The First Tennessee Solar Symposium
There were 195 solar interested parties attending the Governor’s Tennessee Solar Symposium yesterday from all over Tennessee. The networking was intense as were the Governor and Matt Kisber’s talks. Dr. Stacey Patterson had some information on the Solar Institute and its grant program which I will cover in a follow on article this week. Kelly Tiller gave a timeline on the construction of the 5 megawatt solar farm along I-40 with a welcome center to be built by the Department of Transportation. According to Dr. Tiller, the solar farm is more of an experimental station that will bring income for future expansion. The details were lacking as it is too early in the process of developing the solar farm concept and the land for the solar farm has yet to be purchased. The state has an option on the site. Jim and I had an opportunity to speak with the Governor and to inform him of our Tennessee Solar Energy Association as a recent induction as a chapter of the American Solar Energy Society and to thank him for his forward action regarding solar manufacturing in Tennessee.
Steve Levy
November 27th, 2009 at 08:36
I believe that the state of Tennessee should eliminate the sales tax on solar, or at least, give solar the same reduction as the state gave the wind industry. The jobs that will be created, the income from influx of solar distributors, new manufacturing will completely swamp the loss in sales tax revenues. If we do nothing, then we will be importing solar products rather than manufacturing them.
January 12th, 2010 at 11:57
The obvious here is make it affordable and people will buy it whether it has a sales tax reduction or not. Why does an aluminum box with solar cells cost $ 1,000.00 for 200 watts ? The rails are expensive as well as the installation. I’ve been running numbers for different situations and have a different reason for the solar industry’s lack of steam. The last set of numbers I ran was for a 150,000 watt system that was going to cost over 900,000.00. The company that quoted this endeavor said I would get a payback in under 10 years. The actuality of it is this after removing the 30% tax credit from the numbers, because in order to get a 200K tax credit you must owe 200K in taxes, The payback was 15 years. There is no way I can get an investor to invest in something that takes 15 years to pay off. The solar industry’s goal should be a 3 to 5 year return on investment. Make your industry want inverstors to invest. Make people want to buy your products. The government tax breaks and such are only gravy on a bad piece of meat. It may make the meat taste better, but you are still going to get sick from it.