You’re right — that was a slip on my part as a result of editing down a larger comment on the insane subsidies through the tax system in a few states for these home power projects.
Funny (and true) story: The governor’s alternative energy task force came out here to the boonies to pitch Nevada’s new “renewables quota” on power generation — something like 14% of all power in the IOU’s is supposed to be from ‘renewable’ resources.
OK, we go through the de rigeur .PPT presentation(s) on how well these alternative projects have worked in other states.
Finally a very nice lady from the DOE’s Renewables group in CO whips up a slide showing the payback graphs for:
- no compensation other than avoided cost(s)
- net metering at two different rates
- net metering plus tax breaks
Best case was the last one, of course.
Our co-op president was in the room and he explained the “avoided cost” compensation model/regulation(s) - which even tho we’re paying about $0.09/kWh here, the avoided cost is about $0.025/kWh.
Then I spoke up. I pointed out that there were only a very few states (like four) where you had net metering *and* tax breaks - and all of these states were what Nevadans would consider “high tax” states — CA and ID were two right next to us being used as examples throughout the day.
I pointed to how much of the payback period reduction on putting up a windmill in a viable wind power area was due to the tax breaks in CA and ID. Then I noted rather sternly to everyone from Carson City who was in the room that we here in Nevada have no personal (or business) income tax with which to give breaks, and that we sure as heck were not about to allow the legislature to enact such a tax merely for the purpose of giving out exemptions from said tax.
This pretty much was the end of the alternative power generated by us farmers and ranchers in the boonies, outside the area of IOU’s in Nevada.
The payback period for a windmill with our scenario (avoided costs only) was something like 45 years.
The payback period in CA/ID with net metering *and* tax breaks was about 12 years. Huge difference. There were only a very few states out of the 50 where these two issued converged — like four, I think: CA, ID, MN and IA.
That’s where the ‘few’ came from, and I slipped up on the edit. Sorry ‘bout that.
That is a long time. I guess it would be a legacy to your kids.
On different note what is the expected useful life of a windmill? In other words could you really have an expectation that it would ever pay for itself?
That should be the only real criteria for purchasing these things. One tax payer should not buying another a windmill.