Going solar

There are many considerations to "going solar", among them, practical, economic, environmental and political considerations. In this section, we offer you an overview what it takes, and means, to "go solar". We don't pretend that going solar is for everyone, although if you are a committed environmentalist -- as SCD.Com Editor Christof Demont-Heinrich is, we believe there are few more concrete and effective ways to grow the "green economy" and the environmental movement in the United States and globally than to put panels on your home and/or garage and power your home and car that way!

Neighborhood walk reveals allure of solar leasing

Friday, 27 July 2012 00:00 | Written by Christof Demont-Heinrich, SCD.Com Editor |

A new REC Solar/SunRun home solar system (upper left) going up in Denver, Colorado's Park Hill Neighborhood on July 27, 2012. Like the majority of REC Solar home PV systems being installed in Colorado now, this one is a leased system, not a homeowner owned system. [Photo Credit: Christof Demont-Heinrich]

I was walking through Denver, Colorado’s Park Hill neighborhood yesterday afternoon when I saw an REC Solar truck on the side of the road.

Sure enough, it was parked in front of the house that I’d noticed a couple of days earlier had what had seemed, back then, like a rather strange sign given that the home had no solar panels: “This home powered by REC Solar.”

REC Solar installed the 5.59 kW home solar system on our Aurora, Colo., home’s rooftop two years ago that has now produced nearly 2 megawatts of solar electricity, or nearly twice as much as we’ve actually used (this because we haven’t been able to get the electric car we thought we’d have by now).

Since REC Solar had installed our system, I decided to chat it up with the REC crew. I asked about Tim and Dustin, who were part of the crew that installed our system. They’re still at REC Solar, though they’ve moved up the ranks.

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