Group Buying = Lowest Price for Solar. Ever.

November 14th, 2009 by Susan Kraemer

What with the Vice President promoting the PACE model of super affordable city financing for solar; and the econo-apocalypse-related drop in solar panel prices, you’d think that solar was in the bag by now, but group buying on top of all that will still buy the cheapest solar for your roof.

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For example, in the Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Desert Hot Springs and Coachella area, you could now get all your electricity free for the next 25-40 years for $10,000! That’s about $90,000 lower than you would have paid your utility for 25 years.

One Block off the Grid‘s completely unique model of group buying combined with the financing of their partnering banker SunRun (which offers one of the few solar financing options to remain viable in the downturn) has made group purchasing the cheapest way for going solar ever.

The solar company 1BOG selected for this neighborhood; HelioPower is able to install that neighborhood for $5.49 a watt—the lowest rate 1BOG has ever negotiated for their group discount.

Depending on where you live prices now are at an all-time record low price. Solar rates vary around the country — check out the solar quote tool to estimate the price for your house..

As One Block off the Grid (1BOG) becomes more known nationally, grassroots demand is bringing their volunteer-based campaigns to more cities around the country. The idea is to mass produce solar installations so they can be as cheap as utility scale solar.

The way it works is that anyone interested in going solar with their neighborhood can get in touch with 1BOG which then helps local volunteers figure out the logistics of organizing themselves into a neighborhood group and then the solar experts on the 1BOG team locate and vet the top solar companies in that area and then get them to compete with each other for the neighborhood install.

This pushes the installation cost down because it is much more efficient for a solar company to do a mass install in one neighborhood so they get all the building permits at one time; talking with one building department and one fire department.

Solar installation companies like neighborhood installs because it makes it possible to be efficient; much easier than driving in ten directions in one day to try and get in to ten different city building departments with ten different regulatory requirements and then install in ten different directions, which is ridiculously inefficient.

Despite the oft touted “advances in solar efficiency” as being what will make solar cheaper, the truth is that about half the cost of solar is always going to be simply getting guys on your roof to install it. By making this side of the solar cost equation cheaper, 1BOG makes a solar roof cheaper.

Image: Jim Thatcher

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Tags: 1 block off the grid, 1 BOG, Cheap Solar, cheapest solar, lowest price solar

About the Author

Susan Kraemer writes at CleanTechnica, CSP-Today, PV-Insider , SmartGridUpdate, and GreenProphet. She has also been published at Ecoseed, NRDC OnEarth, MatterNetwork, Celsius, EnergyNow, and Scientific American. As a former serial entrepreneur in product design, Susan brings an innovator's perspective on inventing a carbon-constrained civilization: If necessity is the mother of invention, solving climate change is the mother of all necessities! As a lover of history and sci-fi, she enjoys chronicling the strange future we are creating in these interesting times. Follow Susan on Twitter @dotcommodity.

Susan Kraemer

I sold solar power locally here in California, and you can in fact get get solar for as little as $10,000 with the 30% Federal tax credits, the group discount and the rebates that we have from our state. (Every state has different subsidies, state or utility rebates, utility rates, utility rate rises and solar potential and your own roof potential – so get a solar quote in your state)

It was only after doing solar estimates including the rising cost of utility electricity, that I found that electricity in the Bay Area costs about $75,000 for an average 550 kwh a month home over 25 years (CA PG&E rate rise is 6.7% since 1970).

By contrast, buying a solar roof to supply those same 550 kwh a month for $10,000, saves $65,000. Once you’ve spent the $10,000, the solar power for 25 years IS free.
Susan Kraemer

I sold solar power locally here in California, and you can in fact get get solar for as little as $10,000 with the 30% Federal tax credits, the group discount and the rebates that we have from our state. (Every state has different subsidies, state or utility rebates, utility rates, utility rate rises and solar potential and your own roof potential – so get a solar quote in your state)

It was only after doing solar estimates including the rising cost of utility electricity, that I found that electricity in the Bay Area costs about $75,000 for an average 550 kwh a month home over 25 years (CA PG&E rate rise is 6.7% since 1970).

By contrast, buying a solar roof to supply those same 550 kwh a month for $10,000, saves $65,000. Once you’ve spent the $10,000, the solar power for 25 years IS free.
http://andrewsenduroafrica2009.blogspot.com/ andrew

please, reconsider publishing such nonsense in the future as “you could now get all your electricity free for the next 25-40 years for $10,000.” It’s distracting and misleading.
http://andrewsenduroafrica2009.blogspot.com/ andrew

please, reconsider publishing such nonsense in the future as “you could now get all your electricity free for the next 25-40 years for $10,000.” It’s distracting and misleading.
Ted Ko

Hey, guys, while I love 1BOG and all they’ve accomplished, I’d recommend you at least mention somewhere that you’re part of the same company.
Ted Ko

Hey, guys, while I love 1BOG and all they’ve accomplished, I’d recommend you at least mention somewhere that you’re part of the same company.
Ted Ko

Hey, guys, while I love 1BOG and all they’ve accomplished, I’d recommend you at least mention somewhere that you’re part of the same company.
J

Great ! A piece of cake !

All you have to do is to convince everyone in your neighborhood to jump on board and at the same time!

Good luck with that

You’d have an easier time trying to get king Hussein oumgabama to show his phony birth certificate.
J

Great ! A piece of cake !

All you have to do is to convince everyone in your neighborhood to jump on board and at the same time!

Good luck with that

You’d have an easier time trying to get king Hussein oumgabama to show his phony birth certificate.