(Cross-posted
from the Green Blog)
This
morning, at the Renewable Energy Finance Forum (REFF-West) in San Francisco, I
announced a new $75 million investment to create an initial fund with Clean Power Finance that will help up to 3,000 homeowners go solar. This is our
second investment in residential solar, and we’ve now invested more than $850million overall to develop and deploy clean energy.
As we said
when we made our first residential solar investment, we think it makes a lot of
sense to use solar photovoltaic (PV) technology—rooftop solar panels—to
generate electricity right where you need it at home. It greens our energy mix
by using existing roof space while avoiding transmission constraints, and it
can be cheaper than drawing electricity from the traditional grid.
Purchasing
a solar system is a major home improvement, but the upfront cost has
historically been one of the biggest barriers for homeowners. Solar installers
across the country don’t always have the resources to find financing for
customers, or the capital to provide it themselves. And for investors like
Google, banks and others, it can be difficult to enter a fragmented solar
market with many companies, and get connected to individual homeowners.
That’s
where Clean Power Finance comes in. They’ve developed an open platform that
connects installers with investors like Google to provide financing to
homeowners. Solar installers sign up with Clean Power Finance to get access to
the company’s comprehensive sales solutions, including consumer financing from
investors, like the Google fund. This enables installers to sell more systems
and grow their business. The installer builds the system, the investor (in this
case, Google) owns it, and homeowners pay a monthly payment for the system, at
a price that’s often less than paying for energy from the grid. Maintenance and
performance are taken care of by Clean Power Finance and its network of
installers.
 |
| Owned by Google, operated by Clean Power Finance and installed by American Vision Solar, the Colin family of Santa Clarita, Calif. has a 4.14 kW solar system |
This
innovative and scalable model makes business sense for Google, Clean Power
Finance, solar installers and homeowners too. We’re excited to be one of the
first investors to partner with Clean Power Finance and enable the company to
continue forging strong relationships with solar installers (like the ones they
announced last week with SunLogic, California Solar Systems, American Vision
Solar—learn more on Clean Power Finance’s website). By making financing more
readily available, the Clean Power Finance platform has the potential to lower
costs and accelerate adoption of solar energy.
We’ve
already installed a 1.6MW rooftop solar installation at the Googleplex back in
2007. Now, through Clean Power Finance and our previous investment this year,
we’re hoping to have an even larger impact. We look forward to watching our
funding help more than 10,000 homeowners generate clean electricity from the
sun.
Posted by
Rick Needham, Director of Green Business Operations
0 comments:
Post a Comment