Two Florida utilities, Progress Energy and TECO have announced that they will be offering up more solar energy rebates for their Florida Customers. Starting on October 1st 2012 both utilities will be accepting new applications for their customers to take advantage of solar energy rebates that help making the upfront costs of installing solar a lot easier.
Customers from both of these utilities will have just moments to register their home for a reservation at 10am on October 1st. In the past the solar energy rebates have been exhausted in just a few minutes. Progress Energy, soon to be Duke Energy, has doubled down on photovoltaic’s increasing the amount of money available to customers by $1 million, up 100% from last year. Duke Energy recently purchased Progress making Duke the largest utility by customers served in the United States. Duke has also been extremely committed to clean energy, especially solar.
In addition to registering for a reservation, prior to getting full approval for their rebate funding, customers from each utility will have to undergo an energy audit as well as have a solar energy performance and shad analysis completed for their property. All systems installed must be certified by the Florida Solar Energy Center to ensure rebate funding. Installation, performance and shade analysis is typically performed by a qualified solar energy contractor.
Once approved residential customers will be eligible to receive up to $20,000 toward the purchase of their solar system and commercial customers will be eligible for up to $50,000 per site with a maximum of $150,000.
For residential customers, Abundant Energy currently offers a 20 year loan to qualified customers to finance their solar array by offering a low monthly payment essentially allowing customers to refinance their currently escalating utility bill with a low interest fixed payment. Customers are able to apply their rebate payments, the Federal tax credit of 30% and principle payments to the balance over an 18 month period and then re-amortize the loan to a new even lower payment at no cost.
