelson on 12/11/2006 at 06:42 PM
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