If your home or business is located in San Diego County, chances are your electricity provider is either San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) or Imperial Irrigation District (IID), both of which provide generous solar rebates. SDG&E’s incentives are part of the CSI, a statewide incentive program that provides rebates for residential and commercial installations alike. The rebate you would be eligible for depends on the expected performance of your solar system as well as the total capacity of all the systems linked into your utility at the time of your rebate application.

One important thing to keep in mind, though: while the CSI rebate currently stands at $1.10/watt for all residential and commercial projects under 30 kW, this rebate will fall to $0.65/watt once the CSI allocates the megawatts remaining in its current incentive level (level 6), so act quickly. To see how this works, GetSolar has a guide to navigating the ins and outs of the CSI here.

IID customers are eligible for similar rebates for solar homes and businesses, although the incentives are limited to solar photovoltaic arrays. (The CSI will be launching a solar hot water program starting April 2010, although IID has yet to announce a similar initiative for its customers.) A $2.60/watt rebate for residential systems up to 15 kW, commercial/industrial systems up to 300 kW and government/non-profit systems up to 400 kW is available. Once you’ve submitted a Reservation Confirmation Form, along with a $100 deposit, you have six months to find a solar installer and get your solar PV system up and running. Furthermore, you are required to submit a few additional forms and applications (outlined and found on the IID website) in order to receive official approval for a system, which is necessary in order to receive a rebate.

Add to this the 30 percent federal tax credit available for residential solar systems—which is capped at $2,000 for systems installed after 2009—and San Diego’s solar incentives offer plenty of reasons to turn to the sun. However, no good news arrives without unwanted company: as Margaret reported last week, solar permitting fees in the city of San Diego have soared sixfold over the past month, from $93 to $565. Once the third-cheapest city in the county to go solar, San Diego is now the second most expensive, trailing behind only National City. Still, plenty of cities in San Diego county impose permitting fees roughly less than or equal to the value the Sierra Club deems fair ($324), with the majority staying well below the $300 mark. (A comprehensive list of solar permitting fees in the county can be found here. For those who live in the city of San Diego, the hike in permitting fees is undoubtedly a sudden roadblock. But if solar is right for you otherwise, it will only be a short matter of time before these added costs are recouped.

Fortunately, those building new homes in San Diego County are exempted from paying the building permit and plan check fees for any residential photovoltaic systems, thanks to the county’s Green Building Program. San Diego also recently introduced its Solar FIRST program, an initiative that would allow homeowners to finance their solar panel installations through a loan from their municipal government and repaying the loan over twenty years through a surcharge on their property tax bill, thus relegating the debt to the property owner and making it easier to buy and sell a solar home. While San Diego County could make a few of its permitting fees more digestible, it’s clear from the rebates on offer that it is, on the whole, committed to advancing solar homes and businesses.

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Originally conceived in Berkeley, CA, the new approach is catching on. The League of California Cities and the California Association of Counties has organized California FIRST, a government coalition dedicated to encouraging municipal governments to adopt PACE financing for solar.

Last Wednesday, San Diego County became the latest to enlist, when the Board of Supervisors agreed to join California FIRST. “Sadly, our region has not even begun to tap into the potential of rooftop solar,” Board Chairwoman Dianne Jacob said. “I am very excited and very eager to plug into this program and get it off the ground.”

At the outset, PACE funding will be available only for solar energy installations, though in the future other renewable energy and energy efficient applications may become eligible. The county will pay $25,000 to join the coalition. Cities within the county must join, too, in order for their residents to participate in the financing arrangement.

The benefits of PACE funding are three fold. First, upfront costs for the homeowner are minimal: after an application fee, all that is due in year one is the newly assessed property tax. Second, payments are amortized over 20 years and, presumably, the relative terms are better than what’s available from private lenders. Third, the debt stays with the property, not the property owner. This mean that, if a homeowner decides to sell, the revised property tax assessment is the responsibility of the buyer. While this may seem unfair from the buyer’s perspective — no one likes higher property taxes, after all — but remember that the property’s cost of ownership is lower because the solar PV system reduces monthly electricity costs.

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