New Jersey Solar Rebate Program Crashes

Last week, New Jersey ran out of four months' worth of Solar Rebates in a day. Less money was available than originally budgeted for in December because Gov. Chris Christie was forced to take $158 million from the Clean Energy Fund to help close an unprecedented $11 billion state budget gap created by this current Legislature and past Adminstrations.

More than 1,000 people, including contractors camped out the night before to claim a portion of the $6 million in residential and $1.5 million in non-residential one-time rebates when the Office of Clean Energy opened on May 3.

The Board of Public Utilities closed the normally four-month distribution period until the next scheduled disbursement Sept. 1

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New Jersey Solar Rebates On Hold

Due to revisions to the state's budget, the state’s Clean Energy Rebate Program will not accept new applications Solar Rebates for the month of April, and all applications currently in queue will be frozen until the program is scheduled to reopen in May.

When the state ran out of funding for its solar rebate a couple years ago, all solar activity ground to a halt for months. And then the state rolled out the market-based SREC Program, revitalizing the commercial and industrial solar sectors. The residential market, however, didn’t pick back up until the state reinstated a modest rebate. Combined with the revenue stream provided by SRECs, the solar rebates have been enough to make projects feasible for the average homeowner.

Relatively predictable income from SRECS make securing bank financing much easier, but without the rebate to reduce up-front costs, the solar price tag becomes prohibitive for most home and business owners. The excellent Federal Tax Credit, equal to 30 percent of solar costs, has a direct and positive impact on cash flow but does not help with out of pocket expenses.