Governor Crist's Clean Energy Budget Falls Short

Governor Charlie Crist's budget for 2010-2011 provides 2.1 billion for Florida's environment and includes all of the 176 million in clean energy funding from the federal government in the last fiscal year.  Total funding set aside for the state solar rebate program? $10 million.  That is barely enough to satisfy all of the Floridians who have already invested in solar and are still on the waiting list for rebates. That means that the Governor's allotment of funds will do nothing to spur additional incentive for energy consumers to invest in solar energy.  
 
With this budget and a large amount of federal funding to spend, the Governor missed a golden opportunity to add some stability to what is a highly volatile solar energy market in the state of Florida.  Refunding the Solar Rebate for 1-2 years or more would have been an effective way to spur additional investment and send a clear signal that Florida is going to be a leader in solar energy.

Certainly government incentives are not a long term solution to the weakness of the Florida solar market.  What is going to sustain the market is innovation and good business practices by companies looking to build their market share.  Also, creative purchase agreements at the municipal level will go a long way toward stability.

However, in order to invest in technology and the resources needed to deliver on quality products and services solar businesses need an initial impetus for consumers to take a serious look at the benefits of solar energy investment.  Given current economic conditions Florida consumers are wary of the significant initial investment required for solar energy despite the economic benefits of doing so.

Governor Crist appears to have spread out the money from the federal government to several different programs to set a wide base for a renewable energy industry whose direction is still very much unclear.  If he is planning to augment solar incentives with additional federal funding from the clean energy bill that is being debated in Congress then this budget will have been a good start.  If this is a one time distribution of significant funding then it is simply not enough to provide any significant boost to the solar energy market in Florida.