Sunny Connections to the Smart Grid

The buy side has found an interesting partnership in many neighborhoods in the U.S. Sungevity and Lowes have teamed up to offer a solar roof system that is leased rather than owned and connected to the smart grid for chargebacks to the power company.

Sungevity has been providing services in California for over 10 years and is now set up to bring services to the Northeast through its partnership with Lowes.

This is an interesting action, given the buy in from PSE&G in New Jersey with their deployment. Although the Southwest has 300 days of sunshine, the Northeast on average has over 200 days of sunshine per year. 

The statement on the website is that you will save 15 percent from your energy bill right off the bat with no money down.

On average, the output of a roof top solar system size is approximately five kilowatts. The cost and size depends on the following factors:

·         Installable area (size of rooftop) is on average 370 square feet;

·         Electricity usage;

·         Cost of electricity in that area.

One of the key assumptions, and most likely a safe one, is that electricity costs will keep rising. Therefore, the customer should expect their savings to increase year over year.

My ideal would be that Sungevity connects the customers into a collective that would allow them to have some joint buying power. I filled out the iQuote and got a charge of the aerial view of my home’s roof.

Additionally, Sungevity has been doing good deeds in the rest of world, which you can read about from time to time on its blog.