Federal initiative helps people get solar

The federal government is making new changes to help lower income people get access to solar power.

The White House released the Clean Energy Savings for All initiative to expand residential solar use coast to coast. The initiative aims to help low income people get solar panels.

In California, the property-assessed clean energy or PACE program has been helping people of low incomes get solar panels installed then paying for the installation through property taxes. This multi-state program was a pilot for the new federal initiative.

“PACE financing doesn’t look at your credit score, it looks at the equity in your home, and assuming you are current with payments and don’t have a bankruptcy within the last couple of years you can get approved for solar,” said Lea Goodsell, vice president of business development with Renova Solar.

Part of the federal initiative is to help train people to work in the solar industry and gets more federal agencies to back loans for solar, including the Federal Housing Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

According to solar installers these new federal guidelines do not help Imperial Irrigation District customers in the east Coachella Valley. The utility pulled the plug on net metering in March. Industry experts said that removes the major cost saving incentive from having solar on your home.

“If there is utilities like IID that are putting obstacles in the way, then it won’t matter how available you have for financing solar if the polices you have for the utility that you are tied to make it draconian,” said Goodsell.

When asked for comment, IID released this statement:

“IID is in support of the administration’s efforts to make solar available to low income residents and others who may not currently have access to solar. This ties in with IID’s current plans to develop a separate low-income solar program specific to our income-qualified customers. In addition, IID is working to create a community solar program that will allow customers who rent or don’t have the appropriate rooftop to also participate and gain the benefits of going solar.”

A representative with Southern California Edison told KESQ over the phone that the utility has been working for years on different projects to have solar be available to low income customers.