This sounds completely awesome. I learned about it at the Troy Farmer's Market this morning. It's basically a long-term leased solar power system for your home. The upfront cost is a $500 security deposit. You lock in a monthly rental rate for the equipment based on the current price of electricity now, and it doesn't go up for 25 years. It's tied
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of course our house is not so great for doing this anyway. our south facing side is the front of the house and the roof is really complicated and part shaded much of the time.
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If they can't design a usable website, I have doubts about the rest of their technology.
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I had no trouble viewing it in Firefox (that's all I use).
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Might be a problem of some sort on your PC?
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Turns out I can see most of the site except for their Javascripts for "How Solar Energy Works" and the all-important "Service Territory and Rates." It's the rates one I tried first, and all I get is a blank pop-up window.
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Our exact problem is that we would absolutely love to set up a PV system, but we can't afford the up-front costs. We have a huge sloped roof facing the south and above the treeline so I think we could probably generate enough power for the rest of the neighborhood. We're perfect candidates for this.
Let us know what you find!
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Miriam, thanks for bringing this to our attention...
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Here's the quote: Citizenrē guarantees that your REnU is designed to produce as close to your average electricity needs as possible, given the characteristics of your house and location.You need to read this as they are *not* going to install a system that produces more than your average need, so you can't ever expect to have any significant income from selling power to the grid. In fact, you need to check your own state's regulations on this, because some states basically allow you to earn credit toward your electric utility bill, but you won't get paid anything for any excess over your own total usage ( ... )
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It was my understanding that they weren't going to install a larger system than your needs specifically because you're not likely by law to be able to earn money that way so it wouldn't be worth it for you. The calendar year provision would suck though--we should check NY's laws, but I don't think it has that.
Also though, the expected savings to be generated is not from generating extra power above what you use, it's from having fixed costs rather than rising costs like everyone else. The utility intertie is more for not having to have batteries in your basement, not for generating income. (Again, yes, if you lose credits on Jan. 1st that wouldn't work.)
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POSSIBLE SUNSHINE (PERCENT) 46
NUMBER OF DAYS FAIR 155
NUMBER OF DAYS PC 126
NUMBER OF DAYS CLOUDY 84
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I don't think anyone expects to be able to generate all of our electricity by solar up here; the question is is there a way for it to be cost effective to generate as much as one can. Yes, if we have a cloudier than average year, it won't be as good a deal, just like a colder winter means a higher gas bill. But that by itself is not an argument against the business model.
We will certainly need to run the numbers when we actually get them and see for ourselves if they make sense. After all, a small system that generates some of your power won't run into the problem of worrying about losing huge built up credits at the end of the year. You'll just have smaller monthly bills all along. As long, of course, as the savings offsets the panel rent, which is the $8,000 question. I think we may need to go through the site review and then crunch our own numbers to know that. If the engineers don't have info like you have above at their fingertips, then we would have a problem.
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OK, so here are a few more tidbits on the summer-winter carryover issue:
(1) Chezjake was assuming that we use more electricity in the winter, but unless you have electric heat or don't use air conditioning at all ever, that's not true. Even if it is true, it's not likely to be a huge gap: in winter there's less stress on fridges and computer fans, which helps offset longer use of lights.
(2) I asked this question of our local rep for Citizenre, and he said it may also not necessarily be by calendar year in NY: "There are incentives for the utility to keep its cash pay-outs low and choose a end-of-year day sometime in early spring."
Also, in case anyone was wondering:
(1) The connection fee you have to keep paying to the utility in NY in $16.41/month and Citizenre does subtract that out when calculating panel rent, so that your per kWh price for electricity starts out exactly the same as it has been.
(2) The savings calculator they have assumes an annual price increase of 2.1%. Recently it has actually been about 6%.
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