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Posted Nov 10, 2009, 9:00 AM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Country Club Park, Greater Coronado, Midtown, Phoenix, Az
Posts: 4,610
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Very good find on the Chase Tower stuff. Id like the moat to be done away with and maybe some retail wringing a courtyard but Ill take what looks to be an improved public space.
In other news...
http://www.azcentral.com/business/ar...oenix1110.html
Quote:
Phoenix makes it easy to go solar at home
1,000 APS customers can lease panels with no up-front costs
3 comments by Ryan Randazzo - Nov. 10, 2009 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
A new program will allow about 1,000 Arizona Public Service Co. customers in Phoenix, including many low-income families, to put solar panels on their homes and cut their power bills without paying anything up front.
The city-supported program called Solar Phoenix will help residents take advantage of the sun with leases financed by National Bank of Arizona.
"One of the barriers for residential solar power is the up-front cost and whether people of all income levels can afford that cost," Mayor Phil Gordon said. "We wanted to figure out a way for blue-collar people to use the sun to help the environment and use their own money for things that are more useful in their lives, like food and clothing."
Similar municipal-financing methods have taken off around the country since Berkeley, Calif., announced a city-backed solar program last year, but the Phoenix project is much larger and in a class of its own because of its financing structure.
The program works like this:
• People who want solar panels on their homes will contact SolarCity Corp. of California, which has been offering solar leases in Arizona since April 2008.
• Applicants will be evaluated based on their credit-worthiness, not their income level.
• Qualified applicants will have systems installed on their homes, with no money down. They will pay a monthly lease, based on the size of the system installed.
• SolarCity will guarantee the panels' annual energy production for the 15-year lease.
"At the end of the year, if the system doesn't generate the power we estimated, we are settling up with cash," SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive said.
Customers still will get power from APS at night and when they are using more energy than the panels generate.
Solar-panel systems for an average house can cost $30,000 to $70,000, which can take several years to recover through lower energy bills.
SolarCity guarantees only the amount of power the panels will make, not the amount of money customers will save. However, they say customers' new utility bills plus lease payments should add up to 10-15 percent less than their old utility bills.
Besides the financial benefits, the program will save customers the "brain damage" of dealing with utility, federal and state rebates, because that will all be handled on the back end of the deal by the bank and SolarCity, Rive said.
National Bank of Arizona is spending $25 million to buy the systems from SolarCity and lease them to homeowners, and the Phoenix Industrial Development Authority is putting up $250,000 to protect the bank from people who default on their leases.
Executives at National Bank will collect the APS rebates and 30 percent federal tax credit on the systems.
They expect to recover their $25 million investment within six to seven years through those incentives and by collecting monthly lease payments from participants, bank Executive Vice President Craig Robb said.
"The program has economic viability in addition to being environmentally sound," Robb said.
The bank is reserving $5 million of its investment for low-income customers.
At the end of the lease, customers will have the options of buying their system, extending the lease, upgrading or simply ending their relationship with SolarCity. The leases also can be transferred to new buyers if the home is sold.
Gordon persuaded the city's Industrial Development Authority to put up money to cover defaults and avoid risking any of the city's operating funds.
The development authority also recently lent $250,000 to the new Downtown Phoenix Public Market.
"Solar is another example where we had money in the bank and we could set it aside to help an important project," said Don Keuth, president of the authority's board.
"We think it is a pretty safe bet right now," he said. "Given the market these days, everybody is so cautious. But it wasn't hard for us to do. It just made the right sense."
Last year, Berkeley provided loans for homeowners to install solar-power systems, which homeowners pay back through property taxes. The Berkeley pilot program has 38 participants.
The mayor of Austin announced a program in October called "Energize Austin" that could provide loans to residents also to be paid back through property taxes.
Gordon said the plan in Phoenix is good for the city because rather than have the city issue bonds to cover the costs, National Bank is providing the money and will profit, minimizing the city's risk to the $250,000 provided by the Industrial Development Authority in case of defaults.
"We don't have to worry about it," Gordon said. "We've got the private sector doing it."
The plan also should create economic activity and, importantly, jobs, he said.
Gordon said he talked with officials at Salt River Project, which splits electrical service in the Valley with APS, and said the utility one day may participate as well.
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I havent done the math on this not being a homeowner but it sounds good. Anything that gets us more on the Solar boat is probably a good idea. But whats with the City of Phoenix teaming with a California based company for this? Are there really no firms in Phx or at least AZ that could've done this? If so its another example of how Arizona's already fallen woefully behind in the Solar industry and we really need to catch up.
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