The City of Tucson is using a Tucson Electric Power subsidy program called SunShare to help pay for seven new photovoltaic arrays that will add more than 1 megawatt to the city’s solar generating capacity.

TEP will provide an estimated $4.7 million in SunShare incentives to the city over the next 20 years, covering about 60 percent of the cost of the arrays.

The systems, which are being built this year at recreation centers, office buildings and other city facilities, are expected to generate an amount of power equivalent to the annual electric usage of about 150 Tucson homes.

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TEP’s SunShare program provides incentives to help customers reduce the cost of installing photovoltaic systems. The program is funded through a surcharge on customers’ bills, and the energy generated by subsidized systems helps TEP achieve renewable energy goals set by the Arizona Corporation Commission. Through the end of 2008, there were 559 customers participating in the SunShare program who had installed a total of 1.6 megawatts of solar generating capacity.

For residential customers, SunShare offers up-front incentives of up to $3,000 per kilowatt of system capacity.