Community Solar Gardens would give people living in apartments and condominiums an opportunity to own part of a solar array. (Photo: © Fritz Langmann | Dreamstime.com)
Innovative ownership model would open solar up to previously-alienated renters and homeowners.
Colorado State Representative Claire Levy (D-Boulder) is planning on introducing a bill this session that would legalize community “solar gardens”, allowing renters, condo owners, or people who live in otherwise unsuitable locations for solar, to take advantage of local solar incentives and take part in the burgeoning residential solar industry.
The bill would allow people to buy into a solar array not on their property and receive credits from the state's largest utility, Xcel Energy, for the resulting electricity. As it stands currently, homeowners must install solar systems on their own property to qualify for rebates.
"The intent of (the bill) is so people can have the benefit of what they would get if they had solar panels on their rooftops,” Levy told the Boulder Daily Camera. “It’s for people who are renters, who live in condominium projects and don’t have rooftops, people whose lots are shaded, people whose houses aren’t the right orientation — a whole variety of things.”
The idea for the bill came from stricter green building standards in Boulder that requires many new buildings to generate some portion of their own renewable energy. "The idea is that if somebody cannot meet the renewable energy requirements on site, and if there are solar gardens available within Boulder County, that they would be able to put their renewables at the solar gardens as a way of meeting the requirement," Commissioner Will Toor said.
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[...] if you rent or own in a condo complex or apartment building. Not so fast, if you live in Colorado. Ecopolitology points out that a state representative from Boulder plans on introducing a bill [...]
[...] if you rent or own in a condo complex or apartment building. Not so fast, if you live in Colorado. Ecopolitology points out that a state representative from Boulder plans on introducing a bill legalizing… Read [...]
[...] if you rent or own in a condo complex or apartment building. Not so fast, if you live in Colorado. Ecopolitology points out that a state representative from Boulder plans on introducing a bill [...]
[...] if you rent or own in a condo complex or apartment building. Not so fast, if you live in Colorado. Ecopolitology points out that a state representative from Boulder plans on introducing a bill legalizing… [...]
[...] Colorado’s new community solar garden idea might also really have the backing and momentum to take off with this new RES. Whether or not that will create too much distributed energy competition for only a 3% utility requirement is yet to be seen. But if it is “too” successful, Colorado could always increase that distributed energy requirement. [...]
[...] idea being considered in Colorado that would allow for the establishment of ‘community solar gardens‘ — solar arrays owned by a group of investors who cannot benefit from a rooftop solar [...]