McGoldrick seems to think that the subsidy will only be used by a bunch of rich-fat-cat-monocle-and-top-hat-Mr.-Peanut looking capitalist pigs. The truth is, he has very little visibility of who would actually use the subsidy. Solar energy sales professionals, on the other hand, do - that is what this post is about.
The wealthy, the middle class, and the low-income make their solar purchase decisions primarily (I would say in 95% of all my home evaluations) on financial, not environmental, metrics - like return on investment. That extra $4000 or $5000 is enough to flip the decision for a huge array of people. Solar in SF is more expensive than the outlying counties, and that extra boost is enough to put us ahead of them.
In the brief 2-weeks that we were told by the PUC the subsidy was live and that we could sell it… I sold 6 systems. Since then I have sold ZERO.
The subsidy works. It works works works works works. Because it can work in addition to the federal tax credit and the state rebate (There is no better way to use this money for renewable energy. That $3 million doled out in small $4000 units is will have a dramatic impact than you can imagine. The solar task force knew this when they designed the program, as they are and were cornerstones of the the solar electric industry. Why would any individual alone like McGoldrick, with very light experience in solar, think he could off-the-cuff, intelligently decide a better course for this money, when 11 masters spent a year deciding it’s best use? It’s ridiculous.
For example, McGoldrick wants to institute some means testing for who can qualify for the subsidy, which sounds reasonable at first, but in practice is laughable.
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