scty,fslr,spwr

Solar Leasing. Solar Installation

Are you feeling an impact by rooftop solar? Seeing anything new in your market?

In the cloudy midwest, I don't expect us to be exactly cutting edge on this. I have noticed some projects. Mostly what I hear about are government/ union cooperative projects, like city halls.

There is a good sized apartment complex all roof solar near me. They must be selling the wattage somewhere.... I'd estimate 500 sq or more on the buildings.

Not much Solar in the individual residential market. Which is where leasing comes into play.

Leasing is where the solar company makes the investment for the homeowner, basically leasing the rooftop area for panel installation and energy sellback to utilities.

Which is why, of course, the whole solar thing is now getting major pushback from dis-enfranchised utilities

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. In conservative politics, solar power is often dismissed as an affectation, part of a liberal agenda to funnel money to "solar cronies" of the Obama administration and further the "global warming hoax."

So one would not expect to see Barry Goldwater Jr., the very picture of modern conservatism and son of the 1964 Republican nominee for president, arguing passionately on behalf of solar energy customers. But there he was last fall, very publicly opposing a push by Arizona's biggest utility to charge as much as $100 a month to people who put solar panels on their roofs.

The utilities, backed by conservative business interests, argue that solar users who have lower power bills because of government subsidies are not paying their fair share to maintain the power grid. Mr. Goldwater and other advocates have struck back by calling the proposed fees a "solar tax," and have pushed their message in ads on Fox News and the Drudge Report.

Similar conflicts are going on in California and Colorado, with many more to come. And as the issue pops up, conservatives are even joining forces with environmental groups. In Georgia, a Tea Party activist and the Sierra Club formed a "Green Tea Coalition."

As a result, solar power is fast becoming one of the fracture lines dividing the conservative movement's corporate and libertarian sides. The American Legislative Exchange Council, known as ALEC, which helps pro-business Republicans across the country write legislation, has successfully urged several states to fight federal mandates for adopting renewable energy like solar power. This month, it published a resolution calling for states to "require that everyone who uses the grid helps pay to maintain it and to keep it operating reliably at all times."

To Mr. Goldwater, the true conservative path lies elsewhere. "Utilities are working off of a business plan that's 100 years old," he said in an interview, "kind of like the typewriter and the bookstore." On the website for his campaign, Tell Utilities Solar Won't Be Killed, Mr. Goldwater, a former congressman, says, "Republicans want the freedom to make the best choice."

He says conservatives are the original environmentalists, especially in the West. "They came out here and fell in love with the land," he said, and added that his father used to tell him, "There's more decency in one pine tree than you'll find in most people."

Tom Morrissey, a former state Republican Party chairman in Arizona who was embraced by the state's Tea Party groups, called the party's national leaders "knuckleheads" on this issue. Domestically produced energy is a national security issue, he said, adding, "If we can keep one dollar from going to people who are killing our kids in Afghanistan, it's a good thing ” and I feel that's what solar energy does."

He and others consider the utilities to be regulated monopolies whose rates are set by bureaucrats” the opposite of a free-market economy. In Georgia, Debbie Dooley, the national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots and a co-founder of the Green Tea Coalition, said the fact that some conservatives denounced the favorable treatment that solar power got from the federal government was immaterial.

"They neglect to mention billions of dollars that the fossil-fuel industries have received," she said. "They cherry-pick their principles."

Seth Gunning, an organizer in Georgia with the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign who teamed up with Ms. Dooley, said that although ideals differ, "we can find common ground." Ms. Dooley said she was working with pro-solar activists in Colorado, South Carolina, Florida, Virginia, Ohio and Texas. "It's spreading," she said. "People respond to free-market energy."

She said that in the work with Mr. Gunning and other activists on the left, everyone tried to keep things civil. "We just don't talk about Obamacare," she said.

In Hawaii, where high electricity costs have led to enormous private investment in rooftop solar panels, State Representative Cynthia Thielen, a Republican, in cooperation with the local Sierra Club chapter, has been battling Hawaiian Electric over policies that she says discourage adoption of solar power. Like other utilities, Hawaiian Electric has argued that the boon in solar has put a strain on the grid and could even cause safety problems.

The fight in Arizona led to a vote in November that allowed both sides to claim victory. The all-Republican commission that regulates utilities voted for an average fee of $5 per month, much lower than the original request from the utility, but accepted the utilities' argument that solar subsidies are inappropriately disrupting their bottom line.

In many states, the conflict focuses on so-called net metering subsidies that utilities give rooftop solar owners for the excess energy they feed back onto the grid — an important incentive for consumers to adopt solar power. As solar power has boomed, the companies have argued that customers who put solar panels on their roofs might be shifting the cost of maintaining the energy grid to nonsolar ratepayers.

In any case, the rise of solar, like other forms of independent power generation, has caused headaches for the industry.

Lisa Wood, vice president of the Edison Foundation, a nonprofit group in Washington sponsored by investor-owned utilities, argued that for the typical residential customer, the cost of making the electricity accounted for only about 45 percent of the bill. Most of the rest was distribution, transmission and maintenance of equipment that might be called on for only part of the year, when demand was high. Her argument that rooftop solar users shift costs to other ratepayers pits homeowners against apartment dwellers and those who do not have the kind of credit rating that the solar companies like to do business with.

David Leeper, an electrical engineer and solar rooftop user in Phoenix, ridiculed the power industry's arguments as "high-tech chutzpah." Mr. Leeper, a Republican who cites his core values as "limited government, free markets and fiscal responsibility," said the notion that he was some kind of free rider made him wonder whether he should owe the utility money if he conserved energy by using his air conditioner more sparingly. "Does that mean I took money from them?"

But he said he was satisfied with the vote for a small monthly charge since he needs the power grid to reliably provide power in the evenings, or when clouds pass across the face of the sun.

"I owe you guys something for being there when I need you," he said. "That's the fee for backup service."

I have been watching solar for about 20 years now. Remember those giant satellite dishes on giant poles in your backyards replaced by those small dishes. Well, that's my fear with those giant panels. I am waiting for the fuel cells.

Thanks woody. So much of Wall St/ Corporate America (Welfare America) is an insult to the free market

B) I'll keep an open mind on this.

All I really knew about SCTY was that Elon Musk was involved, they financed/ leased the solar transaction.....and they lose money, at least on the surface :S

If you were to read up on the environmental impact of lithium, you'd be questioning how green the electric car really is

The greenies claim on US solar panel production has always been that we need to subsidize it until volume hits a critical mass that drops production costs and prices drop to where they are affordable for everyone and solar panels will dominate the rooflines.

Well, the Chinese glut of solar panels forced panel prices so low that even the subsidized US producers couldn't compete, but still there isn't a massive adoption rate.

I am fascinated by the second acts of get-rich-quick tech moguls. One that annoys me is Elon Musk. After getting millions from Paypal, he has started three new companies, Space X, Tesla cars and Solar City. While they are vastly different companies, all three have one thing in common, they need government assistance to stay in business.

Even though the Tesla S is $70k car and the buyer can get subsidies approaching $20k, the company still relies on trading California Zero Emission Credits to other automakers to ever make a profit.

Solar City is in the same subsidy boat, but has found itself a loophole to get more than it deserves of a subsidy. They lease the solar panels to the homeowner while retaining the rights for the subsidy for themselves. Then they sell the whole thing to "investors" at a price inflated by 40% to raise the subsidy they receive from taxpayers. Once again, we subsidize a billionaire.

I remember tossing all those solar ideas 20 yrs ago.....I imagine we'll be tossing them the next go-around, as well. The next gov't subsidy hysteria.....

Same here flatbed. The breakthrough in cost we were waiting for could well be a 3rd company like 1st Solar.

I got all gitty about solar a couple of years ago. Looked around for any solar companies with potential that might need a good roofer to work with. After researching it, I realized it still needs a few years and a breakthrough in technology/cost. They are getting better, but the masses are still broke!

I'm about 400 miles south of Chicagoland.

Integrys Energy Services, a unit of Integrys Energy Group, teamed up with privately held Clean Power Finance to create a fund for residential-solar projects.

That's the latest example of the steady flow of money going toward residential-solar leases, and also of conventional utilities and power companies wading into solar.

In recent years, companies such as SolarCity Corp. SCTY -3.25% and SunPower Corp. SPWR -5.72% , as well as privately held players such as SunRun Inc. and Sungevity, have stepped up efforts to have customers lease, rather than buy, their rooftop solar installations, with little or no upfront cost.

It seems clear that the downstream competitive landscape is intensifying, but at the same time the size of the pie is also growing, analysts at Raymond James said.

San Francisco-based CPF, a residential-solar finance company, said Integrys plans to make the fund available in solar-friendly states such as California, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York, Maryland and Massachusetts. Integrys has residential power customers in Illinois, Michigan and Ohio.

Integrys TEG -0.50% fund is CPF second utility financing project, although the first utility has remained anonymous.

CPF brings together institutional investors and solar installers through its online platform that allows electric power companies to invest in residential solar. In April, it announced it had raised $37 million from investors.

The company manages $500 million of project financing on behalf of third-party solar investors that include major corporations such as Google Inc., electric power companies such as Duke Power and financial institutions, according to its website