“The original business model of Citizenre was to charge the customer for all of the electricity that was produced. Systems were under designed based on past usage for each home to insure that customers were never charged for electricity that was never used. If the customer still used less electricity, adjustments would be made to the system at no charge to assure customers that they did not generate and pay for electricity that was not used. Since the rental rates were nearly the same as the savings from the utility company, system rentals, in most cases, pay for themselves. To assure no service interruptions, the customer is still connected to his or her current utility provider and any electricity used but not generated by the system would still come from the current utility provider.

However, the rental plan was not fully embraced by all utility companies. Having the rental fee tied to the actual production of the systems, too closely resembled a utility company. So Citizenre management went to work and came up with a solution. The rental fees will be tied to the nameplate capacity of the system. In easy terms, the nameplate capacity is the amount of electricity that the system is designed to produce. So if the system is designed to produce 500 KW of electricity, customers will be charged a rental fee based on 500 KW of electricity. If the system produces less electricity than intended, the customers will get a refund. Here is why the program becomes so much better for the customer. If the system produces more than intended, the customer gets to keep the excess electricity that was produced with no extra charges.

Since the rent of the system is paid from the utility savings in most cases and each system has no upfront cost, the customers is now in an even better position to save money and the environment.”

I truly love being involved with the movement to bring solar to the masses. Part of our mission is to inform the pulic of our intentions and to make sure that “word of mouth” information is spread as accuratly as possible.

And finally, Craig. The price per KW is dfferent for each area. Citizenre wants to be able to porvide clean renewable electricity at or below the prices that you are currently paying but locking in the rate. This is a reat hedge against any future increases. If anyone would like to find the rate for thier area, go to: http://www.jointhesolution.com/rasmataz. Click on the map of the US. Then click on your state. Look for your current utility provider in the drop down box. The number to the right is the Price per KW that Citizenre will charge. The rental fee will be that price per KW times the size of the system.
Example: 11 cents/kw times 1000 KW/month system
Rental fee would equil $110. If you have questions
go to http://solarjoules.com/?cat=10 and leave a comment. I will be glad to get back to you.

I’ll try to find the reference. Quite honestly, I found their website to be big on futures and low on facts, but I’ll dig through it again.

WHAAAT? Citizenre has not even built a factory and not manufactured anything to even install. I would like to find out where on their website you read this outrageous, well, can I say this, LIE?

The rental fee is calculated based on the capacity of the system they install and is locked in for up to 25 years (which incidentally is the expected life of current generation solar panels). However, they meter the generation and monitor it, so the rental fee is fixed for the Kwh of generation you actually produce, not the gross capacity of the system (in winter months you will generate less than the rated capacity because, well, it’s winter).

The point about generation is important because you are paying to produce power you are not necessarily using, power that gets pumped back to the grid and the net-metering arrangement offsets your electricity bill for power you are buying.

This is why they are not offering the program in states that don’t have net-metering laws, but even in those states it is important to note that net-metering does not allow you utility bill to go below zero. In other words, you will never be in a position where the utility company owes you money.

I came up with the 12.5 cents per Kwh based on another source I had who described the arrangement. Considering that this is a competitive rate for 100-150% baseline usage, it makes sense.

Like you I am curious to know when they will start this part of their business. I believe, and their website says as much, that they are already the largest installer of solar generation systems in the country.

I did have a question about how you estimated the rental cost to be 12.5 cents per kwh. I’m having difficulty finding hard numbers.

Thanks again.

Craig.

Dennis,
Solar pricing in the U.S. runs about $10 a watt installed. The system pricing is not based on house size, but clearly a larger house does require a bigger system. Having said that, HVAC is the single largest consumer of electricity in a modern house, typically between 3.5-5 kw and heavy duty cycles compared to, for example, the electric oven in our kitchen, which consumes up to 5 kw but not continuously. Fyi… we don’t have air conditioning in our house and our heater is natural gas. I replaced all of the windows with high performance double pane units and put a lot of insulation in the walls and attic, the result is that we are pretty temperature stable… but in Spain I would speculate air conditioning is more of a necessity.

The reason why solar is more expensive is, perversely, because of taxpayer-funded subsidies which have the unwelcome tendency of increasing prices. One more reason why I don’t support tax subsidies, I prefer to let the marketplaee regulate demand and pricing.

$30K does seem a lot although I appreciate US houses tend to be a lot larger than in EU. Our place is about 1500 sq feet and it would cost about €6K to put in a solar system. Even then I think this is way over priced. We’re lucky enough to get 300 days of sun a year so solar could be a real boon but even then it won’t satisfy all needs. We’re still thinking carefully about it as an option ‘cos we could recoup the cost in about 7 years. That’s more reasonable IMO and given rising oil prices, it might be sooner.