Goal Reached: Boston Increases Solar Energy on Homes!
Roslindale homeowner and solar installation worker are not letting a little snow impede their progress toward making Boston a cleaner, more resilient community!
Renew Boston Solarize launched this past summer with a lofty goal: finding enough Boston homeowners ready to install 500 killowatts of new solar panels…and we did it!
“Hundreds of Boston residents are now choosing to save money on their energy bills by going solar,” Mayor Martin J. Walsh said in a press release. “At the same time, we’re adding to the clean energy economy in the city of Boston.”
When the campaign concluded this winter, more than 100 Boston homeowners had collectively signed contracts for 509 KW of solar energy systems. The annual amount of solar energy generated by these projects will be roughly equivalent to the greenhouse gas savings of taking 84 cars off the road every year for the life of the systems!
Because the cost of the systems was tied to the total size of singed, these homeowners will reap the benefit of collective purchasing and receive the lowest negotiated rate for their systems. Residents learned about solar energy through workshops in every Boston neighborhood, through current solar homeowners hosting open houses, and outreach from community partners.
The 106 new solar installations that will be installed through Renew Boston’s 2014 Solarize campaign is in addition to the 460 existing residential and 100 commercial solar installations. The city now boasts a total of 12.3 megawatts of installed solar power in Boston, equivalent to powering 1,875 homes.
Renew Boston Solarize partnered with Next Step Living, a leading whole-home energy solutions company, to conduct the program’s solar home assessments and provide a streamlined process for going solar. As the solar energy systems are installed, they will be tracked on city’s interactive solar map. You can search the map by neighborhood and track the progress towards Boston’ goal of installing 25 MW of solar energy by 2015.
While the Renew Boston Solarize campaign has successfully concluded for the year, Boston residents can take action to reduce energy use or support renewable energy by first signing up for a no-cost Home Energy Assessment. You can read more about green power resources in the City’s Greenovate website.
~guest blog by Janna Cohen-Rosenthal, Renew Boston Solarize Coach