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  • TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE?

    Filed at 3:29 pm under by dcobranchi

    CitizenrÄ“ will supposedly install a solar panel system on your home for “free.” The deal is that you pay the going rate for the electricity the panel generates. The lease is 25 years and the company keeps all of the federal and state rebates and incentives.

    Still, it looks like a good deal (too good?) for the homeowner. Am I missing something?

    9 Responses to “TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE?”


    Comment by
    COD
    December 31st, 2006
    at 3:47 pm

    If they pocket all the rebates and incentives, and you pay what you would normally pay anyway, where is the benefit for the homeowner? The warm fuzzy from using solar power doesn’t buy groceries.


    Comment by
    Daryl Cobranchi
    December 31st, 2006
    at 4:05 pm

    Your electric rate (via the solar cells) is fixed for 25 years.


    Comment by
    COD
    December 31st, 2006
    at 4:10 pm

    How much of your power needs will a solar panel cover? That might be significant if it generates 1/2 your power. If it effectively heats a cup of coffee each day…not so much.

    Also, I wonder what electric rates will look like in 20 years? One would hope that advances in solar cell efficiency will finally make the technology feasible for everybody sooner rather than later.


    Comment by
    Daryl Cobranchi
    December 31st, 2006
    at 4:22 pm

    I believe they try to oversize the system so that you actually generate more electricity than you use. They then sell the excess electricity back to the local utility at the going rate. So, if electricity goes up to $1 per kWh, they’ll be making a pretty penny off your roof.


    Comment by
    speedwell
    January 1st, 2007
    at 11:45 am

    You must maintain a dedicated residential telephone line. Again, if you fail to maintain a connection with your local telephone service, this may be grounds for default in the Forward Rental Agreement, and your REnU may be removed.

    Huh? Why?

    And 25 years is far longer than most people own homes. Is the service plan transferable? I don’t have a cell phone because I can’t stand, for one thing, the idea of being locked into a two-year contract. What if you decide, eighteen months in, that the customer service is lousy and you don’t want to deal with them anymore? Penalties and fees, like most of the current electricity providers in Texas charge? Is your payment tied to inflation, so that your electricity rate stays the same in real terms but the actual dollar amount changes like a commodity? I will have to look at their Terms of Service.

    Plus, I have a little bit more faith in technology than they and their indentured subscribers apparently do. In 25 years, electricity generation is going to have to get cheaper, because the currect situation with oil is not going to be supportable unless we find a massively cheap way to harvest the oil shale in Alberta. Which we might do. Whether we do or don’t, I would bet that the cost of electricity generation will go down so far over the next 25 years that paying 2007 rates for electricity will make their subscribers look like the people still maintaining horse-drawn carriages and footmen when everyone else had a car.


    Comment by
    Unique
    January 1st, 2007
    at 11:56 am

    I’d rather see them provide a rent to own option with a contract for maintenance and upgrade.

    I have no problem with people making money but I have a real problem with my paying someone to make money for themselves – especially when my own benefit is not very well defined.

    Warm fuzzies don’t do it for me. Show me the money.

    BTW – Progress Energy’s buyback for solar production by consumers is highly skewed in their favor.


    Comment by
    Mike Mahaffie
    January 1st, 2007
    at 12:36 pm

    Interesting. What would it cost to just have he solar panels added without signing for 20 – 25 years? I wonder what you’d learn from getting several estimates?
    I’d love to find a roofing company that was into this sort of business….


    Comment by
    Daryl Cobranchi
    January 1st, 2007
    at 1:27 pm

    What would it cost to just have he solar panels added without signing for 20 – 25 years?

    I priced these a while back. Residential solar power costs roughly 37 cents/kWh spread over the expected 25 year life span of the panels. Federal and state incentives might knock 10 – 15 cents off that estimate. You’ll want to find an installer who specializes in roof-mounted solar installations. A roofer would not have the electrical expertise required.


    Comment by
    Audrey
    January 1st, 2007
    at 3:47 pm

    We have solar supplemental on an open grid, which means that whatever we produce over what we use will get redirected to the main grid (and we get nothing back for it), and if we need more than we can produce we draw off the main grid (at added expense to us). We get no incentives, rebates, etc. Even the open grid kind of gives us the short end of the stick. However, the whole thing cost us 7800$ CDN six years ago. When the barns are full we actually do have to pay Hydro a bit each month. The biggest hydro bill we had last year was slightly less than 50$. Total hydro expense last year was >120$. In years previous to that the average yearly hydro was around 3000$. We’ve certainly recouped our initial expense and then some. We’re happy with it.