Solarize N-NW Portland just ended (photo by Event Image Photography)

 If done right residential solarizing has a community feel about it.    

It is something neighbors can do together and it engages and binds a community. Solarizing is more than just bulk purchasing (lowering the cost barrier for homeowners) and putting solar panels on our home’s rooftop, solarize programs also drive local market transformation, create jobs, and generate collateral business.  These are all bonus in times of economic morass.    

Above all, solarizing stimulates demand for solar energy in the residential heartland of America.      

It is one of the paths our citizens need to move ourselves from the early adopter phase to mainstream.  After being involved in several solarize projects myself, including consultation with other communities’ solarize project leaders; hours spent in discussion with key solar stakeholders and policy-makers; plus tons of research and analysis; I see no major obstacles to achieving proliferation of solar panels on U.S. residential rooftops by 2016.    

Ten million rooftops, indeed. *   It may happen.    

The Solarize Approach      

Solar seeds were planted by DOE/NREL and harvested by the Portland Community

Solarizing is leveraging the buying power of a community.   

It promotes and coordinates group purchasing programs for home owners interested in solar power. Neighbors leverage their collective purchasing power to negotiate bulk discounts with local solar installation companies while securing their energy future with low-cost, grid-tied solar installations.  

Over the past two years we’ve proven this concept here in rainy Oregon, to the tune of hundreds of houses and megawatts installed of distributed rooftop solar power in cities such as Beaverton, Pendleton, Portland, Salem, and now rural Corbett (pop 2,300).   

These communities have seen the potential and/or garnered results when taking this approach, such as; an increase in demand, reduction in softcosts, volume pricing, local job creation, and overall process improvement. Portland’s certainly had our share of sucess and national attention, and I’m happy to report that this approach is being replicated and quickly expanding across America.   

Solarized Smart Meter (Image by Event Image Photography)

Here’s the reason why … it helps communities with: 

• • Market transformation

  • Reaching RPS objectives

  • Stimulating local economy and creating “green” jobs
  • Providing education and lowering costs for participants
  • Removing and/or streamline barriers to ubiquity
  • Engaging neighborhoods and creating a sense of community

All community-wide projects will have some direct benefit and cost that result from the goods and services it produces and the resources it uses.  My own experience working with on Solarize Portland taught me about social benefits gained by the local community.     

Solarize campaigns create jobs and produce results

I learned that a community solarize program not only creates jobs, it generates collateral business.  Besides the obvious labor involved with solar system installations, others shared in this economic opportunity, some associated with upstream activities like marketing, education and support activities. (e.g. promotional and educational printed materials, yard signs, database support, and workshops.)  

In our case it also included job referrals for roofers, tree trimmers, inspectors, and electricians, who were hired as a result of one of our solar resource assessments.  The City of Portland itself received a financial benefit from the collection of required permit fees and so on.     

Net direct social benefits for communities derived from this approach include:     

• Solar demand creation and impact on the region
• Local market transactions and business for local tradespeople
• Educating  and creating outreach opportunities that increase awareness of renewable energy
• Local job creation like use of an electrical company who employs local residents
• Engaging students at local schools and then hiring to support outreach efforts like sign-making, distributing flyers, tabling at farmer markets, etc…
• Sponsoring of public events
• Lowering of CO2 emissions
• Promotion of the objectives and accomplishments of the community project itself in local, regional, and national publications and media outlets
• Revenue generated from permits, inspections, ads placed in local media, etc…

Lee Rahr (Portland BPS) presents the Solarize program concept

There are many paths to the mountain top …

The group purchase models recently deployed in the U.S. have all been designed to make it easier for the end-user to get solar installed on their home.  This approach has been modified and tested in several different markets and geographic locations, and by varied sponsors using group purchasing strategies to accelerate the number of solar installations in a given community or subset.   

For example:   

The SOLARIZE Guidebook

The Solarize model used so successfully in Oregon has been replicated by non-profit organizations – in Seattle by Northwest Sustainable for Economic Development (NW SEED) and in Santa Barbara by the Community Environmental Council (CEC) – and now also by enterprises like the Clean Energy Logistics Lab’s Solarize Now! group discount campaign (Gainesville, FL).  www.SolarizeNow.org   

Coordinated by our Solar Oregon buddy, Hadley Price, Clean Energy Logistics Lab, also called CELL, is an American-owned entrepreneurial business which partners with nonprofit organizations, community organizations and other solar initiative programs to promote installation of solar power photovoltaic (PV) and hot water systems.   

The Minnesota Renewable Energy Society coordinated a different kind of a group purchase in Minneapolis – a residential solar water heating (solar thermal) system program. And, the City of San Jose developed a group purchase program organized to encourage its employees to install PV systems on their homes utilizing a special financing deal with partners San Jose Credit Union,  SunPower Corporation and SunWater Solar.   

1BOG has now gone national!

For-profit enterprises are well-established in this methodology and are competing for homeowner or end-user participation and dollars. The top companies in this category are …   

One Block off the Grid (1BOG)  http://1bog.org/.  Started in San Francisco in 2008, 1BOG is in many respects the pioneer of the solar group discount approach. The name “One Block off the Grid” is a metaphor for freeing the world from its dependency on non-renewable power sources one block at a time. They continue to aggregate group buying initiatives based on demand generated through their website, promotions and partnerships.  Just last month 1BOG expanded their services to the entire country. Company founder Dave Llorens explains 1BOG’s success by stating “If you get 200 people getting the same deal, and they know experts have negotiated it, they’re a lot more comfortable taking the plunge.”   

Backed by the same early investors in Groupon, New Enterprise Associates, 1BOG draws frequent comparisons. 1BOG charges solar project contractors .25 cents per watt on a closed customer contract for the marketing, pre-assessment, online infrastructure and customer experience management, and says the discount value proposition to the solar contractor and homeowner comes from group purchasing.   

Neighborhood Solar Discount Power Program http://neighborlysolar.com/.  One of the very first group purchase programs in America was formed to educate homeowners and promote residential solar energy installations in the Denver Metro area. Neighborhood Solar organized homeowners into collective solar purchasing groups and negotiated significant discounts with local solar installation companies on their behalf.  Neighborhood Solar is not affiliated with any solar installation company and does not perform solar installations. They act as an independent buyer’s agent with the goal of providing the best value to residential solar purchasers while helping installers put up more solar at reduced overhead costs.      

Solarize is ... neighbors helping neighbors

Open Neighborhoods http://openneighborhoods.net/gosolar. The Open Neighborhoods community solar program began with a group of eco-minded Los Angeles residents who joined together to flex their group purchasing power and make a bigger impact in their community. Over 130 residents participated in a series of events and free solar assessments in 2009. Solar panels were installed on 32 homes in what became the largest group solar installation in LA history.   

Group Energy  http://mygroupenergy.com/.  A new company (established in July 2011) GroupEnergy pioneered the employee solar group-buy model to help organizations nationwide achieve corporate social responsibility and sustainability goals. [nee Jessie Denver / San Jose] GroupEnergy enables their client companies the benefit of home energy improvements to their workforce or community while achieving the sustainability goals of the organization.   

Solar Contractor / Installer – SolarCity    Of course solar contractor companies, large and small, have initiated their own residential solar group buy programs too.   SolarCity, a leader in this category, has partnered with Northern California communities like the Mountain View (CA) Solar Buyer’s Group Co-op, and has expanded that approach across the entire country, including here in Oregon.   

Residential Solarize Campaigns – by State

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* Ten Million Solar Roofs and Ten Million Gallons of Solar Hot Water Act

The U.S. Senate has introduced the “Ten Million Solar Roofs and Ten Million Gallons of Solar Hot Water Act” by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) chairman of the Senate’s green jobs subcommittee, along with nine co-sponsors. This legislation will encourage the installation of 10 million solar power (PV) systems and 200,000 solar water heaters (SWH) on the rooftops of homes and businesses over the next decade. It would authorize rebates and other incentives to cover up to half the cost of the solar power and heating systems. If made into law, non-profit groups and state and local governments would also be eligible.

http://www.seia.org/galleries/pdf/SEIA_10million_Factsheet.pdf

As of this post date, this legislation has not been passed by the U.S. Congress.

For more on this subject, check out my March ’11 post entitled “Solar Rooftops” http://solarflareblog.com/?p=1894