Selling Homeowners a Solar Dream 279
slugo writes to mention a Wired article discussing a unique business looking to capitalize on interest in solar power. The
Citizenr company will install a solar generator on your roof, completely for free. You then buy power from it, instead of a regular power company, at a fixed rate that's likely to be lower than the usual power fees. The company will make money on these usage fees, as well as credits from the federal government for spreading the use of solar power. If it sounds too good to be true to you, you're not alone. A number of financial analysts have warned people away from the company. "The naysayers are finding lots to say nay to. Much of the criticism is clinging to the company's multilevel marketing scheme. So far, more than 700 people have enlisted as independent Citizenr sales agents -- what the company calls 'ecopenuers' -- or about one sales representative for every 10 customers, with significant overlap. Heading that sales army is 42-year-old Styler, a veteran of multilevel marketing and a colorful figure in his own right." Pyramid marketing and shady business or not, it's an intriguing idea.
The top cat will make money (Score:2)
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I suspect there's more to it.
I was roughly quoted something on the order of $50,000 for a solar power system for my house. I know I could build it for something more like $15,000, so that company was already making $35,000 for labor and other misc expenses.
Now, where these people are "loaning" you the hardware, that means you're getting say $15,000 retail worth of equipment, which is probably more like $10,000 wholesale. Really, it's probably $7,500, but $10k i
You must have missed a math class... (Score:5, Insightful)
However, just take your $10,000 system. Now in reality that only will provide you with about $50 of electricity per month at $4/watt (2500 watts) but even if it did provide you with $150, you have forgotten what every mortgage holder knows -- that money today is worth far more than money (or electricity) in the future.
So $10,000 at 7% interest in fact takes 85 months, not 67 months to pay off at $150/month saving. This doesn't seem like a big difference, but it's because your price numbers are off. At the real price of solar, a $10K system provides, as noted, only $50 worth of power, and you can never, ever, in any number of months, pay off $10,000 at $50 per month because the interest per month is more than $50. So the math error becomes a difference between a real payoff rate and infinity.
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The fact that it's difficult to find a economically viable renewable energy solutions shows that it's our economic system that's not viable.
So long as economist don't know how to subtract [adbusters.org], and as long as polluters get to externalize their costs, economic reality and physical reality will not correspond.
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Nice little ad, but doesn't understand the economy very well. Most of the ad's examples don't work.
Cutting down the forest - increases GDP for that year. It totally forgets to mention that either stuff is built on the cleared land or generally more trees are planted for harvest later. It's a renewable resource. At this point in the USA, the vast majority of trees harvested are farmed.
The Oil spill - Doesn't help GDP. First, the value of the oil is lost. Then vast amounts of resources(money) ar
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While I applaud your post in general, I'm not quite so sure this holds true for an energy market where we can possibly (probably) predict that the cost of energy will rise inexorably over the medium term.
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Re:The top cat will make money (Score:5, Informative)
To answer your question: yes, I would love to own the system outright, and to outfit it with a large bank of deep-cycle batteries, etc. However, I do not have the $35-50,000 that such a system would require, nor do I have the credit to finance such a system. Therefore, CitizenRe, with their virtually "no risk to either side" contract, is the best option for "going green" and also saving a whole bunch of money.
Right now, CitizenRe has nothing about me except a name, an address, a telephone number, and a signature on a piece of paper indicating I will purchase all the electricity their solar cells can generate for a period of 25 years at $0.08/kWh. I predict this will be an excellent gamble, as energy prices are unlikely to fall dramatically (right now, the average rate for electric service in Texas is $0.124/kWh), and I will still be generating electricity in an environmentally-friendly manner.
These are the reasons I signed up. Not to make "gobs" of money, or to try to recruit other people. I did so because I wanted to, and without selling, so they let me.
Batteries not included (Score:2)
To me, the question boils down to how do I get off fossil fuels sooner. If I'm not borrowing for solar, that frees up credit for geothermal and a plugin hybr
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If you read the article, you'd know they're selling pie in the sky. They claim they'll be able to reduce their costs by manufacturing their own components ... at a 600,000 square foot plant that employs 1,600 people ... that doesn't exist.
As for the creditors, when it goes belly-up, they just buy up the contracts, and you have to keep paying. Of course, your warranty is worth zip at that point, so if it damages your roof, you're SOL.
If you want to make a real difference, the first step is to put the la
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But that is off-topic. Back on topic.....
There's n
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My car gets about 27-28mpg at 65mph on level ground, but if I go a steady 77mph, it's close to 29, and at a steady 90mph I get close to 32-33mpg.
To idle in sixth, well, I'd be going about 45mph, putting excess wear on the bearings in the engine, the car would be bucking a little on hills, and I would have to actually floor it to go up the hill. Oh, and
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Although there is a certain overhead due to the inefficiency of a petrol engine at low RPM, at those kinds of speeds, fuel consumption is about linear with power, and air resistance is the dominant use of power.
The power required to keep a car moving at a given speed against air resistance goes up as the cube of the speed, while the ground covered increases only linearly with speed. Thus, distance covered per unit of fuel (mpg) is red
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A quick read of the article shouws you can't do math and have NO idea what you've signed up for ...
FTFA:
So, either you get a unit large enough to supply all your needs, in which case you're going to be paying for a lot of unused ppwer, or you pay for a unit that's undersized, still costs you money even when you're drawing ZERO
Net metering (Score:2)
CitizenRe may or may not be a scam, but this part isn't the problem.
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This is why you pay for all the electricity generated - even that which exceeds the cap at some future date. Think of it - once the utility cap is hit, you don't receive any more "credits", but you're still paying for the electricity generated, plus you no longer have credits for cloudy days...
Some areas are already at their cap [california...ircuit.net]
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http://home.nycap.rr.com/useless/ponzi/ [rr.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme [wikipedia.org]
and here is the grand daddy of the modern ones:
http://www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/1997/101697
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amway [wikipedia.org]
MLM (Score:2, Funny)
On a more serious note, I thought the best way to get more money out of a customer than the advertised price of the product was to put it on a lease with an interest rate.
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It would be a sucky rate of return but better than a MLM. That's More Losers and Morons for those who a byte.
hmm (Score:2)
So then who gets the income tax credit for the installation of the solar equipment on your property? You? or them?
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If anyone is able to get the tax credit for the install, It would be the home owner. There just isn't any benifit in the company suppying them to get a tax credit of this nature. First, they would have to make a certain amount of profit before the tax credit altered their tax liability so they would be waisted o
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In OH, itis a non refundable tax credit and the federal credits are non refundable too uness they change something recently. This has nothing to do with if they give you money in your hand either. A refundable tax credit like EIC or Working can equal more money then paid in while a non refundable credit can only equal as much as you should have paid in. IF you should have paid nothing, or because of the earned inco
Uh oh (Score:5, Informative)
The boldface buzzword is a warning sign: stay away, stay very far away.
huh? where is the scam? (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as I can tell, the only way you could possibly get screwed is if the market price of electricity on the public grid falls below the rate to which you agree for private provision. But if the market price rises, you get an even better deal. People are rational and will evaluate signing one of these contracts based on what they are paying for electricity now and expect to be paying in the future.
Who cares about the company's marketing method? What matters is whether they can make the business model work. This is a fantastic idea environmentally and it seems to be good for the consumer too. The details are all going to be in the contracts between homeowners and the company, not the company and its sales force.
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That really shapes how pissed you'd be if indeed they went under. If structured properly, it would be just like you leased to own the unit from them with a lump sum buyout at the end, not uncommo
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OTOH: My skepticism is about this particular company's credentials, not so much the basic idea of leasing solar panels. I still think there are many large corpratations with deep enough pockets to make something like this actually work in the not to distant future.
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No-one is setting themselves up to be screwed simply be
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Eww (Score:5, Informative)
That said, this is kind of nuts. They're using my roof space, selling power back to the energy companies and I still have to pay them?
Now, set this up so I pay them a flat-rate for a few years (even a rather long time, like 7 years) and I would absolutely consider it.
Re:Eww (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Eww (Score:5, Interesting)
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The problem long term is companies pay a premium for solar because it is scarce - and the fed's give credits to us renewable power supplies and some states have renewable targets so companies buy it to for political, not economic, reasons.
If solar becomes more common place then there is no need to pay
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If this really is viable long term utilities would start doing it - and they have the engineers and cash to invest should they decide to do so; and they like subsidies as much as the next person.
I think that you are missing a couple things in regards to utilities:
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That system is already in place. It's called a loan. You get a loan, buy the equipment, and pay it back at flat rate (probably at least).
Yeah, New York State has an incentive program for this too and with the tax credits available, it's pretty reasonable. My wife and I are considering the idea as we need a new roof and would like to combine the installation of both so as to minimize the effect on either one. Solar is a good idea, but for the homeowner of a not-so-new house like mine, it is not the first step toward energy efficiency or independence. Begin with the old furnace, insulation, windows and doors, and sealing all the leaks. But th
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That said, there are a lot of critics of this particular startup, and not without good reason. They "swear" they have a ton in
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From the website... (Score:2)
Right now, it appears that all you are on the hook for is a $500.00 deposit. You would lose that if they went bankrupt I suppose.
I'd love to see it work....but I don't yet understand where the profit is c
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They charge you what your current power bill runs for electricity, flat rate for 25 years if that is the term you sign up for. You still have to pay for the connection, since they sell excess power to the utility (and the utility is your backup power--no batteries).
They will also move your installation to a new house once, for free.
Now whether this business plan is going to work for them, I don't know, but the risk on your part is small ($500 for
I wonder.. (Score:2)
Also, let's say it's cloudy for a week or two, and the customer runs out of electricity. They'll have to pull energy
Re:I wonder.. (Score:5, Informative)
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Thanks
Aero
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Hooray! (Score:5, Interesting)
One thing that confuses people about how this works is the idea of net metering. The system is designed to meet 100% of you power use over a year. It is not designed to meet you peak power use. Under net metering you build up kWh credits when the Sun shines and you are not using all of the power, and you use those credits at night or on cloudy days. The key thing is that the credits last for a year so the seasonal differences in power production and power usage can match up annually. There is good information on net metering laws at http://www.dsireusa.org/ [dsireusa.org].
At least three shashdot users are selling rental contracts for this company and if there are more please let me know so I can add them to this list http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
Please remember that this is a startup and it is going to take time to get going. No money will be collected until the panels are ready for installation!
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Feasible... (Score:5, Interesting)
If you start up a solar power "plant" you have to pay for the land, and you end up selling the power to the grid at wholesale prices.
With this, you get the land (roof tops) for free, and you can probably sell a good portion of the power at nearly retail prices directly to the home-owner, rather than the much lower wholesale price.
Whether there is scamming going on or not is a completely separate issue... It's certainly possible this company could be a scam to get at that some of that state and federal subsidy cash, but it's just as possible that it's not. And frankly, if I'm not a stock-holder, and am just buying a service from them, why do I care much if it does turn out to be some type of scam? At worst, you save some money in the short term, and have to give it up after a while... At best, maybe they go under, you'll be lucky enough to get a solar panel installed on your roof, free and clear (no more monthly fees).
It's not like solar power companies have a monopoly on scams...
It's a scam. (Score:2, Interesting)
Solar installations of house-size with a net-metering grid hookup are not cost-competitive with grid power, even with government subsidies and without paying for the space under them. Otherwise people would be able to save money by doing this themselves, without the middleman and his pyramid scheme.
The difference currently is a factor of several - too large for even an exceedingly efficient company's economy of scale to overcome. It's droppi
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Thousands upon thousands of people have done it, and continue to do so. The economics are well-settled at this point.
Got any more bullshit claims?
Re:It's a scam. (Score:4, Informative)
Photovoltaic generation on a house-load level IS cost-effective in one situation: New construction in rural areas, where it displaces running a long (and high-priced) grid connection. Then the money that would have been spent on the grid tie can be spent on the capital cost of the photovoltaic system instead.
This one requires a grid tie for net metering, so that displacement is not available.
Unfortunately, equipment costs for grid-tied photovoltaic equipment is still high enough that you're ahead to invest the money it would have cost and spend the interest buying power for the life of the system you didn't install. (This could change with enough lowering of equipment costs or raising of electric power prices.)
If you have a source for equipment inexpensive enough to back up your claim, please let us know what it is. I have two houses where I'd LOVE to install such a system.
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Solar can not yet pay f
Re:It's a scam. (Score:4, Interesting)
What makes off-grid cost-effective is when it saves you enough by NOT running the grid to the site to pay for much or all of the system.
Example: Suppose the cost of the system - panels, batteries, inverter, wiring (excluding the house wiring), instalation, and all comes to exactly the same as the grid hookup. Now your instalation is FREE. Your power cost become the cost of maintainence for the system - mainly replacing the batteries every five to ten years. That's a drop in the bucket compared to a power bill.
With grid-tie, all power generated by the panels is always used, either in the house, or by the grid. The grid is your 100% efficient storage.
Not really, though it's close. Two main losses:
If you feed more than you use in a given year the excess is lost. (Like the dump load on the batteries.)
And you still pay the connect fee. (In the case of Sierra power in Nevada that's currently $6/month. $72/year would cover the periodic replacement costs for about 5-10 KWHr of your deep-cycle battery capacity.)
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Another point in favour of off-grid solar is that your costs are all capital costs, as opposed to operating costs. You buy the hardware, set it up and forget about it. Also, when comparing costs, you get
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Don't go off grid (Score:2)
If you want backup power with your grid-tie system, of course you have that during the day. Non-green as it seems, the greenest choice is actually a generator for your night usage, because in reality you are hardly ever going to run it.
If you're off grid the right approach is to underprovision th
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There are thousands of examples, but frankly, I have no idea where you get your ideas to begin with, so let's just start with one:
http://california.realgoodssolar.com/economics.htm l [realgoodssolar.com]
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And let's not forget the interest rates that CC-rated (which is what I would rate such debt) bonds carry. Solar power is extremely cap
Crossover is here (Score:4, Interesting)
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Except it is difficult to secure cheap long term purchase agreements for the raw silicon they need - where are their purchase agreements?
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I think it is called a "switchback" circuit breaker.
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Who knew..
Aero
If you don't pay your bills... (Score:2, Funny)
Worst Case Scenarios (Score:4, Interesting)
Are they going to inspect roofs before installing theese things ?
"Multilevel marketing" ? Does that mean 3rd party contractors will be doing the install, who do I go to if my roof starts to leak after the install ?
If there's bad weather enough for me to have to use traditional grid power occasionally, do they cover the difference since their service failed ?
What happens if I decide to get my roof replaced while this thing is up there ?
How much of my roof will this thing require, will having a pool heating unit up there already be a problem ?
Re:Worst Case Scenarios (Score:5, Informative)
The roof, shading factors, past electric usage all go into the system design. Under the 25 year contacts, there is one free deinstall-reinstall in case you need to move or reroof.
Installs are performed by franchises. These are brick and mortar. The network marketing is for sales. It is working as well.
These systems are only available where there is net metering. You use up kWh credits when the weather is cloudy that you build up when the weather is fair.
The amount of roof the system needs depends on how much electricity you use. The panel configuration is still not set but they will be 15% efficient. So, you can take 340 W/m^2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_radiation [wikipedia.org] day night average mutiply by 0.15 and get about 50 W/m^2 out. For a 1000 kWh/mo bill you can work out that you use 1.4 kW on average so you need about 28 m^2 of panels, about 5 meters square. The tilt and orientation of your roof is also important and the amount of annual cloud cover. Ground mounted systems are also offered.
You can find out more following links at http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
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Or a court voids the rate agreement and allows it to be reset to a higher profitable level and you either agree or opt-put and the new owner needs to come get the units; or the court awards the units to the owner and your stuck with repairs / maintenance and disposal.
Plus, the cash flow for these units is expected to decline over time as the units degrade with age. Once the market is sat
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I live in an igloo you insensitive clod.
Is it redudant if..... (Score:2)
Shady? (Score:2, Funny)
OK, do it as a normal company (Score:2, Insightful)
Ditto non-profits and cooperatives doing the same. With the tax-advantaged status if a non-profit and the lack of a need for a positive rate of return, I expect to see local eco-nonprofits start doing things like this even if it's not a good commercial investment.
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A hot topic, at my blog and elsewhere (Score:2)
You may wish to check out the original thread at:
http://ideas.4brad.com/node/504 [4brad.com]
And then the followup thread with my summary of what was learned at:
http://ideas.4brad.com/citizenre-real-or-imagined- challenge [4brad.com]
Normal solar is not yet close to economical. That's why everybody is skeptical abou
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"O Ye, of Little Faith" (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:"O Ye, of Little Faith" (Score:4, Insightful)
It's just many nerds are good at math...
I signed up to be an associate
I think the naysayers will be put in their place in the next month or so when the press release comes out
It will take more than a press release to convince techies. Something like, maybe, a working product?
I'm a NASD licensed former floor-trader [...] and C-Level Sales Shark, and I "get" the numbers
Whatever. On the other hand, you are not a businessman, because otherwise you would have immediately asked a very simple question. If your company happens to develop such a revolutionary solar panel (cheap, efficient or both), why to bother with homeowners at all? Just make solar panels for the whole planet, and then you can buy Microsoft with your spare change; the whole world will be at your service. Presidents of Kyocera and Sharp would be genuflecting in your lobby, and Secretary General of UN would be begging you to answer his calls (there is plenty of sunlight in Africa, and not much oil.) But no, instead of making the largest transnational corporations its customers CitizenRe picks ... homeowners, for $deity's sake! That's ridiculous, assuming CitizenRe's claims -- but totally understandable if CitizenRe's directors are just setting up a pyramid, with homeowners as stupid pawns. That's because Sharp would not move a finger without doing due diligence (and they know how to do it right, working with the technology for decades) but your average Sally and Tom will gladly pay $500 for unsubstantiated claims; indeed, "a sucker is born every minute". Some of such su^H^Hpeople will even sign up as unpaid members of the pyramid in hope to profit. In your case it is absolutely laudable that you chose to set aside your super-profitable career as a trader, licensed and all, and instead spend your expensive time on this free work.
Why would you expect Citizenre to [do] ?
A demo of their solar panel - installed in a standard house - would do a lot. It's not like a black shiny panel will reveal its technology to watching journalists. A mass-produced lot, with a sticker price on it, would remove all the doubts. But as it stands, the company is all hat and no cattle. Anyone with half a brain (or more) should treat them as a scam unless proven otherwise.
Beta program (Score:2)
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What do you mean the whole planet? Is that like "pave the earth" but with solar panels? and then buy Microsoft and the whole world will be at your service? I don't get it. Do you plan on closing Microsoft down after you buy it?
Press Release next month? (Score:2)
Excellent, I'm trying to look at these guys with an open mind....I look forward to thier press release.
What's my cut for referals? (Score:2)
Nick Powers
tag: usaonly? (Score:2)
A different solution (Score:2)
You go to the bank, get a loan, use the loan money to install your very own solar panel system, and use the money you save on electric bills to pay back the loan. Later, once you've paid off the loan, you get to keep the money that you aren't spending on those electric bills instead of continuing to pay a permanent rental fee to some company. And if yo
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Also, I didn't call Google "fly-by-night". I was describing many of the folks who advertise through AdSense when I made that comment.
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citizenre (Score:2, Interesting)
OR... just buy the equiptment and sell power back. (Score:2, Insightful)
If you owned the equiptment you dont need the power companies really, and you can infact sell your energy to the power grid so...
yeah... dont fall for this scam. Buy the hardware, and the energy is free. The real truth is... the sun's energy is free for all.
Government Subsidies? (Score:2, Insightful)
Mosier Oregon (Score:2)
In summary, they are selling new townhomes with solar panels attached to the top. However, you don't own the solar panels for the default listing price; because there are much better economic incentives to commercial use of solar, you purchase the townhome and then buy back the solar from the commercial entity that was setup to own the panels. It is believed that this is m
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I'm guessing the factory will never be built and the scammers will pocket the money instead.
PS: About solar hot water, the payback does indeed work out a heck of a lot better.
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How to find a real solar installer in California (Score:2, Informative)
PowerLight Corp. (798 installs)
Renewable Energy Concepts, Inc. (712 installs)
GE Ener