The "Solar Trap" Snaps on California Homeowners, I Mean Taxpayers! - Granite Grok

The “Solar Trap” Snaps on California Homeowners, I Mean Taxpayers!

Solar Energy BoondogglesBack in August of 2015 I wrote about the slings, arrows, and outrageous (mis) fortunes that could befall homeowners who took the bait and “bought in” on residential solar installations being peddled by more vendors than you could count.

If you are not scared off by the fly-by-night nature of the vendors, the sketchy nature of the incentives, unrealistic savings promises, or even the 20-year lien on your property, how about the loss of value and hidden taxes resulting from rising electricity rates, from which you will never escape?

In California, about 50,000 homeowners bought into the scheme and now find themselves unable to sell their homes.

(Hot AirTens of thousands of Californians signed up for the Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing program which provided them with funding for installing such energy efficient goodies over the past several years, but now they’re finding their homes stalled on the market when they want to sell them.

Obama and the Democrats voted to fund these programs at the federal level and incentivized states to do the same, and where there is a trough, there will be pigs. Millions of residential installs ensued, many right here in New Hampshire.

I can’t say whether anyone heeded my warnings back in 2015, but over on the left coast, the pressure from disgruntled homeowners and their mortgage holders motivated politicians, state regulators, and the Obama White House to shift the default burden onto the backs of the neighbors of the folks who got the ‘great deal’ on residential solar.

“…if the homeowners couldn’t figure out what this was going to do to their home’s resale value and wind up going under, the FHA agency will get their money back first, and you (as the taxpayer) will get stuck with the bill for the rest of the value lost in the default.”

Here’s how I closed my plea.

Do us all a favor. Don’t line up at one trough just so you can spend more to fill others. Throw that ‘great deal’ in the trash. The free solar isn’t free. The only people who win are the big environmentalists trying to kill reliable and affordable energy, the bigger-government crowd looking to use more bailouts to warp and control the marketplace, and the confidence schemers selling solar out of the back of a van until the next great taxpayer-backed scheme comes along.

Free solar is a trap and someone has to pay. It will most likely be you, but it could just as easily be the rest of us.

California taxpayers are on the hook. If New Hampshire homeowners who took the bait get caught in the same trap, they’ll get out at your expense. And you can’t say I didn’t warn you.

 

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