“Solar For All” Launched Into Orbit

Want to save roughly $900 a year on your electricity bill while also doing your part to wean off of planet-destroying fossil fuels? 

There’s a solar panel for that — and a new city-backed campaign to get more such sun-powered equipment on the roofs of New Haven homeowners and landlords, with the help of a New Orleans-based company that promises energy cost savings through long-term solar panel leases.

Mayor Justin Elicker and city climate czar Steve Winter joined more than half a dozen representatives from the Lousiana-based solar company PosiGen to announce the kickoff of that ​“Solar for All” initiative in a Thursday morning press conference held on the front lawn of Rev. Roger Wilkins’s home on Maplewood Road in Upper Westville.

In addition to serving as the spiritual leader of a church at Hazel Street and Winchester Avenue in Newhallville and sitting on the city’s Board of Ethics, Wilkins is a PosiGen customer, and first had an array of solar panels installed on his single-family home’s roof back in 2017.

During Thursday’s presser, Wilkins spoke to how he’s still saving hundreds of dollars a year on his power bill thanks to those leased panels, while also informing his neighbors about how to take up a greener way of generating electricity.

He recalled wanting to ​“be an example for people about the sustainability” of switching to solar panels,” he said about switching over from oil to solar six years ago. That first year, he remembered, ​“what I would have paid for in one month I paid for in an entire summer. PosiGen lived to their promise.”

“This last year, we’ve really seen a crisis in energy affordability,” added Winter. PosiGen — which already has installed solar panels on 200 homes in New Haven, and which the Elicker administration is boosting as an affordable and accessible way to get solar panels on one’s home — can not only help New Haveners cut their electricity bills. The company’s solar panel program ​“also provides real benefits to our planet, to the resiliency of our electric grid, it’s really an amazing program.”

According to PosiGen District Sales Manager Telema Pepple and PosiGen Community Partnerships Manager Susan Young, the company doesn’t charge homeowners anything up front to install solar panels on their home.

Instead, the company charges a monthly lease — ranging from $74.99 for 12 panels to $189.99 for 32 panels — over the course of a 25-year agreement. In addition to charging customers that monthly lease, PosiGen also makes money by taking advantage of federal tax credits that help cover the costs of installing and maintaining such sun-powered equipment.

Young said that customers still do get a utility bill from, say, United Illuminating that they have to pay each month in addition to the monthly solar panel lease owed to PosiGen. But that power bill ​“is just a small fraction of what they used to pay” before getting solar panels ​“because now they as a homeowner get the generation on spot from the solar panels.”

And she stressed that the lease amount covers the entirety of the installation, maintenance, and insurance for the solar panels over the course of the 25-year agreement.

Pepple, Young, and Winter also pointed out that this program has a uniquely low barrier to access given that PosiGen does not check customers’ credit scores. Leasing rather than owning solar panels also helps those who don’t necessarily have a tax liability large enough to take advantage of the federal tax credit to still take advantage of sun-powered energy.

Kyle Wallace, a vice president of public policy and government affairs for PosiGen who also spoke at Thursday’s presser, said that his company offers a ​“savings guarantee” with its solar panel program. 

“The beauty of leasing,” added Young, is that ​“once you lease, your savings [start] on day one.” Customers get both energy efficiency upgrades and solar panels. ​“Your electric bill, your gas, is going to be reduced.” And when you lease, she said, ​“you don’t have to worry about maintenance. You don’t have to worry about the price going up. You don’t have to worry, it’s already covered, all of the maintenance is included.”

Winter agreed in a followup phone interview when asked about the benefits of leasing rather than owning solar panels through a program like PosiGen’s. By getting solar panels up and removing electricity demand from the grid over the course of a year, he said, ​“all of the savings can be split between residents and PosiGen.” 

If you want to own a solar panel system outright, ​“you’ve got to come up with all the cash upfront or take out a loan yourself.” That’s not the case with PosiGen. ​“A lease like PosiGen’s allows you to start saving money immediately, first through energy efficiency improvements, then [through] a system that’s going to take care of all or most of your electricity consumption.”

In his boosting of the energy-sustainability-at-a-low-cost program and the city’s push to get more people to sign , Mayor Elicker offered a ​“May the 4th”-specific framing for the ​“Solar for All” endeavor.

“This is Star Wars Day,” he said. ​“How appropriate that we’re talking about solar power from that star that’s most important to us.” Programs like PosiGen’s solar panel lease setup gives New Haveners ​“the power to help save our planet.”

In the city’s email press release announcing the launch of this New Haven-wide solar panel campaign, city spokesperson Lenny Speiller provided more details on upcoming info sessions and how to sign up for PosiGen. Speiller wrote in that release:

“The Solar for All citywide campaign, which will go through the end of the year, will include door-to-door canvassing, tabling at community events, and information sessions, among other outreach initiatives. The first info session will occur this evening, May 4th at 6 p.m., at The Shack, a community center located at 333 Valley Street in the West Hills neighborhood. Additional info sessions are also scheduled for Thursday, May 11^th from 12 to 1 p.m. and Tuesday, May 16^th from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. at New Haven City Hall (165 Church Street, Meeting Room 1) with others to follow. Residents can also learn more by going to www.PosiGen.com/solar-for-all-new-haven or by calling 866 – 767-4436.”