Production Based Incentives - Cap Needed

Paul,

Production based incentives I am currently examining have an annual maximum dollar amount of $5,000 in addition to a $/kWh and term limit. Incentive input page does not provide for a dollar limit for this type of incentive. Any chance a future version could have an input line for Maximum Annual Amount ($)?

It would be a rare case that regulators would allow for an unlimited amount of financial reimbursement from customer based generating systems.

Mike -

Hi Mike,

Yes, it is possible that we could modify the incentives inputs to better model this kind of PBI.

Can you tell me where you are seeing PBIs with a cap?

Best regards,
Paul.

Paul,

Currently the State of Washington, Department of Revenue offers incentives to owners of renewable energy systems. PV systems can earn as much as $0.54/kWh if both the modules and inverters are manufactured in the state of Washington. The incentives are capped at $5,000 per year per individual (owner of system). The program is scheduled to sunset in June 2020.

See following link: dor.wa.gov and search incentives

Mike -

Thanks Mike. That's helpful. We will consider adding the cap in a future version of SAM.

I have a couple of ideas of how you could work around this for now. You could either run a simulation in SAM with the $0.54/kWh incentive, and then from the Cash Flow page in SAM, click Send to Excel with Equations, and manually change the value of the incentive in the spreadsheet and see how it affects the metrics there.

Or, you could run the simulation in SAM with the incentive, and if the PBI payment shown in the cash flow exceeds $5,000, calculate (by hand) a value for the incentive based on the annual output in kWh that SAM predicts so that the resulting incentive is $5,000. Based on my very quick analysis of a PV system in Seattle with 20 degree tilt, it looks like a nameplate capacity higher than about 9 kW results in a PBI payment that exceeds $5,000.

Best regards,
Paul.

Paul,

I switched from PC to MAC so I'm using the OS X operating system. I've read on this site that the Mac operating system is not capable of running "Save to Excel" command. Option two seems like a good end around. However, I simply reduced the design size by 2 panels, switched to a smaller inverter and came close to the $5K limit. I'm guessing a parametric or stochastic analysis could be set up to determine at what system size does one max out the annual incentive cap based on current incentives, etc.

I see where you folks have fixed the annual losses chart. Thanks!

Mike -