Best. Quarter. Ever. Let’s make sure its not the last.

December 16th, 2011 § 0

Take Action

The story of American solar power has been one of stunning success by just about any metric. Just yesterday, SEIA reported that the industry had a whopper of a third quarter: 449 megawatts of new solar capacity was installed in just 3 months! That’s the best quarter ever for U.S. solar. It brought us to more than 1,000 MW already installed in 2011 – the scale of a couple of coal power plants – with strong growth expected to continue in this last part of the year.

But this growing piece of our national economy is also experiencing unprecedented political uncertainty. Take the case of the highly successful 1603 Treasury Grant Program, set to expire at the end of the year (Do you ever get deja vu?). Simply extending the existing program would provide the firm policy footing needed to help keep American solar growth on track – and yet it’s highly unclear whether Congress will act in time. Can you help speak up in support?

An impressive 22,000 solar energy projects have been installed across 47 states thanks to the Treasury Grant Program – federal initiative that allows large energy customers and some homeowners to receive a cash grant rather than the usual tax credit when they invest in solar and other renewables. The program makes the federal incentive useful in these times of lean revenues and low tax liability. The grant program has the same impact on the Treasury as the tax credit, but delivers the value more efficiently in a recession economy – all that means Americans get more solar bang for the buck. In total, the program has successfully driven nearly $3.5 billion in private solar project investment and supported tens of thousands of jobs in our nation’s clean energy economy.

We know Americans of all political persuasions and all corners of this country think more solar power is the right direction for our country. Let’s be sure Congress knows that too. Click here to send an email in support of the 1603 extension – or visit our friends at SEIA to place a phone call through their fancy click-to-call system.

 

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