Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Solar Apartment Buildings! “Maintain a firm grasp of the obvious at all times.”

When Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, made this quote, it was my understanding he was referring to selling books over the internet, a new concept at the time. He was looking for a reasonably expensive item relative to size and weight. A book became the obvious thing, and Amazon was born.

A whopping 33% of the U.S. population lives in a rented apartment, and they are paying the electric company every month for their power. What if the landlord could supply their tenant’s electricity needs using solar panels? The landlord could increase the rent from each tenant to cover the solar installations cost, plus some profit. 

I would like to think Jeff Bezos would agree on two points:
1) There is going to be a rush to put solar panels on apartment house rooftops. The internet was the catalyst for Amazon, and Virtual Net Metering, (a method in which one solar power system sends electricity back to the grid, then applies the credits from that energy to each of the units in the building), is the catalyst for solar panels.
 2) Environmentally, this is a way to reduce the carbon footprint of 50 to 100 people per building

When you put solar panels on your own personal rooftop it is to save money, and do right by the environment. When you place solar panels on your apartment building, the tenants pay you for their electricity thru increased rent, and you are producing their electricity inexpensively from your panels. This also increases the value of the building.

The great wealth shift from the utility companies to the landlords is happening. This transfer of wealth will take place as the utility company’s stream of revenues starts shifting to the landlords, the Proverbial Gold Mine. Utility companies need a 20, 30 or 40 year investment payback period, while a “solar landlords” payback is 5 to 7 years.



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