Practical Solar Electric Power for Your Home, II

I mentioned yesterday that I came across a company that claims to offer you solar electric power with . . .

• No upfront costs. (Actually, they do require a $500 security deposit ¹ --returned with interest when your contract expires.)

• No maintenance costs ('cause they take care of the entire system for you).

And,

• Up to a twenty-five year fixed-price guarantee at your current (non-solar) price.

The name of the company: Citizenrē.

And how and why does Citizenrē think it can afford to offer such a "deal"?

Their business model relies on what are called "net metering laws."

If you live in any of the 40 states where utilities offer this, you may have heard of it. The idea is that electric companies credit their customers' bills for any "excess power" they may generate from wind, PV (photovoltaic), or other electric generation systems they may own.

So Citizenrē provides you with a PV system that produces more power than you can use during the day, when energy requirements are at their peak. The extra electricity flows into the power grid and your meter spins in reverse. At night, you pull power back from the grid. The Citizenrē Solution is designed so that, over the course of a year, the electricity you send to the grid is very nearly equal to what you pull back from the grid--thus your cost to the utility drops close to zero, and you pay Citizenrē the "same price" for the energy you acquire from Citizenrē's system as you would have paid the utility.

A few key points:

• Notice that you are still connected to the grid. Citizenrē is expecting you to utilize grid power at night.

That has a further implication:

• While your ultimate cost for power from your local utility should drop close to zero, you will still have to pay whatever the utility's at-that-time current connect fee is.

• Customers are charged by how much energy their system produces, not by how much they use.
       If you decide to accept bills for actual power produced, this could mean you wind up paying for "excess" power during some months. Example: say you go away on vacation in the middle of the summer. Your PV system will produce plenty of electricity, but you won't be using much of it.
       You still have to pay for the power your system produces--just like you pay your cable bill and mortgage when you're absent. However, you can use this "excess" energy that was flowed to the grid later. Your energy production and energy use should balance out by the end of the year. Your system will be designed to meet no more than 100% of your historical annual usage.
       To make the situation even easier, Citizenrē offers an "Even-Pay" plan so you can get an even payment all year long. The final month, they figure, may vary somewhat, but not by much.

• What happens if you sign up for a certain usage plan, but then your energy needs shift dramatically: say, you have more kids, or your kids get older and run more electrical gadgets, or your kids go off to college and your energy needs drop significantly?
       Citizenrē monitors the energy usage daily. If a significant drop is registered, the local franchisee will remove one or more of the panels and adjust the contract. Same thing in the other direction.

• And one more scenario to give you a full sense of what they are talking about:
  
  What happens to the contract if a customer sells their house?
  
  Answer:

  There are three options:
  
  (1) The Customer has the right to transfer the system to the new home — as long as it is within our service territory — at no cost to the Customer (one time only). Any additional moves during the contract period, the Customer will be billed a recovery and relocation fee.
  
  (2) The Customer has the option to transfer the contract to the new homeowner, so long as the new homeowner is willing to accept the terms and conditions of the agreement. The contract will often have a value because it is locked in at the rate of when the contract began. For example, if the seller started the contract 10 years ago when energy costs were 20% lower, the buyer could enjoy those savings if they take over the contract. This could potentially add to the value of the house, similar to someone transferring a low rate mortgage during the sale.
  
  (3) If neither of the first two options is available, then the Customer will forfeit their Security Deposit — which is the recovery cost to us. In addition to the recovery fees, we may charge additional fees if the Customer is uncooperative with us and does not allow us to recover the system in a timely manner. These additional fees may include collection fees, overdue service fees, early cancellation fees, late fees, and other fees that are described in the General Terms and Conditions of the Forward Rental Agreement. (Just like if you cancelled your cable and would not give them back the box and refused to pay your bill).
  
  Our service is: producing clean power with
  
       1. No upfront cost.
  
       2. Same rate--with a 25-year fixed price guarantee.
  
       3. No worries.

******
Citizenrē is in the midst of building what they claim will be "the largest manufacturing plant for clean energy in the world." The plant is due to come on-line late in 2007 or early 2008. This facility--that, they claim, will cut production costs in half--is a key component of their strategy.

The fact that the facility isn't ready yet means that, at this time, the company is selling a concept more than a real product. But I emphasize the words "at this time." They claim to have well over half a billion dollars in funding and are set to launch.

In the meantime, they are trying to get potential customers to sign up to register interest in the concept by means of what they are calling a "Forward Rental Agreement" ("FRA").

What does that mean?

If you sign an FRA, the will call you to schedule an initial site review by one of its engineers. At this site review, the engineer will talk with you about the engineering, procurement and construction process. He or she will also talk about the operating and maintenance of the system once it is installed. And then the engineer will answer any questions you may have about the system, or the Company, or solar power and electricity in general. But the most important subject will be your power consumption habits.

The engineer will determine what your historical energy consumption has been, how you use electricity, and actually suggest ways you might be able to decrease your power consumption.

At the same time, the engineer will review your site. The most important actions in the site review are site measurements, establishment of orientation, and identification of roofing materials and shading factors. From this and the historical energy consumption, the engineer can design the system right there, on the spot.

S/he will present you with an AutoCAD design for your approval. You will have the ability to discuss alternatives with the engineer if the design is not to your liking. The engineer will work with you to find a solution. HOWEVER, you need to know that they will not install a system of less than 2kW peak capacity.

The site review process should take no more than two (2) hours. At the end, you will have to either approve of or decline the plan. Upon approval, you will be required to make the security deposit. At that point, Citizenrē will begin to procure the necessary components, permits, and approvals for construction of the system.******
Sounds so neat. But . . .

What if????

What if . . . anything?

What if . . . I decide at the last moment that I just don't like the system? Say I sign the FRA and then, next March or July or whenever, I see the design and I just hate it? Then what?

According to Citizenrē, you can back out at any time for any reason prior to installation. Even if you decide to move forward, it is still possible that:

(a) The utility company might refuse to approve an interconnection agreement.

(b) The local buildings and codes department might refuse to issue a permit.

(c) The mortgage lender might refuse to sign a letter of acknowledgment.

Citizenrē claims (b) is unlikely to occur, but (a) and (c) may occur. Personally: I think I might wind up with (b) problems: our local community association is picky-picky.

But, whatever. I'll go with Citizenrē's promise that I can back out at any time.

Moreover, as they state time and time again: your maximum exposure at any time--unless you deliberately sabotage the equipment--is the $500 security deposit.

Normally if you install a solar system and something better is developed, you are out of luck. You just invested $40,000.

With Citizenrē, if there is a new technology, or if [the] customer moves to Guatemala, or they want to cancel the contract for ANY reason that you can imagine . . . their total risk is the Security Deposit (provided that they cooperate with us when we remove the system, the system is not damaged, and they pay their bill).

Citizenrē anticipates that its manufacturing plant will begin producing panels at the commercial scale by the end of 2007 or early 2008.

Upon meeting such a milestone, the Company will begin installing systems on residential customer homes. It is with good probability that those Customers choosing to sign an FRA early on will in fact be some of the first Customers to receive a system on their home. Furthermore, the early signing of an FRA allows the Customer to lock their contracts with the best electrical rates for up to 25 years. We plan to have a tool where a customer will get an estimated installation date based on their order of sign-up.

So. According to the company, the benefits of signing an FRA include:You lock in the current energy rate. "Even if the rates are higher when their system is actually installed, the customer will enjoy the lower rate of when they signed up. If, by some miracle, the rates actually go down before their installation, the customer can choose the lower rate."

They get their installation sooner. "If a customer waits till the plant is completed, there will be tens and possibly hundreds of thousands of customers who will get their system before them. Also, there is no disadvantage. If the customer decides before the installation that they do not want the system, then they simply cancel. No penalty."

With all those reassurances, I've signed up for service.

If you're interested, you can go to Citizenrē's website.

They have all kinds of information there. Dig as deeply as you want.

I should note: Citizenrē offers an affiliate program that they call the "Powûr Network of Ecopreneurs." As they explain, they can imagine, five years down the road, they could have 500,000 homes using their solar solution. And then the power companies might send their lobbyists to Congress: "Hey, we can't compete with the sun. This isn't fair. They are taking too many customers from us. This save the planet stuff was great . . . but we didn't think anyone was going to really do it!"

Citizenrē then hopes the Powûr Network will be motivated to "lobby to keep Congress and Big Business honest. Imagine the power of 10,000 highly trained, business savvy environmentalists who know how to network!"

I hardly need another job, but. I did sign up to be an affiliate. All of my linked references to Citizenrē, above, use my affiliate ID. If you want to sign up on your own, I am happy. Feel free to do so. The un-"affiliated" [!!!] link is here.

¹ "$500.00 for all REnU systems with capacities of 5 KWp DC or less. For systems larger than 5 KWp DC it is $500 plus 10 cents per Wp DC for every Wp DC greater than 5 KWp DC." Return to text.

“Who Killed the Electric Car?”

As I mentioned in Denver to New Zealand--A Midwinter/Midsummer Vacation, I watched "Who Killed the Electric Car?" while flying to New Zealand. And as I have indicated in I Want One, I am very interested in at least one electric car . . . and, possibly, others as well. (I have been interested in alternative fuel cars ever since I was a boy when I read that the Stanley Steamer was the fastest car of its era; that it could go from forward to reverse without shifting gears, and its major flaw--besides occasionally exploding (a charge that the Wikipedia "Stanley Steamer" article denies)--was, as I recall, that a person might push a bit too hard on the brake and find him- or herself suddenly thrown from the vehicle when it went from high speed acceleration forward to high speed acceleration backward in an instant.)

But back to "Who Killed the Electric Car?"

The film is an ode, more or less, to the EV-1, a General Motors vehicle I had never heard of before, and an investigation of why the vehicle was developed in the first place, why “no one“ ever heard of it, and why there aren't any more on the street today.

A very powerful piece of propaganda (if that's what you want to call it). Or an effective piece of investigative reporting. It impacted me deeply. In fact, it has caused me to question some of my political ideas and/or commitments.

Example: The film has someone--Ralph Nader, I believe--say that virtually "all" the major improvements in automotive safety and efficiency in the last 50 years have come about as a result of federal regulations. The car companies themselves, he said, didn't bring us seat belts, 20 mpg or better fuel efficiency, low-emission engines, etc. Oh, they developed the technology, all right. But they didn't make these a regular part of the cars that all of us drive until the federal government mandated the improvements.

Now, that gets me thinking. From a marketing perspective. Of the three technologies I have mentioned--seat belts, fuel efficiency, and low-emission engines--which could have been achieved without federal mandates?

Seat belts. Couldn't they have become standard equipment without mandates? It would have required some significant education to get people, first, to purchase them in significant enough quantity to lower their costs.

Or would it?

I wonder if the Detroit manufacturers of the late 50s and 60s would have been "able" to put in seat belts if the Japanese manufacturers of the 70s and 80s had been present to spur them on? Aren't there a lot of manufacturers today who build their cars with additional steel bars and plates and additional airbags . . . and who tout their resultant superior safety records?

Apparently, they find these safety features pay for themselves through added sales.

Or do they? Or, should I say, would they if they were seeking to appeal to the mass market? Is it the case that, yes, they can make money as long as they are selling to the high-end car buyers, but no, they would lose money if they added all these additional features and tried to sell them to the lower end of the market--the people who can afford the $10,000-25,000 new vehicles?

Fuel efficiency and emissions are very similar, to my way of understanding.

A year or two ago, I thought I would like to buy a Prius for Sarita. The Prius would be our second car, a commuter car. (What hybrids are supposed to be best suited for: efficient for stop-and-go, around-town driving.)

Except, as I recall, even calculating an average of $3.50 a gallon for gas, it would take something like 10 years or more, at the rate Sarita drives, to make up the $9,000 price differential (as I recall) between the Prius and the Corolla. . . . So we bought the Corolla.

So it is, I'm afraid, with most automobile technologies. Unless and until they become mainstream and/or mandated, so that all new cars use the technology, the price differential is too great for most consumers. . . .

*****

Another example of how the film caused me to question my previous ways of thinking:

Overall, I have been only moderately critical of George W. Bush from early in his presidency for a number of reasons.

Some things have driven me absolutely nuts:

• He (and the Republicans in general) have seemed wimpy, lacking in backbone or conviction.
  
• I "can't believe" what a fiscally irresponsible "leader" he has proven to be, refusing to veto any spending increases and, in fact, adding large sums of money to plans already approved by the supposedly "liberal" Democrats.
  
  (In the '80s, it was popular to speak of the "tax-and-spend" liberal Democrats. I had come to the point where I began speaking of the "borrow-and-spend" [supposedly conservative] Republicans who put our nation in horrendous debt.)

I have questioned his wisdom in venturing into what appear to be foreign entanglements. (Although in today's world, as at least one friend has noted, people around the world are so interconnected economically, let along socially and politically: it is hard to argue that what happens in a place like Iraq is truly of no concern "back home.")

But I am no knee-jerk Bush-basher, either.

However, in "Who Killed the Electric Car?" I was stunned by revelations about Bush and about Reagan and their policies concerning oil . . . and energy. Absolutely stunned. (Assuming, of course, that the film speaks the truth.)

According to the film, Jimmy Carter, in 1977, I believe, announced a policy that, he said, would keep the United States from every importing more oil than it had in 1976. I believe the figure he mentioned was 8.5 million barrels of oil imported per day. Something like that.

I vaguely remember some of the policies and regulations put into place during Carter's tenure. Vaguely.

Some of the policies had to do with automotive fuel efficiency--CAFÉ, as it was called--Corporate Average Fuel Economy, "the sales weighted average fuel economy, expressed in miles per gallon (mpg), of a manufacturer’s fleet of passenger cars or light trucks with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 8,500 lbs. or less, manufactured for sale in the United States, for any given model year."

And between 1976 or '77, when the regulations went into effect, and early 1980-something, the average car sold in the United States went from something like 14 mpg to almost twice that.

Whatever. Automobile fuel efficiency skyrocketed.

When Reagan came into office, however, many of Carter's energy policies were reversed.

Tax credits that Carter had helped enact in order to encourage greater investment in solar energy--solar roof panels to heat buildings and water, for example--were reversed.

Carter had placed solar panels on the White House roof; Reagan had them removed almost the moment he moved into the White House.

The film offered no reasons why Reagan had done such a thing. I imagine it was largely symbolic: Carter's era and the years immediately preceding him had been full of austerity and economic hardship. Reagan probably wanted to signal--what I recall was a chief campaign theme--a new day in America.

But why waste the benefits we, the people of the United States, had already paid for? Why waste the energy that the Sun provides and that the White House had been equipped to capture?

The film's revelations of these things bothered me.

I have been very interested in fuel efficient buildings and cars, not just intellectually, but practically . . . if I could possibly justify the purchase of such things in economic terms.

I mentioned the Prius.

I had us pay an outside consultant who specializes in these things evaluate the feasibility of us using geothermal energy as a conservational measure for the building we constructed for Sonlight back in 1999. Sadly, under even the most positive analysis, as I recall, the energy savings wouldn't have paid for the additional costs in 20 years. --A 20-year payback is equivalent to a 3.53% compound return on investment.

And some analyses suggested the payback could take up to 50 years. . . .

So that measure made no sense to me and I refused to make the investment.

But Reagan destroyed an energy conservation measure that had already been paid for. Why? That made even less sense, it seemed to me.

The film emphasized these shifts at the federal level. And the revelations bothered me.

But what really burned me up was the revelation that, under George W., at the very time the federal government was removing $4,000 tax credits for fuel-efficient electric cars like the EV-1 (and others), they added tax deductions for 6,000-pound fuel-guzzlers like the Hummer: up to $100,000 per vehicle!

A $100,000 deduction for purchasing a gas guzzler, and the elimination of the very modest $4,000 benefit for electric cars?

I was shocked and angered to hear such a thing!

And Bush claims to be concerned about the environment and fuel conservation?