Renewable energy market analysis - Oregon

Given that the state of the renewable energy market has finally caught up with me on a personal and professional level, I figured that this was a good time to talk about it here.

Typically, renewable energy systems do not provide a net financial benefit to hosts / owners in and of themselves; given how cheap electricity is (for the moment), the up-front costs of installing a system still outweigh its lifetime benefits from a NPV perspective.  To make up that gap, state and federal incentives are available; the feds offer 30% of the eligible system costs as a tax credit in the first year after the system is completed, while state incentives fall largely into two categories- tax credits and Feed-in Tariffs.

Oregon has historically had a tax credit, the Business Energy Tax Credit, or BETC (pronounced Betsy) that offered a very attractive payback period for businesses that had the tax liability to offset.  However, this program has run afoul of some political turbulence over the last few years and appears to be on its way out.

To replace it, the new incentive program is a Feed-in Tarriff (FiT).  This essentially consists of a fixed duration net metering agreement with a particular power provider to sell the energy from a renewable energy system to them at a substantial markup, which assists utilities in meeting their renewable portfolio standard goals; the utility is, in turn, subsidized by the state.  Oregon's model is somewhat more complicated, but that's the gist.

The problem is that, from an accounting perspective, the FiT is not nearly as attractive an option as the BETC.  For one, it stretches out the payback period immensely- while a BETC-funded project will break even after ~7 years in many cases, FiT projects can take twice as long to turn around.  In addition, it exposes the investor to the risk that the system will underproduce and thereby yield less, leading to an even more protracted payback period.  So while it helps to open the field to businesses with lower tax appetites, it makes third party funding- a requirement for most of the large commercial installations that take place- for these projects considerably more difficult to orchestrate.

Regardless of the incentive program, however, these systems require two things in order to function: A state government with the money and will to fund them, and businesses in the state making enough money to be attracted to the tax breaks offered by these investment.  Unfortunately, at present Oregon has neither of these, and if economic projections are to be believed any further than augury by the reading of entrails or bird migrations, that looks to be the case for the foreseeable future.

So, what would need to happen for the renewable energy industry to be resuscitated?

1) A stable economy.  Like it or not, alternative energy is still viewed as a luxury, not a necessity, and luxury goods by and large gather dust during economic hardship.
2) Political will.  It's very tempting when your state is running a $350M budget deficit to avoid looking with hungry eyes at taxes that could be realized by cutting these incentive programs, and doing so will provoke considerably less widespread furor than many other potential cuts (health, education, infrastructure, and the like).  Oregon has a lot of representatives who are passionate supporters of renewables, and a lot of increasingly hungry people who will happily see them eviscerated for it.
3) Perhaps most importantly...  Energy just needs to cost more.  Oregon has incredibly low rates for electricity, and while it is politically unpopular on both sides of the aisle to suggest boosting them substantially, it is going to need to happen for renewable energy to stand a ghost of a chance of remaining viable in this state.