People living in Yakima who are interested in installing solar panels as part of the Solarize Yakima campaign are invited to attend one of three upcoming workshops in order to qualify for a free site assessment and a group discount on installation costs. The campaign is a partnership between the City of Yakima and Spark Northwest, a non-profit committed to accelerating a shift to clean energy one community at a time.
Workshops will be held on Thursday, August 15th at Yakima’s Harman Senior Center (101 N. 65th Avenue), Wednesday, September 25th at the Henry Beauchamp, Jr. Community Center (1211 S. 7th Street), and Thursday, October 24th at the Yakima County 1st Street Conference Room (223 N. 1st Street). All of the workshops will begin at 6:00 pm and last about 90 minutes. The September 25th workshop will be conducted in Spanish.
People can register for one of the workshops by clicking on the following link – https://solarizenw.org/campaigns/2317/.
“Many people don’t realize that the price of solar has dropped over 50% in the past five years, so going solar is more achievable than you might think,” said Jill Eikenhorst, Spark Northwest Project Manager.
A volunteer committee is currently undergoing a competitive process to select a local solar installer to provide group purchase installations during the Solarize Yakima campaign. Participants in the campaign will be eligible for the group discount in addition to a federal tax incentive for the installation of solar energy.
That incentive, however, won’t be around for long. A federal tax credit will step down in value beginning in 2020, from 30% of the installation cost this year to 26% for systems installed next year.
The Solarize Yakima campaign is part of the Solar Plus initiative, a three-year joint effort led by the Washington State Department of Commerce and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies office, and is intended to develop strategies for increasing solar energy and modernizing energy infrastructure.
Spark Northwest was founded in 2001 and, through renewable energy projects and policy reform, envisions a region powered by clean energy.