Today’s guest post was written by Errica from Worcester, MA, author of green blog Green Bean Beetz. Errica and her husband Chris had just bought their dream home when they started looking for a solar solution. Purchasing a system of their own was simply too expensive, but Sunrun’s power purchase agreement brought solar within reach. Now they’ve got panels on their roof and are happily living the big green dream! If you’re a solar homeowner and interested in sharing your solar story, write us at customers@sunrunhome.com!
Buying our first (and hopefully only) home was the most stressful even of my life. I had these nightmares where I was frantically trying to fax forms over to the bank but the fax machine would delete the signatures on the forms. I’d jump up from a deep sleep and have an urge to review the paperwork over and over again. Even our closing felt frantic. And it took me about a week with the keys in hand to realize, no one would take our little dream home away from us.
We bought a small home. It is described as a bungalow style house but “bungalow” for me isn’t how you describe our home. It was the only home we walked in to that felt as if it had known mostly and primarily joy. It had been loved for a long time and in turn the house had loved its owners.
One of the things that the hubz and I had discussed prior to finding our forever home was that I wanted a home we could make sustainable, with the ultimate green dream being a home that was powered by a renewable energy. And I REALLY hoped/ wanted that renewable energy to be solar.
For any one who has ever looked in to solar you know the expense can be far out of reach. Mmmm, strike that…not far…galactically out of reach! That is it used to be galactically out of reach.
My hubz is an amazing studious individual. He is a fan of reading and reads everything, including and thankfully one of the major newspapers in our state. He was perusing the paper on line one fine day over a year ago and came across an article about leasing solar panels. LEASING SOLAR PANELS!! We could do that. One phone call to Sunrun Home and we were meeting with a representative. Our house was reviewed, shade was analyzed and on April 22, 2011 (don’t think the meaningfulness of the date is lost on me) we signed and faxed our contract to have solar panels installed on our home.
Excitement doesn’t even begin to describe how I felt. The big green dream was going to become a big green reality. When you sign on to lease solar panels, the beauty is you don’t have to do any of the paperwork…they do! You don’t need to do anything to maintain or care for the panels. They are monitored and maintained by the company. You reap the energy rewards without doing much effort. We were fortunate to have to pay $0 down for our panels and $0 for the installation. OK folks…do that math…we had solar panels purchased and installed for $0 + $0 = $0!! The company who did the installation is a local company, Alteris Renewables. The fine dudes from Alteris were professional, courteous, and beyond well informed. They were great guys who really loved what they were doing.
The leasing part comes in once the panels are generating electricity. We pay a small rate per kilowatt of generated electricity. Our solar electricity goes right in to the grid, we pay our electric company only after we have used more than we generated. Our last electric bill was a credit of $12. You read that correct…a credit of $12.
Our little, classic, bungalow style home, is an electricity generating machine! You’re welcome neighbors!!
Check your states, search for leasing agencies in your area. Visit www.sunrunhome.com and see if they are in your area. Become a powerhouse of renewable energy! Recognize your BIG GREEN DREAM!!
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That is a beautifully integrated solar system on that house. Would love a bigger pic for a book I’m putting together on good solar design from the purely aesthetic viewpoint.