B5.10 Group purchasing *
Develop/support a city-sponsored group purchasing programs.
Olympia Community Solar organized a group purchasing program for rooftop solar systems, in collaboration with Olympia and Lacey. It included reduced financing through PSCCU, and reportedly provided systems at an average installed cost of $1.98/watt. The campaign resulted in the installation of 130 systems, for a total of 1.1 Megawatts. A second round is underway.
SparkNorthwest has an ongoing community-driven, neighborhood group purchase campaign called Solarize Northwest, which has organized group solar purchase projects in 22 communities and supported the installation of 5.5 MW of solar. It ran a group purchase program for heat pumps in Oregon which installed 720 heat pumps over a number of years, and is collaborating with a number of King County cities in organizing Energy Smart Eastside, a group purchase program for heat pumps.
The Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies’ Solar Energy Evolution and Diffusion Studies program has conducted a series of rigorous controlled field trials focused on Connecticut’s Solarize program. It ran for three years in 58 towns statewide; during that period, the number of homes in the state with solar grew from about 800 to over 12,500. They’ve published a number of reports, including “Solarize Your Community: An Evidence-Based Guide for Accelerating the Adoption of Residential Solar” and “Wherever the Sun Shines: Bringing Solar to Low- and Middle-income Communities”. These campaigns reduced the price of installations by 20% to 30%.
NY-Sun and the City of Denver have combined Solarize campaigns with outreach for community solar programs. Portland, Maine has issued an RFP for group purchasing programs for EV chargers, heat pump water and space heaters, and solar installations.