Mountain Biking: Rubber side down- Time for a TurnaroundWell, my friends, things are finally looking up, and good timing, too, since I’m sure you’re all sick of me bitching. Recent bike build, including wheels… fun! In what feels like a fairly short time, I’ve come from sitting around … Continue reading → […]
- This Raised My PulseHey, baby… wanna ride? I may be injured, but I’m not dead yet. I can still have racy thoughts. Here’s more info. In other news, UBI was an awesome success! I had a blast. I highly recommend it. Overhaul day…. … Continue reading → […]
- Time for a Turnaround
- Edgy Veggie
Stimulus bucks finally heat up solar in Boulder
Martin Beggs, front, and Natalie Libansky, both with Namaste Solar Electric, carry one of more than 450 solar panels that will be put into place on top of the Eldorado Natural Spring Water building in Louisville.
After months of waiting, stimulus dollars freed up in February have trickled into Boulder, reinvigorating the local solar industry.
It took until June for the feds to figure out how some of the programs in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act should be administered, including language that allowed companies to take a cash grant, instead of a tax credit, worth 30 percent of the cost for installing solar.
And since companies have to be profitable to take a tax credit, the change could mean a big boom in solar.
In Boulder County, Namaste Solar Electric is just starting up its first big commercial project since the economy tanked last fall. They’re installing a 100 kilowatt solar array on the roof of the Eldorado Natural Spring Water’s Louisville building. (That’s a solar-panel spread about 25 times larger than the average residential display.)
“Last October, all sectors of the economy took a hit, and for us, all of our projects, especially the commercial projects, were put on indefinite hold,” said Blake Jones, president of Namaste Solar.
“This is the first big commercial project since the recovery act. We’ve been waiting six months for this to happen. That’s the kind of lag time it took for the rules to be figured out.”
Read the full story at DailyCamera.com or learn more about how Namaste Solar and other companies stayed afloat this spring after the jump.
While all the commercial solar projects dried up with a lack of financing, residential projects fed Boulder’s solar industry all spring and summer thanks to the county’s ClimateSmart loan program, which voters approved last November.
From DailyCamera.com:
In the spring and early summer, while Namaste Solar was warily waiting to see when the federal stimulus dollars would make it to Boulder, a type of local stimulus project kept it afloat. Boulder County’s ClimateSmart loan program, approved by voters last fall, started loaning out money in May to homeowners who wanted to add solar panels or make other energy-efficient upgrades to their houses.
“Thank God for ClimateSmart,” Jones said. “That was the majority of our business this spring.”
Boulder County’s ClimateSmart loan program — which authorizes the county to sell bonds and use the revenue to give low-interest loans to homeowners who want to add renewables or make energy-efficient upgrades — is the first of its kind in the Colorado. But others, including Eagle County, are watching Boulder and considering whether to follow suit.
Locally, the county commissioners have decided to take the loan program back to the voters again this fall — just one year later — to ask for permission to sell more bonds, doubling the amount from $40 million to $80 million.
