The Emerging Renewable Program (ERP)
The ERP provides incentives to encourage and support emerging technologies. The majority of fund recipients are small solar projects. The ERP is funded through the Public Goods Charge (PGC) created by Assembly Bill (AB) 18902. CEC staff receives and processes all program applications (with some contractor assistance), and authorizes individual rebate amounts. Rebates are based on installed capacity; current rebates for most solar PV installations are $2.80 per watt (affordable housing installations receive a higher incentive and self-installed installations a lower incentive). Since 1998, the ERP has allocated $371 million, mostly for residential incentives. To date, the ERP has installed over 50MW of solar projects. Earlier this year, the CEC initiated a pilot performance-based incentive program which pays per-kWh incentives based on the amount of electricity generated by the system over three years rather than initial installed system capacity.
2 Continued by SB 1194 and AB 995.
