I've mocked cities and companies for relying on green energy jobs to boost their economies because an attempt to game the system so that federal subsidies land disproportionately in your lap is not a winning long-term strategy.
Therefore, I'm obligated today to cover Steve Hargreaves' Fortune article on California-based SolarCity, which is pushing an end-to-end solar installation service that is inexpensive and transparent to the consumer.
Morris is an installer for California-based SolarCity, one of a handful of companies pioneering an all-inclusive approach to solar, making it as easy and cheap for the consumer as possible.
Under the company's model, customers agree to a monthly lease and sign the rights to claim subsidies over to SolarCity.
In return, homeowners get a solar array installed on their roof, maintained for the life of the lease. They're hooked up to the electric grid, so when they need more power than the panels provide, there's no disruption. And SolarCity guarantees the panels will produce a set amount of power, which the company says should offset the electric bill and more than compensate for the monthly fee.
I'm not, however, obliged to ignore the fact buried in an article whose headline is "Solar Power Done Cheap," that the only reason this company is in business is because 50% of its costs are paid by government subsidies.
If SolarCity's customers and employees seem happy with the arrangement, they owe one entity a big thanks: the government.
Thanks to a mix of federal, state and local incentives, some 50% of the costs of solar power are subsidized.
Many of those subsidies are set to expire in eight years. The solar industry thinks it can compete without them, but it's clear costs will have to come down.
My guess is that the managers will decide its easier to buy enough government support to keep the subsidies going. The article is another green-energy con job - Hargreaves found an interesting story to report but he still buried the lede.
Comments