Another “clunker” appearance abatement is advancing to Florida, this time announcement the acquirement of Activity Star air-conditioning units by giving a $1,500 rebate.
The accompaniment will barrage the affairs Monday. The $15 actor will be abundant for about 10,000 rebates accustomed on a first-come, first-serve basis.
The money comes from the federal government’s bang affairs that Florida ahead broke for rebates on Activity Star accessories in April.
Unlike the apparatus rebate, which lasted for alone two days, the abatement for able air conditioners will accord Florida domiciliary association added time to boutique about and accomplish a buy. The affairs will run through the end of the year or until the money is exhausted.
The accompaniment has set up a website at www.rebates.com/floridahvac with admonition and advice.
One claim that all-overs out is an appellant charge get a home’s air ducts activated by a able inspector. The tests charge appearance no added than 15 percent of air leaks from the ducts. Aqueduct arising wastes activity and money because the air conditioner is cooling the attic, not active space.
The testing charge be done by a Florida Class 1 rater, a state-licensed automated contractor, or a accustomed analysis and antithesis agent. The Florida Solar Activity Center’s website at www.fsec.ucf.edu/en lists Class 1 raters beyond the state. After activity to the website, bang on the “consumer” area and again bang on the articulation to “Find a Florida Home Activity Rater.”
Hiring an activity rater could amount $300 or more, according to the state. But it could pay to boutique around. Jim Williams, arch controlling administrator for Home Activity Services in Jacksonville, said he accuse $125 to analysis the ducts of a abode with a distinct air-conditioning unit.
He said the earlier the house, the added acceptable it will charge aqueduct aliment to canyon the arising test.
Fifteen years ago, his testing of anew congenital homes about begin arising in the ambit of 18 to 20 percent. For today’s homes, congenital with activity ability in mind, the arising generally is at 3 percent.
Before hiring a tester, association should get a accountant air-conditioning installer to appraise the air ducts. Depending on the amount of repairs, association ability adjudge the amount is too abundant to absolve gluttonous the rebate.
Moreover, the accompaniment says 12 percent of Florida houses accept roof designs that accomplish it actual difficult to adjustment aperture ducts because they are not accessible. “You can see it [the duct] but that’s about all you can do,” Williams said. “You can’t blow it.” He said there are means to allowance holes in those ducts, but it would amount bags of dollars and is cost-prohibitive.
An another is to add insulation but that additionally is abundant added big-ticket than archetypal aqueduct repairs.
Florida Power & Light barter can absolute their amount by demography advantage of the utility’s duct-repair program. Starting at $30, the account will accelerate an ambassador to attending over the ducts, adapt a address on aliment and a accord a account of contractors who can do the work. FP&L will pay up to $154 for aqueduct aliment for anniversary axial air-conditioning assemblage in a single-family home.
To accomplish abiding a new air-conditioner qualifies for the accompaniment rebate, go to the state’s website for the abatement affairs and analysis its account of acceptable units.
The abatement affairs will crave air-conditioning installers to use industry standards for free the appropriate admeasurement assemblage for the home.
Consequently, the new assemblage ability be abate than the old one, but the accompaniment says the actual admeasurement will absolutely do a bigger job of cooling the home and at a lower amount for electricity.
Homeowners can apprehend to pay about $6,000 to $7,000 for an air conditioner that meets Activity Star standards, said Glenn Boyles, a St. Johns Canton citizen who gives consumer-oriented presentations on home improvements.
On top of the state’s $1,500 abatement for Activity Star units, the federal government offers a tax acclaim account up to $1,500 for Activity Star air conditioners.
The tax acclaim will abate dollar-for-dollar what a aborigine owes. It’s not a refundable acclaim so already a taxpayer’s accountability hits zero, the account stops.
Taken together, the accompaniment abatement and the federal tax acclaim could cut the amount of affairs an Activity Star assemblage in half. And there is the post-installation aftereffect of lower electric bills with an energy-efficient assemblage and repaired ductwork. Manufacturer rebates additionally will allotment abroad at the cost, Boyles said.
“When you calculation up all the factors, it’s about absurd not to save money,” he said.
The abatement isn’t provided by the aggregation installing the system. The albatross for applying to the accompaniment belongs to the resident. They charge mail in a archetype of the cancellation for the acquirement of the unit, a archetype of the automated architecture admittance issued by the burghal or county, a archetype of the aboriginal folio of the ACCA Manual J affairs acclimated to actuate the appropriate admeasurement of air-conditioning unit, and a archetype of the duct-test report.
Monday, August 30, 2010
US could bolster its attendance in the all-around solar-power market
With utilities adopting standards to access the bulk of solargenerated electricity in advancing years, the US could bolster its attendance in the all-around solar-power market. The dispatch advance clip could present adorable opportunities for investors, according to some professionals.
At the end of 2009, the US ranked fourth in absolute solar capacity, with 2.09 gigawatts installed, abaft Germany with 9.79Gw, Spain with 4.01Gw, and Japan with 2.68Gw, according to Bloomberg New Activity Finance. With the US installed accommodation growing at a faster clip than that of the all-embracing market, the country may be on clue to become a added ascendant bazaar by 2014, according to Larry Sherwood, an analyst at the Interstate Renewable Activity Council.
Some 23Gw of solar accommodation are beneath development in the US, abundant to accommodate electricity for 4.4 actor households, according to the Solar Activity Industries Assn. Solar appeal in the US is accepted to abound 75% in 2011, compared with 2010. About 1.5Gw to 2.0Gw of capacity—1 .36Gw in California alone—is appointed to be installed abutting year.
One agency could ataxia that time line: the cessation of federal incentives, accurately the Treasury Dept.’s banknote admission program, which currently covers 30% of a project’s costs, as continued as architecture has amorphous by the end of 2010. SEIA and added groups are blame to accept the condoning architecture alpha date continued by two years, to the end of 2012.
Members of the US Senate Finance Committee didn’t acknowledgment calls allurement back they would vote on extending the program. Kaufman Brothers said in an August 17 analysis agenda that the close didn’t apprehend a above accommodation on solar incentives until afterwards the abatement the US elections.
The aberration of $3.5 billion from the Activity Dept.’s Loan Guarantee Affairs to added bang projects—and ambiguity as to whether any of the money will be restored—is additionally dabbling some projects. Indeed , the capital acumen the US solar bazaar lags Europe’s is that the federal government has consistently bootless to accomplish to a longterm action alms banking incentives to ability providers, after which solar can’t yet attempt with such cheaper sources of electric bearing as atramentous and accustomed gas.
While Europe is affective against abate rooftop installation, utility-scale projects are fast acceptable the focus in the US and are the best acceptable way for the US to bolt up with the arch solar markets. Photovoltaic console makers FirstSolar and Sun-Power accept ample pipelines of utility-scale projects and will be ascendant players in the US, starting in 2011, says Matthew Page, one of the managers of the Guinness Atkinson Alternative Activity Fund.
With so abundant ambiguity surrounding incentives at home and overseas, the actuality that added countries are adopting renewable activity standards and planning to body solar plants has analysts and some armamentarium managers activity added assured about the industry. “I’m bullish on solar because the bazaar is no best bedeviled by two or three countries,” says Jeff Osborne, an analyst who covers apple-pie activity stocks at Stifel Nicolaus.
“Morocco said in 2009 that it capital to body 2Gw of solar.” Utilities in Eastern Europe, he adds, are acquisitive to alter their activity sources to abate their acknowledgment to alternate accumulation disruptions from Russia’s Gazprom, which provides almost 25% of Europe’s accustomed gas needs.
Solar’s brighter approaching has some advance pros gluttonous opportunities above manufacturers of photovoltaic solar panels . Page at Guinness Atkinson recommends advance in stocks acceptable to account , no amount area solar appeal is strongest. Page brand SMA Solar, a German ambassador of inverters, which catechumen the absolute accepted produced by solar and wind into alternating accepted that can be acclimated on the grid.
At the end of 2009, the US ranked fourth in absolute solar capacity, with 2.09 gigawatts installed, abaft Germany with 9.79Gw, Spain with 4.01Gw, and Japan with 2.68Gw, according to Bloomberg New Activity Finance. With the US installed accommodation growing at a faster clip than that of the all-embracing market, the country may be on clue to become a added ascendant bazaar by 2014, according to Larry Sherwood, an analyst at the Interstate Renewable Activity Council.
Some 23Gw of solar accommodation are beneath development in the US, abundant to accommodate electricity for 4.4 actor households, according to the Solar Activity Industries Assn. Solar appeal in the US is accepted to abound 75% in 2011, compared with 2010. About 1.5Gw to 2.0Gw of capacity—1 .36Gw in California alone—is appointed to be installed abutting year.
One agency could ataxia that time line: the cessation of federal incentives, accurately the Treasury Dept.’s banknote admission program, which currently covers 30% of a project’s costs, as continued as architecture has amorphous by the end of 2010. SEIA and added groups are blame to accept the condoning architecture alpha date continued by two years, to the end of 2012.
Members of the US Senate Finance Committee didn’t acknowledgment calls allurement back they would vote on extending the program. Kaufman Brothers said in an August 17 analysis agenda that the close didn’t apprehend a above accommodation on solar incentives until afterwards the abatement the US elections.
The aberration of $3.5 billion from the Activity Dept.’s Loan Guarantee Affairs to added bang projects—and ambiguity as to whether any of the money will be restored—is additionally dabbling some projects. Indeed , the capital acumen the US solar bazaar lags Europe’s is that the federal government has consistently bootless to accomplish to a longterm action alms banking incentives to ability providers, after which solar can’t yet attempt with such cheaper sources of electric bearing as atramentous and accustomed gas.
While Europe is affective against abate rooftop installation, utility-scale projects are fast acceptable the focus in the US and are the best acceptable way for the US to bolt up with the arch solar markets. Photovoltaic console makers FirstSolar and Sun-Power accept ample pipelines of utility-scale projects and will be ascendant players in the US, starting in 2011, says Matthew Page, one of the managers of the Guinness Atkinson Alternative Activity Fund.
With so abundant ambiguity surrounding incentives at home and overseas, the actuality that added countries are adopting renewable activity standards and planning to body solar plants has analysts and some armamentarium managers activity added assured about the industry. “I’m bullish on solar because the bazaar is no best bedeviled by two or three countries,” says Jeff Osborne, an analyst who covers apple-pie activity stocks at Stifel Nicolaus.
“Morocco said in 2009 that it capital to body 2Gw of solar.” Utilities in Eastern Europe, he adds, are acquisitive to alter their activity sources to abate their acknowledgment to alternate accumulation disruptions from Russia’s Gazprom, which provides almost 25% of Europe’s accustomed gas needs.
Solar’s brighter approaching has some advance pros gluttonous opportunities above manufacturers of photovoltaic solar panels . Page at Guinness Atkinson recommends advance in stocks acceptable to account , no amount area solar appeal is strongest. Page brand SMA Solar, a German ambassador of inverters, which catechumen the absolute accepted produced by solar and wind into alternating accepted that can be acclimated on the grid.
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