Virginia’s 2018 Legislative session closed on March 10, 2018. On the energy policy front, the big attention getter was the “Dominion Bill” (SB 966),  but a few other bills made it through the session as well.

Our list of energy policy related bills submitted for Virginia’s 2018 Legislative session is updated here. Bills that did not make it to the Governor’s desk are indicated by strike-through text.

Out of 93 bills that we identified as being of interest, 18 made it out of both the Senate and House. Among the bills that passed, 13 were Republican sponsored and 5 were Democrat sponsored. Governor Northam has signed six bills into law including SB 966. He will take action on the remaining bills by April 9, 2018.

One bill to pay attention to is HB 1270 Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative; prohibition on participation by Commonwealth. This bill prohibits participation in the CO2 Budget Trading Program that is discussed on our Executive Action Page. It is expected that Governor Northam will veto this bill and that it will not be overturned by the legislature.

You and I probably agree that solar is awesome. But does it make financial sense? To get an answer, we need to know three things: how much energy will be produced, how much the system will cost, and how are we going to come up with money to pay for it.

How much energy will my system generate?

To get an estimate on that, we will head to PVWatts, enter our ZIP code (I’m using 20147 in Northern Virginia), choose a nearby weather station, then enter 1 for the system size (that’s kilowatts) and 33.7 for tilt — an equivalent to a fairly typical 8/12 roof pitch. The reason I’m looking at a 1 kW system is that we can use its numbers to get an estimate for any other size just by multiplying. If a 1 kW system generates $100 worth of electricity, then a 2 kW system will produce $200, it’s that simple.

Continue reading “Economics of residential solar in Virginia” →