There are magic numbers in New Jersey: $450, $550, $771, $150 and $600.
In Jersey you can produce a widget that would cost you $150 to buy, use or sell the widget, and then sell it again for $450 to $550 – that is sell it for $600 or $700. The question is, how much does it cost to produce? And the raw ingredients and fuel are free, so the production costs are only are only the amortized costs of the machine.
Allow me to explain.
Jersey allows you to produce a widget of solar power, use it or sell it, and then sell it or sell it again for three times it’s current value or more. In Jersey, every kwh of power produced by a solar energy system is worth 3, 4 or perhaps 5 kwh. The answer, in a word, is SREC’s, Solar Renewable Energy Certificates.
Electricity producers In New Jersey have a choice. Produce power using solar, or pay “the Solar Alternative Compliance Payment” – a fine. They also have a way out. Rather than produce the power, they can buy the right to claim the solar power someone else produced. They do this via Solar Renewable Energy Certificates. Today, for “energy year 2008”, the “the Solar Alternative Compliance Payment” (the
If the electricity I buy costs $150 per mwh, and the SREC value of the electricity I produce is worth $450, the total value of the electricity is $600.
This is a New-Alchemy. It’s not turning lead into gold. It’s turning sunlight into money.
The questions are:
- How much – or how little – does it cost me to install a Solar electric generating system?
- How quickly will that system pay for itself?
- How many times will that system pay for itself over it’s 40 or 50 year life?
- Why aren’t more people doing this?