Solar Power Is Now an Option for Even the Most Cash-Strapped Suburbanites

A solar lease is a fairly simple arrangement that is not unlike a car lease. Instead of dishing out tens of thousands of dollars upfront to buy and install a rooftop solar array, homeowners simply borrow one for a low monthly fee. Like a car lease, customers sign a contract that locks them in for a specified period of time with the option of extending their lease or buying the panels at the end of the contract. It makes sense when you consider that a typical homeowner would have to cough up between $20,000 and $50,000 to buy and install a solar panel system. A solar lease, on the other hand, would only cost them somewhere around $100 a month.

California, the world's third-largest solar-power market, saw twice as many people file for solar power permits in 2009 than in 2008, with much of the surge in demand being driven by this newfangled solar product. (Demand is so high that a black market for stolen solar panels has sprung up in the Golden State.)

SolarCity, one of the first companies to aggressively market solar leases, signs people up for 15-year contracts that run an average of $110 a month (with a 3.5-percent increase every year). SolarCity says customers can typically expect to shave 15 percent off their electricity bill from day one, with savings potentially growing over time if energy costs continue to rise. Competing companies -- like SunRun out of San Francisco or American Solar Electric out of Scottsdale -- offer the same basic deals.

http://www.alternet.org/environment/145205/solar_power_is_now_an_option_for_even_the_most_cash-
strapped_suburbanites


http://www.solarcity.com/residential/solar-lease.aspx

we need one here

robert wrote:

A solar lease is a fairly simple arrangement that is not unlike a car lease. Instead of dishing out tens of thousands of dollars upfront to buy and install a rooftop solar array, homeowners simply borrow one for a low monthly fee. Like a car lease, customers sign a contract that locks them in for a specified period of time with the option of extending their lease or buying the panels at the end of the contract. It makes sense when you consider that a typical homeowner would have to cough up between $20,000 and $50,000 to buy and install a solar panel system. A solar lease, on the other hand, would only cost them somewhere around $100 a month.

California, the world's third-largest solar-power market, saw twice as many people file for solar power permits in 2009 than in 2008, with much of the surge in demand being driven by this newfangled solar product. (Demand is so high that a black market for stolen solar panels has sprung up in the Golden State.)

SolarCity, one of the first companies to aggressively market solar leases, signs people up for 15-year contracts that run an average of $110 a month (with a 3.5-percent increase every year). SolarCity says customers can typically expect to shave 15 percent off their electricity bill from day one, with savings potentially growing over time if energy costs continue to rise. Competing companies -- like SunRun out of San Francisco or American Solar Electric out of Scottsdale -- offer the same basic deals.

http://www.alternet.org/environment/145205/solar_power_is_now_an_option_for_even_the_most_cash-
strapped_suburbanites


http://www.solarcity.com/residential/solar-lease.aspx

we need one here

The savings don't appear to remotely offset the monthly lease fee.

not short term... but consider this; at some points you will be drawing less power than the system provides... you will share in the sale of the power pumped into the grid... and you are "locked" in at that energy rate... get rid of your gas appliances for additional savings....