Important News about Changes to the APS Renewable Energy Incentive Program

On April 13, 2010 the Arizona Corporation Commission approved changes to APS’s Renewable Energy Incentive Program, lowering the incentive from $3 per watt to $2.15 per watt for solar electric systems and from $0.75 per first year kilowatt-hour savings to $0.50 per first year kilowatt-hour savings for solar water heaters. The regulating agency took the action after APS, on March 31, 2010, submitted an expedited filing to the Commission requesting the changes in order to address the unprecedented demand for the incentives by customers in 2010. As of March 31, 2010 there was $11.1 million out of an original budget of $44.1 million.

Details of the changes include:

• APS will use three funding cycles, ending on July 1, Oct. 1 and Dec. 31.
  
  
• The $11.1 million will be divided between the first two funding cycles. Any funds remaining after the second cycle will be used for the third cycle. The third cycle will also be funded from the yet-to-be-determined 2011 budget.
  
  
• Of the remaining $11.1 million, $900,000 will be reserved for incentives for solar water heaters.
  
  
• At the end of each cycle, incentives will be paid out on a first-come first-served basis until the funds allocated during that funding cycle are depleted.
  
  
• Applications that do not receive funds during a particular cycle will remain in the same order they were received, and be moved to the next funding cycle.
  
  
• Applications received between March 31 and April 2 will receive the original funding amount; however the incentives will be broken into two separate payments:
  
  
  • For solar electric systems, the customer will receive $2.15 per watt today and $0.85 per watt in the first quarter of 2011.
  • For solar water heaters, the customer will receive $0.50 per first year kilowatt-hour savings today and $0.25 per first year kilowatt-hour savings in the first quarter of 2011.

Once the incentive program funds an additional 3 megawatts of capacity for residential customers from solar electric systems the incentive will decrease to $1.95 per watt.