Industry estimates indicate that only 25 percent of all homes or businesses in Colorado can install solar panels due to a range of factors, such as whether the home or business is rented, the direction the roof faces, the amount of space available on the roof, and the amount of shade from nearby trees on the roof.
For those who want to support the solar industry without installing solar panels, Xcel is asking regulators to create a new option of supporting solar power for its Colorado customers. The program is called Solar*Connect and would enable customers to purchase solar power through subscription.
Solar*Connect could potentially benefit all of Xcel’s customers, even those who don’t have solar, by reducing cross subsidies associated with existing solar programs.
Xcel has run a similar monthly premium program that supports wind power, called WindSource, since 1998. WindSource has 36,000 subscribers in Colorado who have purchased more than 1 billion kilowatt hours of power over the years. Customers pay $2.16 for a block of 100 kilowatt hours of wind-based power per month. Signing up for WindSource allows the customer to say that a percentage, or all, of their power needs are met by renewable energy.
Consumers have begun to embrace solar energy at a much faster rate, but like any potential upgrade, there is no typical approach to valuation, particularly since the value of solar energy itself has yet to be standardized. This has much debated topic recently, so if you have any questions or would like to see more blogs about specific subject matters, click here to contact us. We really listen.
