Selling Homeowners a Solar Dream

slugo writes to mention a Wired article discussing a unique business looking to capitalize on interest in solar power. The Citizenr company will install a solar generator on your roof, completely for free. You then buy power from it, instead of a regular power company, at a fixed rate that's likely to be lower than the usual power fees. The company will make money on these usage fees, as well as credits from the federal government for spreading the use of solar power. If it sounds too good to be true to you, you're not alone. A number of financial analysts have warned people away from the company. "The naysayers are finding lots to say nay to. Much of the criticism is clinging to the company's multilevel marketing scheme. So far, more than 700 people have enlisted as independent Citizenr sales agents -- what the company calls 'ecopenuers' -- or about one sales representative for every 10 customers, with significant overlap. Heading that sales army is 42-year-old Styler, a veteran of multilevel marketing and a colorful figure in his own right." Pyramid marketing and shady business or not, it's an intriguing idea.

Comments

Hooray!

[mdsolar]

But, this is not completely free. There is a $500 deposit once you approve the design of the system.

One thing that confuses people about how this works is the idea of net metering. The system is designed to meet 100% of you power use over a year. It is not designed to meet you peak power use. Under net metering you build up kWh credits when the Sun shines and you are not using all of the power, and you use those credits at night or on cloudy days. The key thing is that the credits last for a year so the seasonal differences in power production and power usage can match up annually. There is good information on net metering laws at http://www.dsireusa.org/.

At least three shashdot users are selling rental contracts for this company and if there are more please let me know so I can add them to this list http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html.

Please remember that this is a startup and it is going to take time to get going. No money will be collected until the panels are ready for installation!

You must have missed a math class...

[btempleton]

Sorry to be rude, but you really need to be more accurate in your math if you're going to opine on this. First of all, it's not nearly so small a fraction wholesale. Typical costs installed are about $8/watt, which covers quite a bit more than the panels, which cost about $4/watt wholesale.

However, just take your $10,000 system. Now in reality that only will provide you with about $50 of electricity per month at $4/watt (2500 watts) but even if it did provide you with $150, you have forgotten what every mortgage holder knows -- that money today is worth far more than money (or electricity) in the future.

So $10,000 at 7% interest in fact takes 85 months, not 67 months to pay off at $150/month saving. This doesn't seem like a big difference, but it's because your price numbers are off. At the real price of solar, a $10K system provides, as noted, only $50 worth of power, and you can never, ever, in any number of months, pay off $10,000 at $50 per month because the interest per month is more than $50. So the math error becomes a difference between a real payoff rate and infinity.