In Colorado, solely 11 p.c of recent photo voltaic installations are in households making lower than $50,000 a yr, in accordance with the lab. Tax credit that encourage photo voltaic installations are additionally usually utilized by middle- and upper-class households, Strömberg stated.
“It is a good factor to develop the trade,” he stated. “However on the similar time we’re leaving part of the inhabitants behind.”
Since becoming a member of the Coldharbour Institute, a analysis nonprofit based mostly in Gunnison, Equitable Photo voltaic Options has put in outdated photo voltaic panels on 5 houses, Strömberg stated. It companions with social service organizations and state businesses, together with the Colorado Vitality Workplace’s Weatherization Help Program, which helps low-income households make power upgrades to their houses.
“Finally, this may present the identical advantage of lowering their electrical energy invoice, which everybody wants assist with at the moment,” stated program director Stephanie Insinna-Sahondo. “The extra we will scale that, the extra folks we will help.”
This system has given Equitable Photo voltaic Options greater than $16,000 since 2020 and has reserved $25,000 for the nonprofit subsequent yr, Insinna-Sahondo stated. That funding, together with volunteer labor from Habitat for Humanity, makes every set up half the price or much less of shopping for a brand new photo voltaic system, Strömberg stated.
As extra photo voltaic panels attain the tip of their warranties, Strömberg expects to see a “tidal wave” of apparatus out there for reinstallation. He works to make sure the small nonprofit can deal with the inflow of donated gear for future tasks.
“We have to display our potential to scale up from particular person rooftops to business techniques, after which business techniques to giant utility-scale or community-level tasks,” he stated.
Two of the group’s tasks within the works may check the potential of neighborhood photo voltaic, he stated, together with panels to offset power prices for cell houses in Gunnison and a retirement dwelling on the Entrance Vary.
