Sunday, November 20, 2011

Occupy the Rooftops! Community Solar Initiative


We all know that this nation needs to move from fossil fuels to more renewable energy sources. Here’s your chance to make it happen locally. Nov. 20th is Community Solar Day!

A lot of people, businesses and organizations would love to switch to clean solar power, but lack the up-front costs necessary to fund a solar installation. That’s where organizations like Solar Mosaic come in.

Here’s the basic idea:

Fund the up-front costs of community solar projects by crowd funding. This means that instead of the raising up-front capital themselves or going to a bank for a loan, a solar project is funded by small investments by members of the community. These small investments are paid back to the investors over time, and the extra money saved by lower energy costs, gets paid forward to help fund other solar projects. Pretty cool, huh?

This takes our energy policy out of the hands of big corporations, like ExxonMobil, Koch Industries & BP, and puts the power in the hands of the people. As Jamie Henn of 350.org put it, “When energy is in the hands of the 1%, we get the Keystone XL pipeline. When it’s in the hands of the 99% we get Solar Mosaic."

For more information, check out these links:
https://solarmosaic.com/solarday