Join A Renewable Community
Some communities, neighborhoods, or even full districts can be remotely tied into solar farms or other renewable plants which power their utilities.
Its possible to sign up for programs such as these through your regular utility company, which will often pay out in credits on your power bill. There are also experimental solar communities such as New Yorks Brooklyn Microgrid and Californias SolarShares program.
Renewable communities are taking off in a number of states, with some cities already onboard for 100% renewable energy, and many more on track to join them in the next 20 years. Burlington, Vermont is already completely run on renewable energy sources, the first city in the nation to do so! It was quickly followed by Aspen, Colorado and Greensburg, Kansas, with Georgetown, Texas on track to achieve 100% renewable status by the end of this year.
Other, bigger cities are pushing for their own renewable energy goals by the end of the decade, including San Diego, Rochester, and Grand Rapids. If the trend continues, finding a city to live in thats 100% powered by renewable energy should get easier every year!
You Rent An Apartment
We believe that you have only one option when you rent an apartment and want to go solar. However, its fair to admit right away that this option will not really pay off.
We stumbled upon the experiment on Medium by the Hackernoon. They decided to check whether its a good idea to install a small windowsill-sized solar power panel. In this case, you wont really need to ask your landlord for a permission to install something on the roof, but hear out the results of the experiment. Is it really worth it?
Turns out, this one panel could gather enough of the solar energy during the day to power the laptop, lights in the room and some other small devices. However, the financial payback of such solar power kit does not sound good.
The financial payback of the system is 9 years including battery, which is in line with many rooftop systems but doesnt include servicing. This could be reduced to 6.5 years by adding a second 100W solar panel.
Niko Dunk, Author
You can still ask your landlord about the permission to install the solar panels on the roof, but chances to get his approval or even financial backing are around zero.
Dont Assume That Solar Panels Automatically Add To Your Resale Value
Solar panels can make a home more attractive to a particular set of buyers and help get an offer sooner and perhaps at a higher percentage of the list price, says Dan Hamilton, a top-selling agent in Palm Desert, California. But typically the solar systems dont add a material amount of monetary value to the home.
The takeaway is when you sell a house with solar panels, make sure you price it right. The jurys still out whether solar energy adds to your homes value so dont assume you can offset the cost of the entire panels in your list price. Instead, focus on how they can boost your homes marketability and streamlining the process of transferring your system to buyers.
What my experience is, for a lot of our buyers, especially ones that are going to make this more than just a winter residence and a full-time residence here, is that having the solar can provide some predictability with energy costs, Hamilton said.
Thats in sunny California, where Hamilton says: Solar is a big deal. In locations with long winters and rainy seasons, homeowners have to be extra careful to do their homework on the long-term savings of solar and package it to buyers in a clear way.
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What Kind Of Property Do You Rent
We discussed in the beginning of our article that the amount of solar energy your panels will produce depend on the type of solar system you use. However, there is one more variable that you should note what type of house you rent.
Its fair to note that a single-family house has more options for the solar energy generation than a room in a small apartment, right? Lets review, what are your options depending on the type of property you lease.
Leasing A Home Solar Power System Can Deliver Savings On Your Electric Bill Immediately
The big news in home solar isnt the glut of solar panels worldwide thats slashed prices in half in the past year. No, the big news is the rise of leasing, which makes home systems more affordable and can save you money right away on your electric bill.
Several years ago, Hal and Brenda Wright of Centennial, Colo., a town just south of Denver, started investigating solar power for their 2,600-square-foot home. It was “more because of the green aspect than the economic aspect,” says Hal.
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But Hal, a retired electrical engineer, became enamored with the savings. The six-kilowatt system the couple lease provides 85% of their home’s electricity and cuts their monthly electric bill, which used to be $110, to $16.50, on average.
Hal wasn’t averse to buying a solar power system, he says, but leasing made more financial sense. Instead of an initial outlay of more than $12,000, he made a one-time payment of $5,200 to SolarCity, a leasing and installation firm. That sum bought him a 20-year contract for power that will pay back his initial investment in less than five years and yield savings of $16,000 to $18,000 over the life of the contract, he figures.
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The Landlord Is Responsible For Proper Billing
Every home that uses solar energy will also require a connection to an electric power grid. As good as solar energy is and has become, it still cant produce enough energy to power a home. Overcast and cloudy days and homes that use large amounts of power are a few examples where electricity is still required.
That also equates to tenants having two bills for their homes power. Like any service, the customer , cant be expected to pay for services that have no breakdown or itemization of services. That is true of solar energy as well.
Generate Another Income Stream
With a typical solar array in Utah, you can often generate more power through the solar panels than your apartment building and your tenants will use. Thats especially true in the summer months when sunshine is abundant and the hours in the day are long. You may be able to sell some of the excess energy you generate back to the local power company, providing you with another income stream.
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Top 10 Facts About The Rent
Thanks to rising energy prices, more and more people are looking to invest in solar energy as a way of saving money and reducing their energy bills, making the prospect of free solar all the more tempting.
Known as the rent-a-roof scheme, a growing number of companies are offering to fit and maintain solar panels on your roof for free. On first impressions, free solar panels might sound like a good offer but is it too good to be true?
Should You Put Solar Panels On Your Investment Property
Posted by Kelseigh Wrigley21/01/2022
Installing solar panels is a huge financial commitment, but one that can be rewarding long term thanks to solar feed-in tariffs and being less reliant on grid electricity. Unfortunately, these benefits can usually only be passed onto the resident of the property who uses the electricity. So how then, can investors make a return on their solar panels if they dont live at their property? And, is it even worth installing solar on a rental property?
In this guide, Canstar Blue takes a look at some of the advantages involved with installing solar panels on an investment property. From the arrangements with tenants, maintenance required and whether or not there are rebates available to landlords, we uncover whether itll provide any real value.
On this page:
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Benefits Of Solar Panels For Rental Properties
Tenants of houses or flats with solar panels installed can expect to pay, on average, £125 less per year on household energy bills. With energy prices expected to continue rising over the next few years, these savings could dramatically increase. The use of fossil fuels to give our homes power is becoming increasingly damaging to our planet. Using the sun to power your household appliances during the day will dramatically reduce your carbon footprint and help protect the environment for future generations.
The Cons Of Homes With Solar Panels
For tenants that rent homes with solar panels, it will often mean having two energy bills. That also results in one more bill to track and pay. The other potential con of solar panels is damage to the panels themselves. These issues can result in costly repairs as well as making a considerable hole in the roof.
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Solar Landfills And Brownfields
Building solar on landfills and other brownfields is an increasingly attractive way to repurpose polluted and unusable land. When assessing a municipal landfill for development, we take into account proximity to three-phase power lines and substations before offering a lease.
In this video, we spoke to Lloyd Garnsey from Jefferson County, NY, about his solar project with OYA Solar. We strive to keep your best interests in mind when writing up a lease in order to help you make the right decision.
Buy Green Power For Your Home
If you cant directly generate solar power for your living space, you can always purchase green power.
Green power, according to the EPA, is the subset of renewable energy that confers the greatest environmental benefits.
In case youre wondering, yes, the EPA includes solar as a green power source.
There are two ways to do this:
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Hire A Top Real Estate Agent To Sell The Benefits Of Solar
Whether you choose to buy out or transfer your solar panels, work with a top real estate agent who has experience selling homes with solar. An agents expertise is especially essential for the following components of your home sale:
- Pricing your home:Pricing your home right is one of the biggest factors that will determine how much your home eventually sells for.If you buy out your solar panels, your agent can assess how much value your solar panels add to your house based on comparative listing and sale data in your market. If you choose to transfer the lease, your agent will likely have a different pricing strategy which weighs the need for buyers to take on the solar lease.
- Thorough marketing to highlight solar benefits: Every platform your home listing appears on should highlight the solar panels and the renewable, affordable energy they generate for the house. Your agent can articulate the benefits and details of the lease or ownership concisely in the marketing campaign, making your homes solar capabilities an attractive extra for buyers.
- Communicating the details of solar with buyers: Real estate agents experienced in navigating deals involving the transfer of solar leases can explain the process to wary buyers who do not understand how it all works. If the buyer gets cold feet at any point of the process, your agent can get them back on track by providing information and bridging the gap between them and the solar company.
Other Supply And Demand Issues
Lease rates can spike, at least temporarily, in response to a variety of triggers. For instance:
- A state announces a new Renewable Portfolio Standard target
- A utility or corporate buyer of energy announces they will be issuing a Request for Proposal to procure renewable energy in a certain region
- A utility announces they are upgrading or building new transmission infrastructure
- An existing tax incentive for solar projects is approaching retirement
These kinds of short-term triggers can spur bidding wars between developers to secure your land.
There are longer-term, structural supply and demand issues, too. California, for instance, is the most developed state for solar. There, the land has been exhaustively picked over by developers for years and the easiest to develop, most affordable land is already under lease. As a result, the supply of land is now constrained while demand is still present, which is driving up lease rates toward $1,000/acre.
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A Theoretically Ideal Way To Charge For Solar
In an ideal world, a Massachusetts landlord would be able to monetize solar directly. Acting like an alternative supplier, landlords would sell kilowatt-hours of electricity to renters at some agreed-upon market rate. Renters would still connect to the grid to purchase electricity beyond what the panels could provide . The landlords rate could be set to repay the investment in the panels.
Direct sale at retail/market rates would satisfy goals for all parties. Renters would have access to renewable energy generated on-site for no more than theyd pay for grid energy. Landlords would have a way to recoup their investment in capital-intensive panels and possibly make money, counting the value of tax credits. Utilities would still be able to sell to renters as demand exceeds local generation.
Unfortunately, at time of writing, this setup is not allowed, as will be discussed.
Transfer Your Solar Lease To Eliminate Extra Costs When Selling
Transferring your solar lease gets you off the hook for any payments owed in the remaining duration of the lease. The process of transferring the lease is fairly straightforward, but does require a reasonable amount of coordination between all parties involved in the transaction: you, your real estate agent, the solar company, the buyer, the buyers real estate agent, and even the buyers mortgage lender.
Pros:
- No upfront cost to buy the panels you can invest saved money in other value-adding improvements to increase your homes marketability like painting and staging
- No early buy-out fee
- Complicates the selling process necessitates more discussion between the seller and buyers
- May turn off buyers uninterested in taking on lease
- Limits your offer pool to buyers who are able to qualify for the solar lease in addition to a mortgage
- Extends closing period until the new buyer is approved to take on the solar lease
- Potential lease transfer fee
Follow these steps to transfer your solar lease to the new buyer:
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Whats In The Contract
As with all contract, its vital that you fully ready and understand the contract between you and the Rent a Roof installer before you sign. If you dont understand anything, also seek clarification.
If you are pressured to sign the contract, always walk away from the deal. An MCS installer should never under any circumstance pressure you to sign the contract. Once you sign, you are also given a cooling off period where you can change your mind and not face any penalties.
Particular things to check in the contract:
- What solar panel system the company will be installing
- How much the company think you will make from energy bill savings
- What will happen to the panels after the 20 year tariff payments cease
- Who is responsible for any upkeep and maintenance
- What will happen if the panels break
- What will happen if you move home
If you want to see how much solar panels would cost you, fill in this form to receive free quotes from trusted suppliers.
What Are The Benefits Of Solar Roof Rental
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Save Time, Save Money: When you rent your roof solar, you dont have to worry about building and maintaining a solar system yourself. At YSG Solar, we handle the entire processfinancing, installation, maintenance, operationsso you can save time and money and just focus on your business.
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Dont Rely on the Weather: The sun might come and go, but your payment remains consistent. Solar roof rental ensures a fixed-rate payment, regardless of weather conditions or energy generation at different points in the year.
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Be Flexible With Your Finances: Solar developers seeking to rent your roof spacelike YSG Solarcan structure your payments to suit your needs, ensuring that your business can continue to operate at optimal levels throughout the solar roof rental process.
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Extra Assistance: In addition, if you choose YSG Solar, we will always be there to assist you with any concerns relating to your solar panels. Well keep you informed about the energy generation of your system, helping you to understand how solar energy works and why its a boost for both the environment and your business. A commitment to renewable, clean solar energy can not only generate revenue, it can also generate a lot of goodwill in the community.
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Is Solar Right For Your Investment Property
Solar costs continue to decrease, so converting rental properties to solar energy is becoming a viable option for investment property owners. Not only are there environmental advantages, but the positive financial incentives should be considered as well.
As solar technology continues to become more efficient, we can expect installation costs to continue dropping while our savings grow even higher.
