- About SolX -
SolX Corp in Camano Island, WA is a Solar Installation company, Licensed Electrical Contractor, Roofing Company, and General Construction Contractor. Because solar installation involves a variety of trades, we have the skills and experience to perform different types of construction. In our gallery, you will see mostly solar installations, but will also find framing, concrete, finish work, household electrical wiring, and home remodels. We take extreme pride in doing quality work. Currently we are focusing solely on solar and home electrical. We aren’t doing roofing currently, except where it involves installing solar racking systems. We are licensed for commercial and can take on commercial solar.
- Incentives -
Benefitting from Solar Energy
Federal and state legislation is constantly in flux. Here is what is happening as of November 2023.
1) 30% Federal Tax Credit: If you have a tax liability, you can reduce or have refunded 30% of the installed cost.
For example, if you paid $25,000.00 including sales tax for solar on your roof (battery backup and service panel upgrades too), you would receive $7,500.00 off your taxes when you go to file with the IRS at the end of the year. If you already paid the $7,500.00 in, you would get that amount refunded. But, if you had no tax liability for the year, you would get no refund in that year, but the credit carries forward to future years until exhausted.
2) Subsidy through the Washington State Renewable Energy Payment program.
This program has allocated all available funds to existing solar applicants. It is not known if new funds will be allocated as it would require an act of the state congress. Some utilities including PSE have opted out of the incentive program and no longer show as participants in the drop-down list in the online application to be waitlisted. The original intent of the incentive program was to initially subsidize solar until costs drop to the point where subsidies were unnecessary. We may have reached that point. Costs have dropped dramatically over the last few years and our company remained busy despite the apparent end to the state incentive. Note also, solar is sales tax exempt now, which was not the case in other years. There are programs for homeowners on tribal lands.
3) Savings on Electricity You Would Otherwise Pay.
There is a 3rd program that pays you indefinitely for the solar you produce. This is called Net Metering. It is a sharing arrangement with the utility. The electricity from solar travels to your service panel where it is first used by your home. Any additional energy travels through your meter to the utility electric grid and spins your meter backward. During the summer, it is common to build a significant utility bill credit which offsets lower solar production in the winter. This credit rolls over month to month. The credit occurs at the full residential rate. Technically, they don’t actually pay you for the electricity (rather your bill is reduced). In March, if you have a credit, your meter is set back to zero and you lose that credit. This might seem like a bad deal, but typically most customers have used up their credits by the time April rolls around or are very close to zero. We do have customers whose entire electric bill is defeated each month (except the monthly billing fee).
The Future of Solar & Electricity
It’s possible a form of free energy will be developed in the future, which would mean an investment in solar would be wasted. But that seems unlikely. More likely is an increased demand on the energy grid and higher electric rates. I’m not just anticipating an increase in population, which will happen. Rather, the main driver will be electric cars. The Prius and Tesla vehicles forged the way, but many other manufacturers are coming in quickly with reasonably priced electric vehicles. When drivers plug in at home, this will burden the electric grid and cause costs to spike. That’s what Solx predicts. The cost of electricity is still pennies on the dollar compared to traditional fuel, but electric rates could rise quickly.
What about battery backup? We liken battery backup to having a home gas generator. The cost could be about the same either way after factoring in the 30% federal tax credit, which also applies to solar battery systems. Figure an installed gas generator is about $9000.00 not including sales tax. A battery backup system could be anywhere from $13,000 to $20,000 + depending on the size of inverter and number of batteries. But the 30% federal tax credit drops a $13,000 system to $9,100 once applying the 30% federal tax credit. We supply and wire these systems. We typically move the majority of the electric circuits into a “backup-up loads” panel. The batteries will power a refrigerator, many outlets and circuits with lights , TV, furnace thermostat, computer, router, and misc other loads. When the power goes out, you should be able to carry on as usual.
Battery Backup
Internet Monitoring
All solar installations have the option of internet monitoring. The best systems will show the production of each individual solar panel. Other systems show only the aggregate electricity produced by a string of 10-14 panels in series. We try to coach homeowners toward the systems that monitor panels individually. We don’t have to troubleshoot often, but when it does happen, this sort of monitoring eliminates a lot of questions quickly. It is very nice to simply log into a website and see how the solar is doing. There is always a historical log that keeps data back to the inception date.
Where We Travel
We have moved from Sammamish to Camano Island now and consider anything along the I-5 corridor from Bellingham to South Seattle to be fair game. We also work on the Eastside (Kirkland, Bellevue, Sammamish, etc). We have installations in Seattle, Bellevue, Newcastle, Black Diamond, Enumclaw, Cle Elum (yes, up over the pass), Skykomish, Snoqualmie, Kent, Renton, Bothell, Camano Island, and Arlington.
