San Diego County, California, has officially joined a handful of other California counties that participate in a solar incentive program called FIRST.
The FIRST program gives residential and commercial property owners the opportunity to finance new solar photovoltaic (PV) installations via their property tax bill, in conjunction with the California Solar Initiative.
Once approved, the city pays for the cost of installing a solar PV array and adds a like amount (plus undisclosed interest) to property tax bills over an amortization period of 20 years, said debt attached to the property and not the homeowner.
California FIRST is a government coalition organized by the League of California Cities and the California State Association of Counties, and helps further Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Million Solar Roofs Program announced in August of 2004.
The San Diego County FIRST program applies to property owners in unincorporated areas of the county, and provides long-term solar financing not available through the city. It’s expected that the program will provide the impetus for solar installations that homeowners and small businessmen wouldn’t otherwise consider, given solar PV’s high initial investment.
The upside of the program is that homeowners who sell their homes and move won’t carry the debt with them. The downside may be that fewer numbers of potential homebuyers are willing to assume debt for solar PV systems that may be getting older, or malfunctioning, but still require the same increased property tax payments. The provision to prevent this is that the full cost of the system can be paid off at any time, without additional penalties or interest.
What’s truly surprising is San Diego County’s willingness to join, given the fact that membership costs are $25,000, and the revenues associated with solar PV system approvals – estimated between $100,000 and $300,000 – will also be lost due to application-fee waivers the county jointly approved for solar installations.
One step remains to make the San Diego County FIRST program universal; all 18 cities within its boundaries must also join. This is good news for Oceanside, Solana Beach and Encinatas, who have reportedly been eager to join, but bad news for cash-strapped cities that depend on the revenue from system approvals to remain operational.
These fees, which range from more than $287 in Oceanside to $171 in Encinatas and Solana Beach, are a small but essential revenue in California cities whose backs are to the wall, fiscally speaking. But the impetus to solar installation will also add much-needed jobs in a state suffering from record unemployment levels.