More Nevadans Apply For Renewable Energy Rebates

 

More Nevadans Apply For Renewable Energy Rebates

 

In difficult economic times people look at ways to save money and one of the ways and not always so obvious, is to look at going green. This ends up being both good for you and for the environment.

It seems that Northern Nevadans grasp this concept and are looking at rebate programs as a way to curb expenses.

This year already there have been 962 applications for rebates accepted by Nevada Renewable Energy and the Energy Conservation Task Force a spokesperson for NV Energy said Thursday. The solar energy rebate program, launched 5 years ago has grown considerably and expanded to now include wind turbine and hydroelectric rebates.

So far there have been 896 rebates were for solar, 86 for wind and 7 for hydroelectric. From this group there were 726 from private residence, 85 from small businesses, 98 from public agencies and 46 from schools.

John Hargrove, NV Energy conservation and energy efficiency manager hailed the program as a success due in part to the support from state legislature utility regulators. In a written statement Hargrove says “ As a result of their efforts, Nevada has one of the nations most progressive programs to encourage customer-installed renewable energy.”

The goal of the overall program is to encourage efforts to explore renewable energy by offsetting some of the costs and expenses through rebates. Over the next few months and years there is expected to be an upswing in these efforts as the new government in Washington heads down an more aggressive renewable energy program so we should see these numbers grow exponentially.

Rebates in the program range from $2.30 to $4.60 per watt for solar installation and up to $2.50 per watt for wind and hydro projects. Since SolarGenerations, the rebate program started in 2003 Nevadans have installed nearly 1.9 megawatts of solar power and received about $7 million in rebates. The latest group of rebate applications already amount to 10,500 kilowatts of renewable energy.

 

Solar – Program Year July 1 2009 – June 30, 2010

Wind and Hydro – Program Year July 1, 2008 – June 30, 2009

 

Applications	Total Apps	North Apps	South Apps	North KW	South KW	Total KW
Solar	869	425	444	5594.8	3691.8	9,286.7
Wind	86	77	9	495.2	14.4	509.6
Hydro	7	7	0	725.5	0	725.5
Totals	962	509	453	6815.5	3706.2	10521.8

Headquartered in Nevada, Sierra Pacific Resources is a holding company whose principal subsidiaries, Nevada Power Company and Sierra Pacific Power Company, are doing business as NV Energy. Serving a 54,500-square-mile service territory that stretches north to south from Elko to Laughlin, NV Energy provides a wide range of energy services and products to approximately 2.4 million citizens of Nevada as well as approximately 40 million tourists annually

 

Original information from an AP news story, Reno NV.