Community Solar Programs Let Renters Share The Power

The New York Times:

What happens if a renter wants solar power?

Most of the time, it's tough luck, unless the home's owner agrees to add panels. But a new solution is springing up in pockets of the country: community solar arrays.

Read the whole story: The New York Times

Comments

[research]

02:03 PM on 03/22/2010

Nukes are 25 cents, not including proliferation, nuclear war, million years waste, and terrorists targets.

Check the assumptions Buzz uses: 4$ panels, 15 years life. 8$ Wp installed

Panels are available for 1$ per Wp,

panels last 30 years.

35/8 = 4.4 cents.

The standard installed solar study included lots of installation below 2$.

see my comment below, and my profile for complete detail and link.

[charles77]

01:45 PM on 03/20/2010

Solar is nowhere near ready for large-scale deployment and is at least 5 times higher than Coal or Nuclear.

Chu noted that solar power, for one, is still far too expensive to compete with conventional power plants (except on hot summer days in some places, and with subsidies). Making solar cheap will require "transformative technologies," equivalent to the discovery of the transistor, he said.
From MIT interview.
http://www.technologyreview.com/business/22651/page1/

Dr. Chu, was asked since solar is now a proven technolgy why are utilities not putting up millions of them. His response: "Solar technology, he said, will have to get five times better than it is today,“
http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/c/steven_chu/index.html

The real price of Solar is 35 cents a KwH and is tracked here on the Solar Industries own website:
http://www.solarbuzz.com/SolarPrices.htm

[research]

07:43 PM on 03/17/2010

it should reduce their electricity bill:

As cheap as 2$/Wp installed:
http://eetd.lbl.gov/EA/EMP/reports/lbnl-2674e.pdf

Page 16, list the installed cost from 2$ to 20$.

Notice that
35% of the system cost 7-8$
15% cost 6-7$
5% cost 5-6$
2% cost 4-5$
about 1% cost 3-4$
about .5% cost 2-3$
and 62 system were not included because they cost less than 2$

Solar Panels prices per peak watt have dropped from 8$ per Wp to less than 2$ per peak what.
98 cents 201001
http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/solar_panels.htm
see my profile for more details.