About a year ago I heard of a company called Citizenre which is launching a new idea to bring solar energy to the masses. I often read about how we have an energy crisis. The cost of electricity continues to rise. Coal, nuclear, and natural gas power generation are expensive and pollute the environment. So why doesn’t everyone have solar power on their house? It’s too expensive to do. Nobody is willing to spend $20 – $30k to get solar panels on their house that only produce some of the electricity! Citizenre solves that problem. This little graphic below from the Citizenre website explains it very clearly. I’ll explain in more detail as you read on…
So in a nutshell here how Citizenre works.
- You pay a $500 refundable deposit to Citizenre.
- They come out and assess your home to see if it is feasible to put a solar panel system in place (if not they refund the deposit.)
- Once your home qualifies for the solar panel system Citizenre will come and install the system on your home and connect it to the local power grid (for free). Your home is still connected to the power grid and your local power company.
- Citizenre owns the system and does maintenance and upkeep for free. You are renting the system from them. If it ever breaks or needs replacing they do it for free.
- You pay Citizenre for the electricity produced from the solar panel system (you lock in the current going rate per Kwh that you pay to your electric company) Let me explain…
- As an example lets say you pay $.15 Kwh and you use 1000 Kwh a month. That’s an electric bill of $.15 x 1000 = $150.00 a month
- You install a Citizenre system and it produces 80% (or 800 Kwh) during that month. You pay the electric company 200 Kwh x $.15 = $30 and Citizenre 800 x $.15 = $120.
- As you probably noticed your electric bill is exactly the same as before… No savings… Well not yet, but you can feel good that the majority of your electricity is now being produced by solar power 😉 Imagine if even 10% of the population did this… how much clean electricity could we produce?
- The Savings – When you install a Citizenre system they will lock the rate per Kwh for the next 25 years! Your rate will not change during those 25 years. So as energy prices continue to rise (and they will) in a few years you might be paying $.25 or $.30 a Kwh from the electric company. There is a Solar Savings Calculator on the Citizenre website. The link to the website is below
Since I learned about Citizenre a year ago I have signed up to have the solar panel system installed on my home (I’m kind of a techy geek anyways so I like this kind of stuff). They are not installing systems yet (it’ll probably be a few months due to demand but coming soon.) Besides, being a customer I also signed up to be a marketing associate and spread the word. Yes I get a kickback if someone I refer signs up but I would share anyways because it’s such a cool concept. Read more about how Citizenre is changing the thinking on solar power!
Also please comment and let me know what you think about the concept! A brilliant idea… I just wish I would have thought of it first!
How the Solar Panel System Works
These screen shots come from the Citizenre website under “How Solar Energy Works” but I thought I would also share here for those that are interested.
LOL, my parents had solar for awhile, but only half-heartedly and bagged the idea in the late 80s, I’m sure its changed tons since then and actually saves money now instead of spending it.