Pitching to go solar with group buy program

Pitching to go solar with group buy program

BABU TANGEWALA

CHICAGO: Cook County is partnering with the Midwest Renewable Energy Association (MREA) and the Citizens Utility Board to make solar energy more accessible and affordable for County residents. The partnership is coordinating a residential solar group buy program called Solarize Chicagoland, making it available to residents in Cook, DuPage, Kane and Will Counties.

The program takes advantage of volume purchasing, which can significantly reduce the up-front costs of installing solar energy at homes. The more people participate, the lower the cost is for the solar installer and the lower the prices are for participants.

The price comes down for everyone when certain benchmarks are surpassed. Once the participants of the group buy collectively reach 50 kw of capacity, everyone gets an additional price reduction. Price reductions are also triggered at 150 kw and at 250 kw. A final reduction is triggered above 500 kw.

The Solar Power Hour covers the basics of solar, financial implications for residents and how the Solarize Chicagoland program works. Residents can get a free, no obligation site assessment. Residents have until September 30 to decide whether to get solar through the program.

The special pricing through this program will be available to residents until the program reaches capacity of 150 homeowners. After the first 150 site assessments program coordinators will maintain a waitlist of additional interested participants.

For more information about the program, visit www.solarizechicago.com or contact Christina Uzzo at the Citizens Utility Board: cuzzo@CitizensUtilityBoard.org