Solar panels on your building? New York is now offering some serious tax breaks
Talking your board into solar energy just got a whole lot easier: Governor Cuomo yesterday signed into law a bill passed earlier this summer extending until 2017—and doubling—the current tax abatement for buildings that install solar panels.
The new measure will provide buildings that go solar with a tax break equivalent to either 5 percent of the total cost of panel installation; property taxes for the year the solar panels are installed; or a lump sum of $62,500, according to a release from Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal, who sponsored the bill. Residential homes, co-ops, condos, rental buildings, and commercial buildings are all eligible.
"Providing financial incentives to New Yorkers to install solar on their homes and businesses that will allow them to transition from dirty energy sources to renewable ones, will hasten our transition to a new green economy that is powered by wind, water and solar," Rosenthal says in the release.
If you need more numbers to bring to the landlord or board, here's a handy infographic estimating the cost of installing solar panels, how much they'll save you in energy bills over time, and how long it'll take for them to pay for themselves. And really, wouldn't we all like to lower that Con Ed bill?
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