Gainesville Regional Utilities announced that its board of directors, the Gainesville City Commission, gave unanimous approval last week to adopt a solar photovoltaic (PV) feed-in tariff, the first of its kind in the U.S.
"The feed-in tariff is more attractive to solar investors than traditional solar rebate programs because it guarantees that the utility will buy all of the electricity produced by the PV system at a fixed rate for 20 years."-- Ed Regan, Assistant General Manager - Strategic Planning, GRU
Based on highly successful models in Europe, it offers GRU electric customers a chance to invest in solar photovoltaic (PV) systems and sell all the electricity that they produce directly to GRU.
Pending expected Florida Public Service Commission approval, GRU customers can sign up for the feed-in tariff as of March 1. Participants signing up during the first two years of the program will be guaranteed a fixed rate of US $0.32 per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced for 20 years.
GRU estimates that investors will see a five percent return on investment for large-scale projects. The order from the Gainesville City Commission does however set a total installation cap of 4 megawatts (MW) per year. The entire state currently has approximately 2 MW of capacity installed.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment