Renting solar panels: Can anyone find the catch? Is there one?

[miriamjoyce]

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

Comments

[hyoter]

yeah dennis was talking to me about this last week when i was at the market with my mom. it sounds like a good deal, but like you i kind of wonder if there is something i'm missing.
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.

[miriamjoyce]

We're not sure how our house will be either, but you don't have to make a commitment until after they design your system and tell you how much it will be able to generate, so we figure we'll find out.

[chezjake]

Sounds interesting, but their Flash-based website won't display *anything* in the way of useful information in Firefox, even with allowing all their scripts. All I get is blank pop-up windows.

If they can't design a usable website, I have doubts about the rest of their technology.

[miriamjoyce]

I had no trouble viewing it in Firefox (that's all I use).

[bratling]

I just tried the site in Firefox 2 and FireFox 1.0 and it works fine in both.

Might be a problem of some sort on your PC?

[chezjake]

Not a PC. Like you, I'm a Mac person. Brand new 24" iMac, Leopard (10.5.1), Firefox 2.0.0.11, Javascript enabled, with NoScript set to accept both of their domains.

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.

[tenner]

This seems very cool; pallagia and I were talking about photovoltaics yesterday morning and then you go ahead and post this last night. Brilliant.

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!

[bratling]

Bhakti and I are also pretty intrigued. Well, she's excited, I'm intrigued. I need to finish reading through the site but it may be worth it to us to get in line now. We're not planning on going anywhere for a while, and we have a big flat roof that gets a lot of sun throughout the day.

Miriam, thanks for bringing this to our attention...

[chezjake]

One thing I see that you should keep in mind is that they will only install a system that meets your *average* requirements.

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

[miriamjoyce]

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.)

[chezjake]

Just to add to the data being considered. Here is some weather data for Albany for the full year 2006:

POSSIBLE SUNSHINE (PERCENT) 46
NUMBER OF DAYS FAIR 155
NUMBER OF DAYS PC 126
NUMBER OF DAYS CLOUDY 84

[miriamjoyce]

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.

[chezjake]

You may also have a site-specific problem with the firehouse blocking afternoon sun -- not sure how much blocking there is at roof level.

[miriamjoyce]

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%.