- Expands the solar investment tax credit to include manufacturing equipment and solar water heaters for commercial and community pools. The bill would allow equipment that makes solar panels to qualify for the 30 percent solar investment tax credit. Promoting solar manufacturing in this country could lead to thousands of new jobs, such as those being created at Solyndra’s new factory in Fremont, CA.
- Commercial pools are common at hotels/motels, health clubs, and schools. Approximately 189,000 commercial pools nationwide use fossil fuel or electricity to heat an estimated 27.25 billion gallons of water. If the heating systems were replaced with solar water heating systems, there would be 1.23 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions avoided annually, which is equivalent to taking 237,000 cars off the road. California has 26 percent of all commercial pools in the U.S. and could significantly reduce pollution by widely adopting solar hot water heating.Extend the Treasury Grants Program until 2012: The program allows renewable energy developers to take grants, or payments, from the Treasury department instead of claiming tax credits in order to help build projects that require a great deal of capital upfront. The program is set to expire in 2010, but experts believe this deadline is well before most large-scale renewable energy projects would be ready to begin construction or tax equity markets would be primed to rebound. The Feinstein measure would extend the program until 2012.
Image: Flikr user Syaochka
Source: Senator Feinstein
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About Susan Kraemer
