Selling Homeowners a Solar Dream 279
slugo writes to mention a Wired article discussing a unique business looking to capitalize on interest in solar power. The
Citizenr company will install a solar generator on your roof, completely for free. You then buy power from it, instead of a regular power company, at a fixed rate that's likely to be lower than the usual power fees. The company will make money on these usage fees, as well as credits from the federal government for spreading the use of solar power. If it sounds too good to be true to you, you're not alone. A number of financial analysts have warned people away from the company. "The naysayers are finding lots to say nay to. Much of the criticism is clinging to the company's multilevel marketing scheme. So far, more than 700 people have enlisted as independent Citizenr sales agents -- what the company calls 'ecopenuers' -- or about one sales representative for every 10 customers, with significant overlap. Heading that sales army is 42-year-old Styler, a veteran of multilevel marketing and a colorful figure in his own right." Pyramid marketing and shady business or not, it's an intriguing idea.
Sounds familiar (Score:1, Insightful)
Just like slashdot subscriptions
Re:Eww (Score:5, Insightful)
huh? where is the scam? (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as I can tell, the only way you could possibly get screwed is if the market price of electricity on the public grid falls below the rate to which you agree for private provision. But if the market price rises, you get an even better deal. People are rational and will evaluate signing one of these contracts based on what they are paying for electricity now and expect to be paying in the future.
Who cares about the company's marketing method? What matters is whether they can make the business model work. This is a fantastic idea environmentally and it seems to be good for the consumer too. The details are all going to be in the contracts between homeowners and the company, not the company and its sales force.
The real reason homepower won't be a success. (Score:1, Insightful)
You'll have to do what many of us have done, which is source your own hardware, such as PV panels, regulators, batteries/cells, etc. (Not easy: the manufacturers refuse to deal with end-users, and the "official distributors" apparently refuse to deal with anybody!)
The do the install, configuration, and maintanence (questions on message boards either go unanswered, or you'll be trolled and flamed for being a n00b....kind of like being on Slashdot, really.)
Most likely this will get modded 'Flamebait' or 'Troll', not much I can do about that, but I still believe the RE industry is its own worst enemy.
OK, do it as a normal company (Score:2, Insightful)
Ditto non-profits and cooperatives doing the same. With the tax-advantaged status if a non-profit and the lack of a need for a positive rate of return, I expect to see local eco-nonprofits start doing things like this even if it's not a good commercial investment.
You must have missed a math class... (Score:5, Insightful)
However, just take your $10,000 system. Now in reality that only will provide you with about $50 of electricity per month at $4/watt (2500 watts) but even if it did provide you with $150, you have forgotten what every mortgage holder knows -- that money today is worth far more than money (or electricity) in the future.
So $10,000 at 7% interest in fact takes 85 months, not 67 months to pay off at $150/month saving. This doesn't seem like a big difference, but it's because your price numbers are off. At the real price of solar, a $10K system provides, as noted, only $50 worth of power, and you can never, ever, in any number of months, pay off $10,000 at $50 per month because the interest per month is more than $50. So the math error becomes a difference between a real payoff rate and infinity.
Re:"O Ye, of Little Faith" (Score:4, Insightful)
It's just many nerds are good at math...
I signed up to be an associate
I think the naysayers will be put in their place in the next month or so when the press release comes out
It will take more than a press release to convince techies. Something like, maybe, a working product?
I'm a NASD licensed former floor-trader [...] and C-Level Sales Shark, and I "get" the numbers
Whatever. On the other hand, you are not a businessman, because otherwise you would have immediately asked a very simple question. If your company happens to develop such a revolutionary solar panel (cheap, efficient or both), why to bother with homeowners at all? Just make solar panels for the whole planet, and then you can buy Microsoft with your spare change; the whole world will be at your service. Presidents of Kyocera and Sharp would be genuflecting in your lobby, and Secretary General of UN would be begging you to answer his calls (there is plenty of sunlight in Africa, and not much oil.) But no, instead of making the largest transnational corporations its customers CitizenRe picks ... homeowners, for $deity's sake! That's ridiculous, assuming CitizenRe's claims -- but totally understandable if CitizenRe's directors are just setting up a pyramid, with homeowners as stupid pawns. That's because Sharp would not move a finger without doing due diligence (and they know how to do it right, working with the technology for decades) but your average Sally and Tom will gladly pay $500 for unsubstantiated claims; indeed, "a sucker is born every minute". Some of such su^H^Hpeople will even sign up as unpaid members of the pyramid in hope to profit. In your case it is absolutely laudable that you chose to set aside your super-profitable career as a trader, licensed and all, and instead spend your expensive time on this free work.
Why would you expect Citizenre to [do] ?
A demo of their solar panel - installed in a standard house - would do a lot. It's not like a black shiny panel will reveal its technology to watching journalists. A mass-produced lot, with a sticker price on it, would remove all the doubts. But as it stands, the company is all hat and no cattle. Anyone with half a brain (or more) should treat them as a scam unless proven otherwise.
Re:solar hot water (Score:3, Insightful)
OR... just buy the equiptment and sell power back. (Score:2, Insightful)
If you owned the equiptment you dont need the power companies really, and you can infact sell your energy to the power grid so...
yeah... dont fall for this scam. Buy the hardware, and the energy is free. The real truth is... the sun's energy is free for all.
Re:You must have missed a math class... (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact that it's difficult to find a economically viable renewable energy solutions shows that it's our economic system that's not viable.
So long as economist don't know how to subtract [adbusters.org], and as long as polluters get to externalize their costs, economic reality and physical reality will not correspond.
Government Subsidies? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:huh? where is the scam? (Score:3, Insightful)
No-one is setting themselves up to be screwed simply because they have a private generator running on their property. If the installation is free of charge then all the better. About the worst anyone would be setting themselves up for is a botched installation and hassle dealing with the people who install the panels.
This could very well be a pyramid scheme targetting resellers and salesmen. Anyone required to pay "up front" for goods which will be delivered later is of course at risk of losing that money. But that doesn't make the structure of the deal objectively bad for consumers. What is the problem?