Maybe solar for homeowners works when you're Al Gore and have a 10,000sf house and use 16,000KwH of electricity each month.
For the rest of us....
I live in Austin, Texas and we had the hottest summer in my lifetime this year. My peak month of electic use was in August 2011 when I used 1,100 KwH of electicity in my 3/2/2 home, at a cost of about $112. My September usage was between 900-1000 KwH, at a cost of about $94.
So let's say I spend $20,000 to put solar panels on my home and save 15%. I can save $10-15 a month during the summer and a few bucks a month the rest of the year. What's my packback, my ROI? There is none.
In the extremely not very likely best case, suppose I was to spend $15,000 and save 30%... totally unrealistic, but what the heck, we're trying to be "green" here. In this hypothetical case, I could save maybe $300 a year on electricity costs. My packback would only be 50 years!
Not long ago, a homeowner or commercial property owner who wanted to install solar on their rooftop had to have a chunk of cash readily available to cover the rather hefty upfront costs. Solar companies, realizing they’re missing a big piece of the market, are now offering third-party financing options such as leases or power purchase agreements. The financing and leasing options have proven popular.
Sungevity, SolarCity and SunRun all offer financing. Even Google has jumped into the third-part financing game. The search engine giant (and clean energy investor) created a $280 million earlier this year with SolarCity to help finance residential solar installations. Other recent entrants include Clean Power Finance and One Roof Energy.
And today, Vivint Solar announced it will offer financing for 2,400 solar projects currently in its pipeline via $75 million funded by US Bancorp.
Check out these two charts from GTM Research’s Solar Market Insight, which Greentech Media highlighted today, that show the rise in third-part financing. Keep in mind the charts only focus on California.
The second chart shows the same trend with non-residential installs. Note that third-party financing grew from 7 megawatts in the fourth quarter of 2010 to 17.6 MW in the first quarter of this year.
[Via: Greentech Media/GTM Research]
Photo: Wayne National Forest
