Category Archives: Solar Rebates

We’ve just learned that the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has voted to increase the California Solar Initiative’s Thermal Rebate (CSI Thermal program) for both residential and commercial customers. The residential rebate will go up by a significant 45% in … Continue reading →

California’s CSI Thermal rebate for commercial applications may be generous, but the three program administrators aren’t just writing checks for people to go solar thermal. Like any state incentive, there are specific requirements, and one of the biggest is performance … Continue reading →

Update: A few weeks after writing this post California’s Public Utility Commission (CPUC) did raise the rebate rates for its CSI Thermal program.  Despite a huge pot of incentive dollars available for commercial and residential solar hot water, California’s entire … Continue reading →

Free Hot Water often highlights California’s generous subsidies for solar hot water installations, but it’s not the only state committed to solar water heating. Arizona’s utilities all offer different—but valuable—solar hot water incentives for both residential and commercial installations. Of … Continue reading →

When California funded the CSI Solar Thermal program in 2010, part of the funding included a carve-out for marketing the program and educating the public about solar hot water’s benefits to consumers and businesses. That public awareness program is finally … Continue reading →

Once again, California is leading the way for solar hot water with a new solar thermal incentive, this time for low-income single-family properties and multi-family dwellings. Regular readers to the Free Hot Water blog are probably familiar with California’s CSI … Continue reading →

Progress Energy, a Raleigh, NC-based utility, has completed a previously announced study showing that its residential customers could save $235 a year, or 63% of the water heating portion of their electric bill. The utility also offers commercial solar thermal … Continue reading →

The lack of competition for solar water heating services in California is startling. Despite the rich solar thermal rebates that are available in California—and other states—there are few installers who can legally use them and collect the rebates. In fact, … Continue reading →

We’re proud to announce that we’ve received Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC) approval for our made-in-America 8000 series solar hot water collector. As Florida solar thermal installers and plumbers know, all collectors sold or manufactured in Florida must be certified … Continue reading →

Boulder, Colorado may have four seasons, including a full winter, but that hasn’t stopped this city of 100,000 from embracing solar energy in a big way—including solar hot water. Home of the University of Colorado and the National Renewable Energy … Continue reading →