How to set up Incentives

This article is in the Control zone of OpenSolar.  

Within OpenSolar, you are able to create custom incentives which can be applied to your projects.

In order to do this, navigate to Control > Other > Incentives.

From here you will be taken to a list of your current incentives where you can see which ones are applied or not:

In order to create a new incentive, simply click on the + Incentive button in the top right hand corner.

From here you can choose a

• Title - Easily identify this incentives
• Incentive Type - Choose from a drop of different incentive types to create the right one.
• Incentive paid to - Determine who the incentive is paid to as either the customer or the installer.
• Cap amount - Optional entry of a cap set on how much money can be paid through the incentive.
• Auto-Apply - This refers to whether you would like to automatically apply the incentives to your projects with optional geographic restrictions.

There are five kinds of incentives:

1. Performance Based Incentive

2. Size Based Incentive

3. Price Based Incentive

4. Fixed

5. STC Point of Sale Discount

Performance Based Incentive

This is an incentive which has 3 inputs:

• Value by year ($/kWh) - This is entered as Comma Separated Values (CSV) for each year. If you do not enter a value for every year then it will take the last value you gave and repeat it for the number of remaining years, applying the annual adjustment percentage (if supplied).
• Number of Years - This is simply a statement of how many years that this incentive will be valid for. This will limit how long it will simulate for.
• Annual Adjustment Percentage - This value sets the annual change in percentage for the price value. Positive numbers correspond to an increase and negative numbers correspond to a decrease.

For example, if we wanted to make the price $0.0375/kWh for 5 years and decreasing by 2% every year then it would look like this:

Size Based Incentive 

There are two main inputs for this incentive:

• Size Based Incentive Type - This decides whether the incentive is based on the size of the Solar System (kW) or the Battery system (kWh).
• Value per Unit - This sets the price that is paid per kW or kWh depending on the Incentive Type.

Price Based Incentive

• Price Base Incentive Type - You are able to set the incentive including or excluding tax.
• Percentage of Price (%) - This defines the incentive amount as a percentage of the price of the system.

Fixed

• Incentive Value - Simply a fixed amount which is paid. It is exclusive of tax.

STC Point of Sale Discount

• Incentive Price - This is the price of the certificate in $/kWh.
• Years Remaining - This is the number of years remaining for the incentive.

Depreciation Benefit

• Depreciation Basis - This sets the value for depreciation (e.g. system price, purchase price, net system price)

• Percentage of Basis - The percentage of the depreciation basis that can be depreciated 

• Default Tax Rate - The tax rate (federal or state) that will determine tax savings
• Tax Jurisdiction - Choose whether or not you are applying depreciation tax savings at the federal or state level
• Depreciation Per Year % - Percentage value for a single year or multiple years (CSV format) for the MACRS schedule 
• Non-discounted Incentive Amount in Quotation Table: Users have now the ability to either include or exclude the discount rate from the depreciation benefit incentive. It's available under Control>other> Incentives. We have added a new toggle under which you can choose your incentive type. If your incentive type is ‘Depreciation benefit’ then you can either turn the toggle on or off. When the toggle is off, it will turn off by default. When we turn it on then it will use the non-discounted value in the quotation table, and remove the discount from the incentive. 

Once you have finished editing, then ensure that you press the button at the bottom of the page.