California Town Goes Solar, Collectively

[debs]

Thirty-six families in Clovis California joined together in a group-based purchase program, which raised 215 total kilowatts of solar power.

http://www.enn.com/pollution/article/27442

[bruce]

This is how you do something good for the environment. You use some initiative and take action. You don't wait for Congress to pass a bunch of laws. You do it yourself to save the environment and save money. Good for them.

It's good that select small communities are doing this sort of thing. Hopefully this will expand to cities and states in the future.

[LMagic007]

Hot Stuff !

[* star *]

Nice one, good for them

[Danno]

Very nice, It would be great to see people in my townhome community get togather and purchase a system collectively like they did.

[Deathridesahorse]

Check this out...

http://www.beyondbuildingenergy.com/

:P :P :P

[LMagic007]

Yes a number of companies now offer rental options for solar PV systems. Generally speaking, I think this type of concept has great potential.

See also among others; http://renu.citizenre.com/index.php?p=svc_overview

http://www.inhabitat.com/2007/01/17/...-solar-panels/

http://www.solargies.com/

Disclaimer : I have no vested interest in these companies. Professor Google found it for me under the search key words of: rent solar

[macgardener]

This is good to see. Purchasing collectively or renting should put solar energy within the reach of more people. At the moment it still feels like a luxury for wealthier environmentalists or people who live sufficiently remotely that solar power is financially comparable to connecting to the grid.
My problem with the first link is that it reads too much like an advertisement for the company. I would really like to have read more about how the thirty-six families got together and made the decision.

[LMagic007]

Yes that could be interesting. ENN as the acronym suggests is an environmental news network and I think like many media outlets, much of their coverage involves news about commercial entities activities. It's news of public interest I guess.

Bear in mind that ENN also cover stories that are not so commercially related though and if they are, the stories are not always glowing reports, but sometimes quite the reverse.

I did not get the distinct impression of commercial bias from the story more than one could reasonably expect and especially not from the ENN home page. With that said, I suspect like many media outlets, ENN may itself be a commercial entity, but the reality of things is, that commerce is a major force in the world and business have to generate income. The source of the article of course being SolarCity, whom one might naturally expect to have nice things to say about themselves.

http://www.enn.com/

http://www.solarcity.com/

Understanding the process that lead to the community action could be interesting though. Perhaps you could ask ENN to do a follow up story with SolarCity, that addresses your very questions.