Solar is contagious. Once one household in a neighborhood goes solar, as I did with a 6 kW system installed by ARE Solar in June 2022, others tend to go solar as well. โ๏ธ๐
Les and Jacqueline Beecher, neighbors of mine and friends of mine here at Highline Crossing Cohousing Community in Littleton, Colo. recently added solar to their townhome here.
With a 9.3 kW system on our community garages, which fuels three electric vehicles — my 2020 Chevy Bolt, the Beecher’s 2017 Nissan Leaf and Steve and Heather Barr’s 2015 Nissan Leaf — a 10.3 kW system on our “Common House”, my own 6 kW system and the Beechers’ new 3.7 kW system, we now have 30 kW worth of solar at Highline Crossing, with plenty more rooftop solar potential waiting to be tapped!
The Beechers, like me, were inspired to go solar for environmental reasons.
“For me, it was concerns about the environment and making efforts to improve the environment that inspired us to go solar,” says Jacqueline Beecher. “It’s what we can do [to help the environment].”
Les Beecher adds that rooftops in Highline Crossing — and around the state, country, and world — are waiting to be tapped to help green the electric grid in Colorado, in the US, and around the world.
“It’s a resource that’s available,” he says. “To not use it [for solar] is to squander it.”
Les Beecher also emphasized the satisfaction that home rooftop solar can bring in terms of a creating one’s own clean energy.
“We want to be as independent from reliance as possible on non-renewable resources,” he says, adding that perhaps one day the Beechers may add a battery pack to their system in order to achieve even more independence.
The Beechers, who have been married for 52 years and who moved to Colorado from Madison, Wis., in 2017 to be near one of their children and several grandchildren, have long been focused on the environment and environmentalism. For example, Les Beecher has spearheaded efforts to get more of the approximately 120 residents at Highline Crossing to compost.
Both Beechers are strong advocates for solar and were part of a solar task force along with myself and several other residents who worked for two years to persuade the rest of the Highline Crossing Cohousing Community to use some of its long-term reserve funds to pay to have the 9.3 kW community garages and 10.3 kW Common House solar systems installed 2.5 years ago.
Both of those systems have so far over-produced by a large amount. The extra solar produced kWh are being “banked” with Xcel Energy for future use for additional electric cars and perhaps also electrification of the various appliances and heating of the Highline Crossing Cohousing Common House.
The environmentally conscious and oriented Beechers are hoping to see more neighbors at Highline Crossing go solar.
Indeed, Les Beecher has a pretty simple and clear message for those considering possibly going solar at Highline Crossing — and beyond.
“Do it!,” he says.โ๏ธ