Extend solar tax credits

Extend solar tax credits
By R. BRUCE KERSHNER and MELISSA MEEHAN BALDWIN

In Florida, companies are using one of the state's most abundant and reliable resources to generate clean energy and create green jobs: solar energy. On July 22, the Florida Municipal Power Agency announced that it signed a letter of intent with SunEdison for a 20-year power purchase agreement that will provide 10 megawatts of power throughout the state. Along with clean, renewable energy, SunEdison will be bringing jobs to Florida by installing, constructing, monitoring and operating the solar system.

Impressed with power plant

On the same day, Seminole Electric Cooperative signed a nonbinding letter of intent to begin negotiations with Renovalia USA to build a solar thermal power plant in Florida. The deal was announced by Gov. Charlie Crist after visiting Renovalia's solar energy facility in Spain during his business development mission.

Crist remarked, ``Seeing the largest solar project in the world here in Madrid highlights the possibilities that await us in Florida.''

Solar power promises tens of thousands of well-paying, high-quality jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars of investment for the Sunshine

State. There are already almost 150 solar manufacturers, installers and dealers in our state, employing hundreds of people -- and these numbers continue to grow. Last year, the industry attracted $10 billion in investment, created more than 6,000 green collar jobs nationwide, and its manufacturing grew by 74 percent. However, this growing industry is at risk.

Congress is poised to either stimulate further development of solar energy or stymie this potential growth. A 30 percent solar investment tax credit (ITC) will sunset at the end of 2008, and, without an extension, the promise of solar-powered investment to jump-start the Florida economy becomes less certain.

Allowing the ITC to expire not only threatens the entire American solar industry; it jeopardizes wind development as well, which is also supported by similar tax credits.

Americans support solar power

Like it or not, all energy providers rely, to some degree, on federal government support. Mature fossil fuel industries receive $40 billion from taxpayers every year, yet solar tax credits receive less than 1 percent of this amount over the course of a decade. Despite this meager funding, a recent poll showed that 94 percent of Americans supported the use and development of solar power, with strong approval across the political spectrum.

Solar power provides cost certainty that no conventional source of power can compete with in the long-term because the fuel is free.

With the price of oil reaching as high as $145 per barrel in the past year, natural gas prices continuing to rise and China gobbling up coal at an alarming rate, the Sunshine State has the potential to be the capital of a global solar energy economy.

Unbelievably, extensions for these solar tax credits have been voted on eight times in the U.S. Senate since June 2007 and have failed each time. On more than one occasion, Sen. Mel Martinez has voted against clean energy while Sen. Bill Nelson has supported the extension of the renewable tax credits.

Protect future investments

The prospect of the solar tax credits expiring is already threatening future investment in solar projects. Solar developers are delaying or canceling projects in the United States and looking to invest overseas. Even the one-year extension that some have proposed would be inadequate to satisfy investors because of the time needed to complete utility-scale projects. Congress must pass an extension and send it to the president as soon as possible to ensure that the sun does not set on solar development.

R. Bruce Kershner is executive director of the Florida Solar Energy Industries Association, and Melissa Meehan Baldwin is Florida climate organizer for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.