Freenerg offering solar rental in Minnesota

A new company called Freenerg (pronounced free energy) has been conducting pilot runs of a solar panel rental business similar to what a company called Citizenre had proposed last year. What's different about the Freenergy business model is that they are starting on a much smaller scale, they will not be producing their own solar panel equipment, they have a lease and buy option, and they have already done a few test installations!

Click on over to the Freenergy homepage and take their solar survey to help them gather information if you are interested in helping the cause. The company's website gives the following explanation about their solar rental program:

Beginning in July 2008, freener-g will offer all of the benefits of clean, sun-generated electricity for one monthly fee. Freener-g will custom design a solar system for your home or small business and will install, maintain & support it throughout the term of your lease. With freener-g's leasing program, you avoid the significant up-front cost of owning, eliminate the responsibility of maintaining and retain flexibility of choosing solar if you move.

Seems simple enough, the only downside is that this program doesn't launch until July 2008 and even then it will probably not be available on a wide scale in multiple geographic locations. Also, with Freenergy customers will be paying a rate of $200 per month to rent the solar equipment (or buying for roughly $50K) instead of just having it offset the cost of their previous electricity bill as Citizenre is proposing. In many cases this is the difference between a $50 electric bill and a $200 rental, but it still helps the cause and with the line of over 25,000 home owners waiting to hop on with Citisenre the wait may end up being the same?

It's a toss up really, there has been debate over whether these solar rental programs will work in the end at all but it doesn't hurt to investigate and none of them are asking for money up front, they seem to be in the investigation stages still. One thing that is helping Freenerg move on to the actual launch phase is an influx of capital from Xcel Energy. Xcel Energy just announced last week that it has awarded Freenergy nearly $1.5 Million dollars to construct 50 test systems, the press release follows:

Freenerg, Minneapolis, to demonstrate the commercial viability of providing solar-generated electricity for homes based on a leasing and service package of rooftop solar panels connected to the grid. The program will use 50 solar generating systems at 5.6 kilowatts each, $1,488,922.

All of this is great news for home owners because more competition means better, cheaper products on the long run.