Solar investment credit FINALLY passed

I guess I was being too cynical when I wrote last week that I thought the 8-year extension of the Solar Investment Tax Credit was going to stall out in the House because the bailout package would eat all of this session's remaining time. In the end, they just stuck the legislation into the massive bailout package, and it passed.

The bill does a few things:

• Extends for 8 years the 30-percent tax credit for both residential and commercial solar installations
• Eliminates the $2,000 monetary cap for residential solar electric installations, creating a true 30 percent tax credit (effective for property placed in service after December 31, 2008)
• Eliminates the prohibition on utilities from benefiting from the credit
• Authorizes $800 million for clean energy bonds for renewable energy generating facilities, including solar

The bill has been widely touted as a win-win for America, but congress struggled for more than two years to pass because they couldn't figure out how to pay for it.

General Electric has said that the tax credit will more than pay for itself by encouraging companies to spend money and grow the solar industry. Several companies vowed to leave the United States entirely, and move their operations elsewhere, if the bill was not passed.

Over the next eight years, the 30-percent tax credit will create 440,000 permanent jobs, 35 gigawatts of renewable electricity, and foster the growth of a $300 billion market for solar energy. By the time this tax credit expires in 2016, the solar industry (and EcoGeek) expects solar power to be the least expensive form of energy.

Without the heroic actions of the House of Representatives last week, this simply would not have happened.

Very exciting.