Michael Giberson
Tom Konrad, writing at Alternative Energy Stocks, notes that “current incentives for Solar photovoltaics are good for encouraging more solar, but they are less effective at encouraging better solar.” (Emphasis added.)
His quick review of policy options touches on renewable energy credits, feed-in tariffs, net metering, time-of-use rates, carbon pricing and other tools. Some policies subsidize construction of solar power capacity without much regard for the resulting solar power production. Other policies encourage maximizing the MWh output rather than the value of the power produced. If you want to be an informed analyst of solar power policy, you will want to know which policies do what.
(Konrad’s post is based on his presentation at Solar 2009: “Solar Incentives: Be Careful What You Wish For.”)