The California Solar Initiative has been very successful in inducing demand for distributed solar while preventing the herky-jerk of incentives starting then stopping customer demand [see: Spain].  There is a glide path—but we are approaching a big step down, and we are working hard to get our partners positioned appropriately. 

The big idea behind the CSI was to lay out a ten year glide path of incentives that decreased in step with projected system costs.

Step 6 down to Step 7 is percentage-wise the biggest decrement in the glide path, and it is difficult to see where we are going to be able to take ten percent out of the cost stack to restore equilibrium—or recruit investors at a 75bps lower return.

If we look at what has happened historically, you get an idea of what the next several months are likely to look like—a rush of epic proportions to get your claim reservation form in when we get close to the end of this step.  The vertical bars represent reservations made per month.  Note for Step 5 the monthly reservations volume tripled as the end neared.  This analysis was done by the good people at Santa Clara County [PBI numbers are governmental, not commercial] and says it all:

Here is where we presently stand:

We are encouraging all of our site hosts to move with us now.  For most of our partners, this next step down is a mid six figure loss on the value of their investment—easily preventable by Doing It Now.