Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric Vail
I met with a company yesterday and he was telling me that he expects the prices of Solar Panels will go up on Tuesday with the tarrifs coming in and that the 10 year interest free loan program was likely getting cancelled soon.
Any thoughts on whether this is true, or is in a tactic to put pressure on me to make a quick decision?
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That seems like a pressure sales tactic not rooted in reality.
There is some truth to the loan piece. We are expecting about a 6 month or so runway on it but that's not based on anything released by the government, moreso our evaluation on average loan amount and uptake numbers. As I mentioned earlier on this thread, the government did announce a $600 million infusion into the loan program back in December, but it did come out afterwards that this has yet to be funded and needs to go through a vote here and so I'm not holding my breath on it at this point. If it did get approved it should extend the program out into 2026.
When the grant ran out of funding last February the government announced that it was running out of funds on November 10th, 2023, and the program closed on Feb 19th, 2024. I'd assume they'd give another heads up if that were the case with the loan.
In regards to the tariffs, we had a meeting this morning where it was confirmed that the only piece of our projects that is affected is the electrical panels and parts that we order from GE (which are only required in a small number of projects). We're looking for an alternative but we also have stock to last us a full year so pricing won't be affected for some time. Most Tier 1 solar equipment is produced in China so tariffs shouldn't have an effect on most companies.
Also if you met with a door knocking company, avoid avoid avoid.