California governor signs solar tax incentive bill

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California adds lease-back solar system to a tax incentive program.

California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill broadening the tax incentives available for solar power projects in the state and to make sure creative and unusual ways of paying for them are also protected.

Brown signed ABX1 15, introduced by Assembly member Jerry Hill (D-San Mateo), which revises the official definition of “active solar energy systems.”

Under some circumstances, solar power systems added to a property are excluded from tax rate reassessment. This bill adds solar power systems sold in sale-leaseback arrangements to that exclusion.

“Newly constructed active solar energy systems are often sold in sale-leaseback arrangements or others transactions to purchasers,” the Assembly said in its analysis of the bill. “It is the Legislature’s intent that the purchaser of the active solar energy system in such a transaction receive an exclusion.”

Read more in the San Francisco Business Times.