If you were to guess which city in California had the largest number of solar homes, you’d think that Los Angeles – California’s largest city and one of its sunniest – would take the cake, right? Wrong. According to the latest data from the California Solar Initiative (which administers the majority of solar rebates in the state) and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, only about 3000 solar rebate applications have been filed by homeowners in LA County since 2007 (more applications have been filed in the greater LA area, however).
So what gives? Why aren’t Angelinos adopting a larger share of home solar power? One possible answer is that there hasn’t been as much consumer education on the subject in LA as there has been in other parts of the state, such as the San Francisco Bay Area (where most of the state’s largest solar installers are based). Or, you could argue that solar companies haven’t been promoting home solar power in LA as much as in other parts of the state. The sprawling nature of the city makes it more challenging to get the word out and connect with potential customers face to face, which is an important part of the solar sales process. Maybe LA County homeowners aren’t going solar because LADWP electricity rates are lower than in other parts of the state.
Whatever the reason, now Los Angeles homeowners have no excuse not to go solar. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), which supplies electricity to most everyone in LA County and which is the largest municipal utility in the country, recently approved SunRun to be the first company to be able to offer residential solar service in LADWP territory. That is to say, if you live in LADWP, before now, your only option was to purchase solar panels on your own – you weren’t able to get solar as a service through SunRun. Now you can go solar at home regardless of whether you live in the suburbs or the City of Angels proper. Previously, SunRun was only available to LA-area homeowners who get their power from Southern California Edison.
Check out this recent news segment from KABC-TV in LA about SunRun to learn more about one of our happy customers and his decision to lower his energy costs by getting solar service at home from SunRun.
Oh, and did I mention that a homeowner in LADWP territory with an average monthly power bill of $150 can get SunRun solar service for just $400 to get started? You’d have to pay twenty times that to get a close-up look at Kobe at a Laker game.
