For some, December probably meant eggnogs, football, relatives, etc. For the California solar industry, it meant a record month of rooftop, behind-the-meter solar. There were over 36 MW of customer-owned installations–the highest since the California Solar Initiative’s inception, and over 130 MW worth of incentive applications. Details on the California Solar Statistics site, here.
This is all the more remarkable, since residential solar incentives have been reduced (as scheduled) from $4.50/W to between 25 cents and 35 cents/W. And the non-residential incentives are 4.4 cents/kWh of generation, for 5 years (equivalent to a 5-year, 4.4 cent/kWh SREC contract).
Note that this does not include all the wholesale solar installations (RPS/RAM/FIT).
Sure beats rumcake.
Vote Solar is a non-profit grassroots organization working to fight climate change and foster economic opportunity by bringing solar energy into the mainstream.