For example, the state offers rebates averaging about
$2,000 per installation through programs such as
Commonwealth Solar, which is funded at about $1 million
a quarter through a state energy fund.
In addition, Massachusetts has created a market for
solar renewable energy credits, which solar project
owners can sell to power plant operators to meet state
regulations aimed at reducing greenhouse gases.
The money from those sales helps further lower the
cost of solar power.
Such policies have made solar economically
competitive in the state, despite less than optimal sun,
said Jim Dumas, principal at Solect Inc., a Hopkinton
company with 10 employees. Solect is currently
installing a 475-kilowatt solar system atop a commercial
building in Northborough.
John Parsons, president of Parsons Commercial Group,
one of the Northborough building’s owners, said a
federal grant subsidizing 30 percent of the project’s
cost made solar panels “very attractive.”
“We’re basically going to resell the power to our
tenants at a discounted rate,” Parsons said. “It’s a win
for us because it’s an income stream, and at the same
time we’re doing something environmentally positive.”
Municipalities are also making solar power more
attractive. In Boston, the city has cut permit fees for
solar installations by about 70 percent, said James W.
Hunt III, the city’s chief of environmental and energy
services.
The permit application process can also be completed
online, Hunt said, saving installers time and money.
These efforts are part of an initiative to get 25
megawatts of solar installed in Boston by 2015. “We’ve
been working with industry to make Boston one of the
clean energy capitals of the country,” Hunt said.
Vivint Solar, a Utah-based installer that entered the
local market earlier this year, said it has found
permitting projects in Boston and other Massachusetts
cities so easy that it is already planning to expand its
workforce here to handle a growing list of projects.
Vivint Solar has 35 employees in the state, said
president Tanguy Serra, but is likely to need “a couple
hundred employees pretty quickly.”