APS SOLAR PROGRAM FLOPS BIG AFTER BEING CALLED OUT FOR MISLEADING YUMA RESIDENTS.
After many failed attempts and millions of dollars spent on smear campaigns against roof top solar, Arizona Public Service unveiled its so called solar program in 2019 at a yuma chamber breakfast in front the community of Yuma. APS representative Ana Chaulk delivered the presentation that outlined the APS Solar Program designed to help lower income families and provide a $30.00 bill credit to home owners who chose to utilize this program. But many questions remained about how this program really worked. So we dug a little deeper in to APS’s solar program and here’s what we uncovered .
After doing a little detective work and pre qualifying several Arizona APS customers for the program here is the results of what we found.
APS qualified several of our undercover home owners who’s incomes exceeded six figures and APS never asked any income questions. This lead us to believe that income had nothing to do with this and APS was more concerned with their image after smearing solar for an extended period of time and still losing the fight. It is believed that APS figured since solar is favored and they couldn’t stop homes owners from going solar then the next best thing would be to get in front of solar with a program of their own.
The APS solar program offered to give customers who allowed an APS owned solar system to be installed on their roof, a $30.00 per month bill credit. However it did not guarantee any fixed or guaranteed electricity costs at any time. Further more APS would own the solar system therefore still controlling customers electric bills.
Because APS would own the solar systems they would be entitled to the 30% federal tax credit as well as the Arizona state tax credit and as a business they would be able to take a five year accelerated depreciation tax write off.
All in all APS would potentially take advantage of billions of dollars in tax advantages all while offering customers $30.00 for what you could consider roof space rental. How do the numbers actually break down for the average home you ask? Well here is the break down for an average home in Yuma county.
Solar system cost average $24,000.00
federal tax credit at the time – 30% = $7,200.00
It could be said APS could use the 7,200 to pay customers 30.00 per month for 20 years. Yes federal tax dollars payed out to customers at a mere 30.00 per month.
state tax credit ———————-$ 1,000.00
depreciation write off 25% of the total price – $6,000.00
Overall APS would take advantage of $14,200.00 dollars in tax incentives (average) and they would provide home owners a total of $7,200 in energy bill credits spread over twenty years at a near $30.00 per month. This also did not take into account that APS could continue raising consumers power rates until the $30.00 credit was non existent.
After being called out publicly about their solar program in front of the entire community of Yuma, APS representative Ana Chaulk spent several months appearing at local rotary club meetings, Mixers and other public speaking events in what was speculated by many to be a damage control attempt after the general public was made aware of the millions in tax incentives APS stood to take advantage of.
Solar customers do not need money to go solar, there is no large upfront investment required and for those who lease or Finance their solar panel systems, the payments are less than their current APS bill. Solar homes save an average of $1,200.00 their first year after going solar.
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