The U.S. doesn't have an ideal solar policy, but at least it avoided the mistakes of Germany and Spain when it comes to feed-in tariffs. Earlier this week I spoke to Travis Bradford of the Prometheus Institute (Travis also writes reports for Greentech Media) and he reminded me why feed-ins aren't the perfect vehicle for promoting alternative energy. It's a good reminder because states and several national governments are tinkering with their policies right now. The problem with feed-ins is that the government tend to set the price of power from alternative sources relatively inflexibly. If set too high, it creates a boom in solar panel sales. Thus, taxpayers fund a solar manufacturing boom in China. If the country later tries to repeal or limit the feed-in, crushing surpluses and other problems emerge. Spain created the worst possible scenario by setting high feed-in prices and then attempting to cap the program. If feed-in prices are too low, they don't achieve their objectives at all. "If you have a policy that sets price it is by definition not going to be able to set the correct price," he said. Just thought you should know.