Portland Neighborhood Group Solar Power
There is power in numbers. It's a fact solar homeowners from New Jersey to San Francisco and a growing list of cities around the world know well. Group buying has become a force in the solar power movement as homeowners tackle high up-front costs with community organization and collective bargaining. It's a tactic as old as American democracy and remains as powerful a force as it ever was. Now, a community of homeowners in Portland, Oregon are joining the ranks of that budding grassroots movement, and saving a good grip of money in the process.
120 neighbors in southeast Portland joined a local organization last year called Solarize Portland. They attended solar workshops and rallied together to buy solar system equipment in bulk to cut down on those intimidating up-front costs. "Basically, [we received an] 80 percent discount on what had been a very expensive, unaffordable, unapproachable topic," said one participant, David Landau, to KPTV in Portland. After the group discount and state and federal rebates and incentives, Landau paid approximately $3,000 to "solarize" his home. He has 12 panels on his roof, which, assuming they are between 175- and 200-watt panels, would be about a 2-kilowatt solar electric system.
Now, another set of southeast Portlanders are preparing to solarize their own homes, with similar programs set to kickoff in the city's northeast and southwest quadrants. The Solarize Portland program alone has tripled the number of solar installations in Portland since 2008.
The truth of the matter is simple. "It's easier to do as a group as opposed to as an individual," said Tim O'Neal, sustainability coordinator for Southeast Uplift, a neighborhood organization that helped organize the project. The concept of group buying and collective bargaining is spreading like wildfire, and for good reason. It not only saves individuals money on new solar power systems, but unites neighborhoods and communities as well.
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