The Ohio Energy Office officially announced the new grant program promoting Solar Thermal Water Heaters on December 31, 2008. The grant program is described at the following link: http://www.odod.state.oh.us/cdd/oee/ELFGrant.htm#NOFA_09-03.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Solar thermal - what is the payback? What is typical system and costs?
Payback and system cost are difficult to generalize with Solar Thermal. A solar installer could give some general numbers if they had some basic info on the building. Solar thermal installations are much more site and building specific than PV because of the weight of the collectors, large size of storage tanks, the cost of the piping and the difficulty of running the piping thus making them hard to generalize.
- How do grantees take advantage of the tax credit with the grants funds?
Please consult tax advisor.
- Can applications to solar thermal NOFA include third party arrangements?
Under Commercial Renewable Energy NOFA 08-09, yes. Under the residential NOFA's, no.
- How many times can an applicant have a grant on file with OEO?
Only one 'open' grant agreement at a time.
- What is considered an applicant - individual who signs, entire entity, dept. or division of an entity?
Typically, a grant agreement is given to the entire entity (i.e. City of Cincinnati).
- Who gets the RECs?
OEO gets RECs unless the applicant explicitly requests them as part of their project.
- What percentage of RECs do applicants get - 100% or portion paid by them? Does OEO get the portion we paid?
TBD
- Can one applicant include many projects in one application?
The same applicant can receive grant funds for many individual projects. However, if company X wants to do a Solar Thermal, Solar PV and Wind project at their building the maximum amount of funding they can receive from the fund is not $150,000 for each technology / system but 150,000 total per applicant. The intent is to provide a greater distribution of the fund across the state rather than in one applicant's territory. The maximum incentive level is applied to each applicant.
- Is the incentive level available per building if an applicant includes more than one building in its application (i.e. application applies for 3 buildings in one application, so is the limit $100K for all three, or $300K for $100K per building)?
In the solar thermal NOFA, the maximum level is applied per applicant (i.e. $100,000 per applicant for market based projects)
- Can buildings, as part of their renovations, swap out a natural gas fired water heater with electric, and then apply for the program?
Yes but the Ohio Energy Office is not recommending customers engage in this activity.
Contact Aisha Tzillah, Community Development Analyst, at 352-6146 with questions.
