We’ve gone solar.
The system covers 100% of our usage on average year-round. We’re leasing it from Sunrun, which services 10 states. It was installed by REC Solar, whom I’d highly recommend. Excited to get off the coal train.
8.6 Kilowatts, Baby!
Published
Martin Remy 
Awesome! This would make a good flash talk for SD 🙂 My dad has always been interested in solar for his office building (lots of flat space).
This is awesome, need to talk to you about how this works. We’ve talked a lot about harvesting our 300 days of sunshine a year as well.
Colorado is the perfect place for it. I’d be happy to talk to you about why we decided to lease. Basically: I didn’t do any big what-if spreadsheets, just quotes from vendors for lease vs. buy, and taking into account where utilities and govs are probably heading (subsidies for renewables are on the wane even in Europe these days and utilities aren’t writing checks to consumers for excess generated during afternoons in July, they’re averaging over the year instead). We’re betting electric rates won’t fall over the next 20 years (they’ve risen at an annual 6% lately). It’s possible we could save more by owning in the long run, which is the bet that Sunrun and Solar City are making, but the startup cost is lower with leasing, and savings aside it feels good to get off the coal train.
Nice, do they provide an option to buy the panels at some point if you end up wanting to do that?
No spreadsheet! That makes data-me sad. 😉
They do provide that option, the contract has a schedule for buyout price in each year (+ fair market value). In year 19, it’s ~$1k + FMV.
very cool!