If you’ve been thinking about solar, CPA Kenton Smith’s recent article in the Journal of Accountancy tells us that the best time to buy is…now! Government incentives and lowering prices have made home solar an even better investment in the last few years. Here’s why:

1. Solar is getting cheaper! “The cost of solar components has been dropping, and electricity prices will likely go up,” Swift explains. “Taken together, these developments make installing a solar electric or solar water heating system much more appealing than in the past.”
2. National tax credit: One of the most helpful incentives is the national 30% tax credit for installing solar panels and other renewable energy. The credit used to prevent homeowners from claiming more than $2000, but congress removed this cap in 2009. Now, if you buy a new system you can credit the full 30% toward your taxes.
3. State-wide PACE programs: California and New Jersey are two states with strong incentives in place, and innovative PACE programs have sprouted up around the country. PACE lets homeowners borrow money from a city to install clean energy and pay back it back through their property taxes over 20 years.

On February 1st, the Obama administration proposed a $302.4 million in funding for solar programs, a 22% increase of over last year. Many leaders in the sector applauded the news, saying it showed his commitment to the solar industry. (You can read the Reuters article here.) In his recent State Of The Union address Obama stated: “To transform our economy, protect our security, and save our planet from the ravages of climate change, we need to make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy.”

Here at 1BOG we’ve seen the solar fever firsthand, as our membership has swelled to almost 20,000 people who want to join a community solar purchase program in their area and we look forward to serving their solar needs in the future!

Check out yesterday’s NBC San Diego segment about 1BOG and Heliopower’s joint 1BOG San Diego campaign! Sign up for free to join 1BOG’s San Diego solar group purchase campaign.

Great news, 1BOGers! Today we announced the first ever group purchase of solar on the east coast. We chose New Jersey for its great state and utility rebates. The incentives are so good that our CEO Dave Llorens commented, “I want to move to Jersey and buy homes, just to put solar on them.”

For this campaign, we wrangled the stellar rate of $5.45 per watt. That’s 16% cheaper than 2009 rates in the area! Our installer partner is The Solar Center, a local company based in Rockaway, and we’re glad to work together to help spread solar to many more homes in the garden state.

Tell your friends in northern New Jersey they can sign up until April 25th, 2010. As usual, sign up is free, and gives you the group rate and lots of useful solar info. The campaign includes Sussex, Passaic, Bergen, Hudson, Essex, Morris, Warren, Hunterdon, Somerset, Union and Middlesex counties.

Take a look at our press release announcing the news, this article that appeared New Year’s Day in The Bergen Record, or this story in The Daily Record that came out today. To find out more, visit our Solar North Jersey homepage, or attend our free webinar with more details on Thursday, February 18 at 7pm: http://solarnorthjersey.1bog.org/webinar.

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 25 – One Block Off the Grid (1BOG), the nation’s largest solar consumer advocate, today announced the launch of the company’s first East Coast solar group purchasing campaign. Homeowners throughout the northern part of New Jersey can now sign up for free to join the Northern New Jersey 1BOG solar campaign and buy residential solar energy at a group discount rate of only $5.45 per watt. This is a 16% reduction over standard rates for solar in the region for 2009(i). After a thorough evaluation of local installation companies, 1BOG selected Rockaway, NJ-based solar installer The Solar Center as campaign partner to service the Northern New Jersey 1BOG community.

(Logo:  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20091216/SF26833LOGO)

The Northern New Jersey 1BOG campaign will save homeowners time, energy and money going solar. Now, homeowners who want to go solar but don’t know whom to trust can sign up online to speak with a 1BOG solar advisor, receive impartial advice and the pre-negotiated 1BOG group discount rate for solar from The Solar Center. In addition, homeowners can use 1BOG’s Online Estimate Tool to receive real-time information about the cost and payback of a solar investment for a specific home.

“We are excited to work with The Solar Center to use the power of group purchasing to lower the cost of solar for New Jersey’s homeowners,” said 1BOG Co-Founder and General Manager, Dave Llorens. “New Jersey is one of the most solar-friendly states in the US, so it’s a natural location for 1BOG’s flagship East Coast campaign.”

The state of New Jersey provides rebates of up to $1.75 per watt to incent solar purchases. The utilities serving the community also offer programs that help with solar purchases. PSE&G’s solar loan program can be repaid with solar renewable energy certificates (SRECs) generated by the system, and JCP&L and Rockland Electric utilities offer up to 15 year fixed price contracts on SRECs. Finally, a federal tax credit of 30% enables homeowners to purchase solar at affordable rates competitive with the cost of conventional power.

“As a local company dedicated to advancing solar energy adoption, we are pleased to have been selected to serve 1BOG’s New Jersey community,” said The Solar Center CEO, Ed Steins. “New Jersey is second only to California in installed solar capacity, and this joint campaign will help solidify its place as a leader in the U.S. solar landscape.”

The New Jersey 1BOG program is available now to local homeowners in Sussex, Passaic, Bergen, Hudson, Essex, Morris, Warren, Hunterdon, Somerset, Union and Middlesex counties through April 12, 2010. For more information, details about pricing and products or to sign up, visit the 1BOG Solar North Jersey homepage.

1BOG and The Solar Center will be hosting a free webinar and online information session with details about the New Jersey solar campaign on Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. EST. To sign up, visit: http://solarnorthjersey.1bog.org/webinar.

Last week, 1BOG’s Dave Llorens was interviewed on FOXBusiness.com LIVE to discuss how going green saves money, as well as the upcoming launch of the 1BOG North Jersey campaign. Watch the video below!

Sam Weinberger participated in 1BOG’s San Francisco April ‘09 Campaign. Read on to hear about his experience going solar!

“I’d been thinking about going solar for over a year when I signed up to be part of One Block Off the Grid’s San Francisco community in April 2009. My roof was not shaded with trees and my electricity bills were high as I work from home. I had done some of my own research, spent hours interviewing local installers and collecting quotes and proposals, but each of those installers was selling their own specific product and I still had general questions that were unanswered.

I put the whole solar idea on the back burner until I read an article about 1BOG in the San Francisco Chronicle. I signed up online and within a few days got a call from a 1BOG solar adviser who was able to answer all of the questions that had gone unanswered by the installers I had met with previously. They told me exactly what to expect and even gave me a list of questions to ask the solar installer company they partnered with, Real Goods Solar.

The Real Goods team was very professional and customer-oriented. I signed up for 1BOG online in Spring 2009, and by August, Real Goods Solar had installed my solar system and it was up and running. 1BOG runs a competition for each campaign to choose a good installer and negotiates a fixed rate for everyone that is published on their site. I learned first-hand how difficult and complicated it can be to go solar and it’s great that someone is making the process more user-friendly.

The PVWATCH service sends me an email every evening giving the day’s power production, and after six months, I still enjoy seeing my dwindling electricity bills! We also enjoy pointing out the glimmer of our solar panels when we take visitors to see the view from the top of Twin Peaks!”

Check out this video of 1BOG’s Dave Llorens, who visited his native New Orleans for the Pepsi Refresh Project, which doles out millions of dollars in grants each month to fund great ideas that have a positive impact on communities. Grants are submitted by consumers, then voted on by the community.

With $50,000, Dave Llorens helped five blocks of New Orleans’ homeowners go solar. What could you do? Go to www.RefreshEverything.com to get your ideas in!

Happy New Year from 1BOG!  We are anticipating an exciting second year bringing solar to homeowners around the country.  We have installed 550 solar systems so far and in 2010 our resolution is double this number.

Solar has already been in the news in the New Year:

• President Obama dedicating funds to create clean tech jobs.  Green jobs are  something 1BOG is looking to focus on in the New Year.  We launched a pilot program with Solar Richmond last month and we’re looking forward to helping to create more green jobs.

• In the wake of the Copenhagen Climate Talks, discussion has been spurred on what the next steps are for the US in terms of energy conservation. 1BOG hopes for more solar and more green jobs!

• Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) funding is around the corner for more homeowners around the US.  This will give 1BOG members even more financing options for greening their homes.  Stay tuned for more information on 1BOG and PACE in the coming weeks.

Part of our 2010 growth also means starting 1BOG communities in new markets.  Northern New Jersey will be the first East Coast region to join the 1BOG community later this month, as Jim O’Neill recently featured in his “Solar Need Not Be Costly” story that appeared in The Record on January 1, 2010. New Jersey ranks second in the country for solar installations and we’re excited to see how 1BOG works on the East Coast.  Down the road we have more exciting city launches so check back if you’re waiting for one in your town!

To stay up to date with all of 1BOG’s 2010 announcements and to see if we’ll be coming to your city next, join our 280,000+ Twitter followers:  http://twitter.com/1bog

It’s been a big year for solar! 1BOG has 16,288 members, has expanded to 9 cities across the country, and 535 homes have already installed solar energy with us.

We couldn’t run group purchases without the group, so thank you for being part of our community and this movement which is growing across the country. So far we have run solar campaigns in 9 cities, and we’ll be expanding to San Antonio, Honolulu and North New Jersey in early 2010.

Wishing you a happy and healthy new year, and a giant thank you for being a part of 1BOG. Stay tuned for what next year has in store!

Cheers,
The 1BOG Team

Last week, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announced that he would be introducing new renewable energy projects in San Francisco through the San Francisco Sustainable Financing Program (SF2).  Legislation like this has typically only addressed solar installations in the past, but SF 2 will also cover energy and water efficiency.

“San Francisco Sustainable Financing will help residential and commercial property owners finance the next wave of renewable energy development in San Francisco,” said Mayor Newsom. “This innovative program will not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it will also fuel the continued expansion of green jobs in San Francisco.”

This is certainly good news for the San Francisco 1BOG community as it provides more financing options for going solar.

Here at 1BOG we are also excited about the water conservation aspect of SF2. In addition to putting solar panels on your home and getting an energy efficiency retrofit from 1BOG partner Recurve, 1BOG encourages homeowners to conserve natural resources. Water is a global issue, not just here in California, where we have limited water resources and a continuously growing population, but around the world.

The rationale behind water conservation is more than the imminent threat of shortages and droughts –the United Nations estimates that by 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population will face periodic and often severe water shortages.

There are also major energy implications associated with water use. Tap and irrigation water has been filtered, treated, transported and stored for urban use. These processes use energy and therefore impact a home’s carbon footprint. According to the EPA, letting a faucet run for five minutes uses the equivalent amount of energy as leaving a 60 watt light bulb on for 14 hours.

What can homeowners do?
1. Conserve water by being mindful of the amount of water used
2. Invest in water saving water efficient appliances for indoor and outdoor use
3. Have your home audited for water efficiency

While 1BOG’s main focus is solar, we are committed to promoting a lifestyle that supports renewable energy, energy efficiency and conservation of natural resources.  In order to truly transition to renewable energy resources, programs like SF2 are essential to increasing awareness and making it affordable for people to adopt energy efficiency practices.