Mike Triem and Alan Davis discuss the ending of solar incentives with the Big Beautiful Bill, and the need for action now. Solar projects need to be fully in-process by September 15th to complete by the end of December and qualify for the incentives that are ending with the new Bill. Alan also talked about battery system installs and the specific rebates offered by the state of Colorado and Federally.
Hey, it’s Mike Trim with the Crawford Media Group. Today we’re joined by Alan Davis, solar engineer. He’s the solar engineer that we trust because, Alan, there’s a lot of people out there trying to sell folks other stuff, right? And tell us. These incentives, they’re going to go away soon. What do we need to do right now, Alan?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, Mike, yeah, we have the news. And, you know, of course, when Donald Trump was running for president, he said, you know, I like solar and I want to support the solar industry. But, you know, I think people, if they want to buy solar, that the government shouldn’t pay for it. And we, you know, another promise that he is keeping is that he’s, We’re going to be getting rid of all of the incentives for solar, and they go away at the end of this year. So let’s go over what that means. Now, first, a lot of people that listen to this show, Mike, are interested in backup power. And so the backup power for your home, which is called the Powerwall, is still fully reimbursed up to 66%. Unless you have Xcel Energy, and if you have Xcel Energy, it’s fully reimbursed. They have a program called the Battery Connect program, and you can look that up on the Internet. But if you have Xcel Energy, then the Powerwall is basically 100% reimbursed. So if you don’t have the money laying around to buy a Powerwall, we can arrange a loan. If you have a 625 FICO score, and as that money comes in, then you can just pay off the loan. So there’s no… prepaid on that loan. So that’s the first thing. But like the solar that we’re going to talk about, the Powerwall basically has to be up and running. You have to have permission to operate from the power company by the end of the year to get the incentives. Otherwise, you don’t get anything. So that’s how that works. All right. Now, let’s go into the solar, and then I want to just share a little bit about my own journey here. The solar is still 56% reimbursed. So let’s say that you, you know, we put together a solar system and say it takes 20 solar panels on your roof and that system comes to be $30,000 for the solar. Then you’re going to get back about $18,000 from the federal government on the solar. So it’s 56% reimbursed. And it doesn’t really matter, you know, where you live, that’s, That’s the federal incentive for that. But, you know, it’s the same thing. We have to have the system up and running by the end of the year. Now, people say, well, you know, would you think any of those incentives will ever come back? The answer is that would be speculating. I don’t know. But we know for a fact over the next three years they will not come back. So as we know it, all of the incentives are going away at this time. Right. So anyway, but I wanted to share a little bit about my journey because when I got in the solar business and it really, you know, I didn’t really know, you know, where it would take me and what would happen and where it would go and things like that. But by getting solar, I was actually able to purchase an electric vehicle. And the electric vehicle that I have, not only is it fun to drive and it’s very fast, but also What’s very interesting, which is, of course, by the way, how I pick a vehicle, I want to enjoy when I’m driving the car. But what really amazed me about it is that I don’t have any maintenance cost to my car anymore. So, you know, every time I took my car to get the oil changed, I had extra expenses. Also, the time of getting the oil, you know, oil changed and everything. And when you have an electric vehicle, you don’t have any of those expenses. As a matter of fact, I bought my electric vehicle when it had 30,000 miles, and I sold it to my friend when it had 80,000 miles. And the only maintenance that I had to have was tires. I had to change the tires one time, but Also, they just sent me filters in the mail. It was just air cleaning filters. That was the only maintenance I had to have on the car. It was really nice. Of course, every gas station, you drive past every gas station. You don’t have to stop. You don’t have to get gas. Think of all the time you spend pumping gas at the gas station, and you can avoid that. It’s really special. Of course, the one thing that people don’t talk about is – you know, that it really decreases the noise pollution because electric vehicles are completely silent. You don’t hear anything. That’s good most of the time. You know, when people, you know, a lot of times people run in front of you, they don’t see you coming. But the car makes literally no sound. But just to go over kind of, you know, in a nutshell here, While we have power outages in Colorado and why it’s so important to get your batteries now, well, the first reason, of course, is because they’re fully reimbursed if you have Xcel Energy. And if you don’t have Xcel Energy, if you have some other power company. then they’re only 66% reimbursed. But in Colorado, we’ve only had power outages because of one thing, and it’s weather. Like where I live, Applewood, Lookout Mountain, and Boulder, we had 120-mile-an-hour wind there. And the power lines, you know, the trees fell on the power lines, and we had a four-day outage. It was in April. It was about a year and a half ago. And it was very inconvenient for the people who had it. The best case was that you lost your freezer full of meat. Worst case was that you missed work or you had some major disruption in your life around not having any power. But power outages can be caused by, and John Rush covers this all the time on his show, it could be caused by EMP events. Those are the ones we hope we don’t have. by cyber attacks, terrorist attacks, physical attacks, and also solar flares when all those cause power outages. But in California now, they have rolling blackouts. And rolling blackouts are where the power company on purpose turns off the power because the demand is too high. because so many people have got electric vehicles in California, very often that causes them to have to turn off the power. But I think we all can agree that our power usage can go up. It can go up if we get a hot tub or a pool, or we mine cryptocurrency in our basement. All of those increase our power usage. And then when the power company can’t deliver, they just turn the power off. And that’s how it works. But anyway, this is a time you can get your solar and get more than half of it reimbursed. You can get your backup power 66% reimbursed unless you have Xcel Energy. And then you can get it fully reimbursed.
SPEAKER 02 :
And, Alan, people have to move now, right, because it takes a little lead time for these things to get rolling. And as you said, it’s got to be up and running operational now. And certified by the end of the year, right?
SPEAKER 01 :
Right, and that’s exactly right. So, for example, if you can send over your power bill, I just need to see the second page of the power bill, the one that has the meter number on it, and then I can run an analysis and tell you what the investment will be for the solar or the backup power. And I really have to get that in my hand by September 15th. If I don’t have it by September 15th, I really, um, you know, we’re going to be right up against the end of the year. And this is really high stakes stuff because if we don’t get it done by the end of the year and, and, um, Xcel Energy has to do their part too. They take about 15 days to do their part. But if, uh, We don’t have it done by the end of the year. Then the client gets nothing. You don’t get a dime. Not one penny back from the federal government or the state government. So you’re on the clock. Yeah. We can’t fail at this. This isn’t something we can just say, oh, well, didn’t make it. Sorry. So we have to have a reasonable expectation that we can get this done by the end of the year. Now, the good news is the company that I do a lot of business with, It’s called Our World Energy. They’ve done a great job. You can look at them on the Google reviews. They have almost all five-star reviews. A few people did give them four-star reviews. I don’t really know why, but that’s what happened. They will keep coming out until you’re satisfied, you’re happy, your solar’s up and running, and they’re They’re just a great company. We’re really lucky to have them in Colorado. But they’ve hired additional people to be able to jump through all the hoops and get everything done. And the process is this. We only need a check for $2,000 to start the project. Now, that $2,000, if we can’t do the project or we see that for whatever reason we’re not going to be able to get it done by the end of the year, then, Mike, we’ll just give them their $2,000 back. We want to keep our ratings. That’s great. I’ll be the project manager on the project. And then about a month and a half later, when we order the parts, we order the power walls, the backup power, and we order the solar and the inverters, all the parts, then they actually pay 60% at that time. And then when the system is up and running, which is a month after that, we collect the last 40% on the project. And that’s how it works. It’s really simple. We only need $2,000 to start, and that’s, you know, refundable up to the time that, you know, we sell the – I mean, we order the parts for the – For the project and anyway it’s a it’s a great journey to be electric is is a great thing issue so many options, you know you don’t have to pay for your gasoline if you buy an electric car if you. If you do want to get rid of your gas bill your natural gas bill, you can install a heat pump in your House and do that and anyway. It’s 56% reimbursed for solar, 66% reimbursed for backup power. And unless you have Xcel Energy, then it’s 100% reimbursed. And that’s it. That’s what we have. I’ll give my email address. It’s davis, D-A-V-I-S, at omnipower, not solar. So it’s davis at. O-M-N-I, omnipower.solar. And you can send over your power bill, and I can get moving on this. And, you know, that’s really about all I have to say. Of course, you can call to my phone number, 303-378-7537.
SPEAKER 02 :
Alan, you’ve laid it out really well for us. I want to repeat your email address because that makes it really easy for people. And it’s important to get the dot solar. It’s davisatomnipower.solar. We’ve worked with you for years, Alan. So anyone that misses any of that, just call the radio station. Charlene will help you and get you fixed up. So, Alan, to put a wrap on it, it’s time. People have to move now.
SPEAKER 01 :
It’s pretty much this is the end of solar as we know it.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, for sure. Well, listen, thanks for taking the time with us. We love how you’ve educated us about solar, and it fits for a lot of our folks, including those out in rural areas. So give your phone number again one more time on the email.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, it’s 303-378-7537. And the email is davis, D-A-V-I-S, at omnipower.solar. Okay, Alan. Thanks so much for your time with us. All right. Bless you. Have a great day, Mike. Thank you for having me.
