Solar Water Heating Incentives May Be On The Way

Ninety percent of the hot water that pours from Californians’ bathroom and kitchen taps is warmed with natural gas, but all those hot showers come with a cost. Burning natural gas pumps out hundreds of thousands of tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year — and that’s in the state of California alone.

Capitalizing upon the state’s goals to reduce greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2020, the California Solar Energy Industries Assn. recently released a study to demonstrate the environmental and financial values of replacing natural-gas water heaters with those that are powered with solar energy in the hopes its study will greenlight a potential $250-million consumer rebate program in the state.

The consumer rebate program is part of AB 1470 — a 2007 law that charged the California Public Utilities Commission with conducting a pilot project to determine if solar water heating is cost effective enough to implement the rebate program, which would provide financial incentives for the installation of as many as 200,000 solar water heaters. A typical residential solar water heating system costs $6,500. Read more