{"id":6823,"date":"2017-05-18T00:32:43","date_gmt":"2017-05-18T04:32:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/?p=6823"},"modified":"2017-08-16T21:28:49","modified_gmt":"2017-08-17T01:28:49","slug":"why-solar-why-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/2017\/05\/why-solar-why-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Why solar?  Why now?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width: 275px; float: right; margin-left: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; border: 2px solid green;\">\n<p style=\"color: #00138c; text-align: center; font-size: 1.2em; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0em;\"><b>Where&#8217;s Solar in Needham?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><center><br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/fusiontables\/embedviz?q=select+col19+from+1t-y_Sqluh5Lz7Yk9zld4vnm2je9sUpgKvAitivkz&amp;viz=MAP&amp;h=false&amp;lat=42.28777659723538&amp;lng=-71.23775922222904&amp;t=1&amp;z=13&amp;l=col19&amp;y=2&amp;tmplt=4&amp;hml=GEOCODABLE\" width=\"275\" height=\"275\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"yes\"><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center; font-size: 1.0em;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wheresolar\/\"><b>Click to see a larger version of this map<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>With over <b>350 solar PV systems installed<\/b> on homes in Needham, many residents who hadn\u2019t previously thought about solar are noticing.\u00a0 They see the benefits their neighbors are enjoying and thinking that they too could benefit.\u00a0 But they\u2019ve also heard that the solar incentives in Massachusetts are changing, and wonder whether this is the right time to move forward.<\/p>\n<p><b class=\"c\">The answer to that question is an emphatic \u201cyes.\u201d<\/b>\u00a0 As the cost of solar continues to decrease and more homes and businesses install solar, it\u2019s natural that the incentives will evolve.\u00a0 But Massachusetts continues to be committed to a robust solar market that saves money for homeowners and businesses, creates a large number of well-paying jobs and helps the Commonwealth achieve its climate change goals.<\/p>\n<p>Putting a new incentive program in place that reduces the cost of incentives <u>and<\/u> keeps the market growing is a balancing act. \u00a0Much work still remains to be done.\u00a0 But it is in no one\u2019s interest for the solar market to come to a halt while that work is underway.\u00a0 So the Commonwealth has committed to maintaining the current incentive system to provide certainty for solar customers and installers.<\/p>\n<p>In practice, that means that <b class=\"c\">the current incentives for residential solar in Massachusetts will remain in place through early in 2018.<\/b> Residential customers who install systems between Janaury 2017 and March 2018 will still be able to benefit from net metering and they will continue to generate Solar Renewable Energy Credits (SRECs) that they are paid for, though at a slightly reduced rate.\u00a0 The 30% federal tax credit was extended by Congress last year and remains available through 2019.<\/p>\n<p>Green Needham\u2019s solar team is committed to helping Needham residents take advantage of this favorable opportunity in 2017.\u00a0 Watch these pages for more information.<\/p>\n<p>To learn more about going solar, join us for our upcoming information session, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/2017\/05\/solar-101-now-is-the-time-workshop-on-june-7th\/\">Solar 101 \u2013 Now is the time!<\/a> on <strong>June <\/strong>7<sup>th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If you have a question about solar, <a href=\"mailto:info@greenneedham.org?Subject=Question about solar\">contact us<\/a>!<\/li>\n<li>If you have solar on your home and want to help others to go solar, please <a href=\"mailto:info@greenneedham.org?Subject=I have solar and want to help\">contact the Green Needham solar team<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>(If the links above do not open an e-mail window, send us an e-mail addressed to <a href=\"mailto:info@greenneedham.org\">info at greenneedham.org<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Where&#8217;s Solar in Needham? Click to see a larger version of this map With over 350 solar PV systems installed on homes in Needham, many residents who hadn\u2019t previously thought about solar are noticing.\u00a0 They see the benefits their neighbors<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5827,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-solar","category-solar-team"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}