Solar Home-Builders

How Utilities and Home-Builders are Teaming Up to Boost Solar

 
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Despite the near-total collapse of the housing market in the U.S. in the last few years, there has been a relatively rapid adoption of solar power among some homebuilders, as well as a much greater focus on energy efficiency in new homes.

More home developers are now offering solar energy systems as an option or standard feature in their developments. In addition to solar, builders are also investing in a higher level of energy efficiency in these homes. To achieve more installations of solar equipment required a partnership among government agencies, utilities, solar providers and homebuilders.

Let's gain deeper insights by exploring one development by Pulte Homes' Centex Division located in Elk Grove California, a bedroom community of Sacramento. The Elk Grove community is served by Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD). The solar equipment provider and installer at this community is SunPower.

The Benefits of Leveraging Rooftop Solar

Homes are an excellent untapped resource for utilizing solar energy. The benefits include:

    • Avoiding unnecessary land use. By using roofs, less land will need to be exclusively dedicated to solar, making the rare California desert tortoises and many other constituents happy.

    • Making use of existing and costly infrastructure used to transport energy.

    • Managing peak demand, which decreases the overall cost of electricity since "peaker plants" that are brought on-line to handle peak loads are the most costly to operate.

    • Increasing a home's value. According to Southern California Edison, "a solar energy system increases a home's average resale value by $20,000 for every $1,000 of annual electric bill savings." That also equates to approximately $84 per month in added value to a home.

Installing solar at the same time as the home is being built reduces the cost of installation per home, in part because builders can use the same design on a large number of homes using a similar layout, and also because it's much easier to access the roof as it's being built than to retrofit solar onto an existing home.

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As the new-build homes market is becoming so popular, many home developers and housing associations are also offering buyers a variety of deals in order to lower their costs.