GRID's First Community Solar Groundbreaking

The GRID Alternatives Colorado office is embarking on an unprecedented and first-of-its-kind project this spring. Community Solar is a new approach that GRID is piloting in Colorado that will increase access to solar energy for low-income families. Differing from our Rooftop program, Community Solar will be a large scale, ground-mounted photovoltaic system brought about through partnerships with local utility companies such as Grand Junction based Grand Valley Power. By increasing the size of the solar systems GRID volunteers install, we will better be able to serve greater numbers of clients by reducing qualifications and increasing energy output. On Friday March 27th, encouraged by the applause produced by a 50+ person group made up of GRID Alternatives staff, representatives from Grand Valley Power and members of the Grand Valley business community, GRID Colorado’s Executive Director Chuck Watkins celebrated the official groundbreaking on a site that will soon provide 7 families clean, renewable and affordable solar energy. Friday’s groundbreaking was the first event celebrating GRID Alternative’s investment in community solar but it certainly will not be the last. The Grand Valley Power project will wrap up with a two day Community Solarthon event taking place on May 29th and 30th, 2015. During Community Solarthon, over 100 volunteers consisting of community members, solar sponsors and job trainees will participate in every aspect of the instillation process from setting up racking to panel install and wiring. There is still time for you to participate in this landmark event! Please see the Community Solarthon website for sponsorship opportunities or speak to a GRID staff member over the phone at (303)968-1326.

The Innovation That Lets Low-Income People Profit From the Solar Energy Boom

Thanks to net metering—a practice that lets homeowners sell excess electricity generated by solar panels to utilities—Americans in more than 45 states enjoy cheaper and carbon-free power. Yet one group has missed out on the solar bonanza: Low-income families, who are more likely to rent or live in multifamily housing where net metering isn’t available. But just as community gardens allow people without backyards grow healthy food, the United States’ first utility-built community solar farm hopes to plug the roofless into the green-energy boom. Colorado’s Grand Valley Power last week broke ground on a photovoltaic power plant in Grand Junction, a mainly rural, low-income area. Residents will be able to buy electricity generated by the 25-kilowatt solar system, saving an estimated $50 to $75 on their monthly utility bill. The solar farm is likely to be the first of many if state legislation encouraging their construction is approved. “This is different than the other community solar models that exist,” said Kristina Sickles, Colorado development director for GRID Alternatives, a nonprofit that worked with Grand Valley Power on the project. “Many are put together by a for-profit solar developer owned by a larger financing firm.” For Grand Junction resident Brenda Lange, a disabled 58-year-old living on a limited income, that means she and partner Herb Sanders, 62, will be able to save money on their energy bill when the solar farm goes online later this year—with no money down. Lange had looked into going solar as a way to cut the couple’s expenses discovered a that installing a photovoltaic system was too expensive. “Every month our energy bill seemed like it was getting higher, and when you live on a fixed income you can’t have that,” she said. “It’s a good thing for the community, it’s great to produce a cleaner alternative for energy, and it’s helping us out financially.” The 25-kilowatt solar farm will generate enough energy to serve six to 10 families. Those subscribers are still being selected, Sickles said, based on demonstrated need. Each family must pay a $30 monthly fee to access the grid. They also must pay two cents per kilowatt-hour for the amount of electricity consumed, which is a steal compared to the 11 cents per kilowatt-hour Grand Valley Power normally charges. Each family will sign a four-year contract, which is renewable if they continue to qualify for the program. Tom Walch, Grand Valley Power’s general manager, said that the utility, which operates as a cooperative, wanted to take on the project because it’s focused on providing services—not profits—to its member owners. “We operate at the lowest costs we can,” he said. “We have to earn a margin to keep our members satisfied, but the margins we earn are allocated to members based on their patronage.” To keep costs down, GRID Alternatives negotiated agreements with SunEdison, Enphase Energy, and IronRidge to supply solar panels and other components at a discount. And local organizations Atlasta Solar and Alpine Bank made donations to the project. Walch says that several other local electricity cooperatives have approached him with interest in emulating the model. Legislation now before the Colorado legislature could encourage the spread of community solar farms by letting utilities count them toward a mandate that they obtain 30 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. In the true barn-raising model, GRID Alternatives and local nonprofit Housing Resources of Western Colorado are gathering local community members to help finish construction of the solar farm. “Herb and I will be there,” Lange said. “We may not be able to get up on the roof, but we’ll be helping out in some other way.”

GRID Alternatives and Grand Valley Power Announce Community Solar Partnership to Serve Low-Income Customers

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--GRID Alternatives, the nation’s largest non-profit solar installer, and Grand Valley Power (GVP), an electric cooperative utility based in Grand Junction, CO, today announced an unprecedented partnership to develop and produce a community solar garden dedicated exclusively to rate-payers qualified as low-income. The first of its kind in Colorado, the 25kW array will provide clean, renewable power to 6-10 families in the Grand Junction area, offsetting up to 90% of their electricity costs. “This model makes sense. We can make clean energy available to folks who have never had access to it. Everybody benefits. By leveraging GRID Alternatives’ expertise in solar development and working with lower income families, we can successfully serve some of our most vulnerable members” "We have seen a tremendous groundswell of hard-working families wanting solar and the benefits it brings,” says Chuck Watkins, Executive Director of GRID Alternatives Colorado. “Community solar can provide solar to all Coloradans regardless if they’re renters or homeowners. We’d like to see this replicated all over Colorado.” The community solar project is the first in the country to be developed by a non-profit in direct partnership with a utility to provide renewable energy generation to qualifying rate-payers. GVP is a major stakeholder in the project, providing land, interconnection, and philanthropic support for the array, which is being designed and built by GRID Alternatives. The utility will own the solar equipment and provide retail bill credit for participating low-income households. GRID and GVP see this partnership as a model that can be duplicated with municipal and cooperative utilities throughout Colorado. “This model makes sense. We can make clean energy available to folks who have never had access to it. Everybody benefits. By leveraging GRID Alternatives’ expertise in solar development and working with lower income families, we can successfully serve some of our most vulnerable members,” stated Tom Walch, General Manager of GVP. In addition to support from GVP, GRID Alternatives is working with local partners such as Housing Resources of Western Colorado, Atlasta Solar and Alpine Bank, and bringing to the project equipment donations from its national partners SunEdison, Enphase Energy and IronRidge. The pilot development will break ground on March 27, and is slated for completion during GRID Alternatives Colorado’s Community Solarthon event on May 30th, 2015. The project will bring together over 100 stakeholders, utility leaders and community members, and make GVP and Colorado a trailblazer in renewable energy access.

Colorado A New Era For Solar

A solar array is going up on a roof of a home or business in the U.S. every four minutes — by one estimate — but getting them hooked up to the grid can take a lot longer. And as the demand grows for photovoltaic solar panels, the processing, approval and connection is becoming a bigger issue and potential barrier. "Addressing this is critical to widespread adoption of PV," said Kristen Ardani, co-author of a National Renewable Energy Laboratory study of the time it takes to apply for and hook-up home and small-business systems to the grid. Ardani's study — based on data from 87 utilities in 16 states — found that while the average time from application to connection to be 53 business days, in Colorado it was 60 business days. The installation of the panels on a roof took two to four days of that time. Another NREL study warned that permitting, inspection and interconnection delays could become "a market barrier that can deter project completion entirely." Faced with the growing list of homeowners opting for solar, Xcel Energy, Colorado's largest electricity supplier, and the state's main trade group, the Colorado Solar Energy Industries Association, have taken steps aimed at speeding approvals. "We are growing into a new era of solar in Colorado," said John Bringenberg, a COSEIA board member. "Our systems have to change with it." Rooftop solar is soaring in Colorado and across the nation, which saw a record 6,201 megawatts of installations in 2014, a 30 percent increase over 2013, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. Annual home installations in Colorado more than doubled between 2012 and 2014 to 42 megawatts. In May, Xcel Energy launched a new online, cloud-computing-based portal for its customers and panel installers to file applications. The utility's "legacy system" couldn't keep up, said Lee Gabler, Xcel's director of energy efficiency and renewable energy. Parts of the filing are now automated; signatures can be done electronically. High marksSolar installers and industry representatives give Xcel's new system high marks. "It is much more transparent and enables you to track projects," said Dan Yechout, residential solar sales director for Boulder-based installer Namaste Solar. Using the portal, application work and approvals can be done in about two weeks, Yechout said. (Click to enlarge) While applications can be done online for Xcel, municipal applications and those for other utilities are still done on paper, Yechout said. When a customer applies for rooftop solar through the portal, the application goes into a queue for Xcel's Solar Rewards program. Solar Rewards provides an incentive of 2 cents for each kilowatt-hour a customer-owned home solar unit generates and 1 cent for each kilowatt-hour generated by leased systems. The program, however, has a cap of 24 megawatts a year, Gabler said. Since 2006, 24,232 customers have installed 223 megawatts of solar generation under the Solar Rewards program. Even with the improvement in online applications, installers say that there are still problems with Xcel's system. "Sometimes it feels as if utilities are not trying to make this partnership work," said Will Craven, a spokesman for SolarCity, which leases home solar panels in 16 states. SolarCity has 7,000 customers in Colorado, according to the company. In Xcel's Colorado service area, it takes an average of 41 days to complete a residential system, Craven said. That isn't as bad as SolarCity's experience with Maryland's Pepco — 90 days — but it puts Xcel in the bottom quarter, Craven said. Among the best performers, Craven said, are Connecticut Light & Power and San Diego Gas and Electric at five days or less. As Solar Rewards incentives have been cut — and are set to become smaller — some customers are ready to forgo them and just install panels, Namaste's Yechout said. It turns out that is more complicated and time-consuming than applying for a Solar Rewards incentive, he said. "You can't go through the portal. And unless the installer is persistent, an application can languish," Yechout said. "It will be essential for the utility to create a process for these applications because more and more customers will go that route." Xcel plans to add this type of application to the online portal, the company said. Streamlining steps Ardani's NREL analysis found that nationally the largest chunk of time is tied up in the utility application process — an average of 18 days. The second-most-time-consuming step was getting the permission to tie into the grid — 10 to 12 days. "But every state is different, and so are the challenges," Ardani said. The NREL study didn't break out the time for local building permit applications. In some Colorado communities this can take as long as 45 days, Yechout said. In 2012, the state trade group COSEIA launched the "Solar Friendly Communities" program to encourage local governments to streamline permitting. "It is a voluntary program, but the response has been very good," COSEIA executive director Rebecca Cantwell said. The program now covers 16 Front Range counties and communities, with about half the state's population, Cantwell said. "As solar arrays become more standardized, we are trying to encourage local building departments to think of them not like a custom house addition but a furnace," she said. Changes made by Fort Collins knocked two weeks off the city's permitting process, Cantwell said. Denver provides one-day, over-the-counter permits. Once a system is on the roof, the last step is for Xcel to add a second meter to measure the solar electricity it produces. Yechout said this can take 15 to 20 days. San Diego Gas & Electric has an online system where it can take as little as four days to complete the applications and interconnection, said Ken Parks, the utility's customer generation manager. "We have seen a dramatic growth in solar," Parks said. "We have to keep up." In 2012, the San Diego utility approved 5,200 solar arrays. It expects to approve more than 22,000 this year, Parks said. And when all the approvals are in and the panels are up, they are immediately plugged into the grid. "We don't have to add a meter," Parks said. "We have smart meters that we can program remotely, and then they are on."

Will Colorado Xcel Energy Coal Investments Become Stranded Assets?

A machine that no rational person wants to build is one that generates stranded assets — assets that become non-functional long before they have been paid for. Unfortunately, customers of Colorado's largest utility, Xcel, are bound to just such a "stranded asset machine," given the poor decisions that the Public Utilities Commission is allowing Xcel to make. Since the turn of this century, Xcel has spent about $1 billion on the Comanche 3 coal plant in Pueblo to serve the Denver-Boulder area, and now the PUC is turning a blind eye, yet again, while Xcel spends hundreds of millions of dollars on old Colorado coal plants in 2014 and 2015. Under the current system, Xcel fully expects its customers to not only pay for these coal plant expenditures, but to also provide Xcel a return of between 7 percent and 8 percent on the money. In addition, Xcel will pass 100 percent of future coal costs through to customers under the Electric Commodity Adjustment mechanism. This risk-free way of generating profit is good business as long as you can get the PUC to agree to it — which the PUC routinely does. The financial world is abuzz with discussions of "unburnable carbon" and the need to avoid investments in fossil fuel assets that are likely to become stranded given the urgency of addressing the climate crisis. None of this is being discussed as the Colorado PUC stands ready to approve hundreds of millions of dollars of expenditures on old Colorado coal plants as part of the ongoing Xcel rate case. The PUC seems to have an unspoken rule that when you walk through the doors of the commission, all discussion and concerns about the planet and unburnable carbon will be left at the door. In the 21st century, that is not only unconscionable, it is also leading Colorado into a very risky economic situation. Even if there were no concerns about climate change, ocean acidification, boiling off Colorado's precious water supplies to produce electricity, or the copious amounts of air, water and coal ash pollution created by coal plants, it still would be a bad idea to allow large investments in coal plants in the 21st century. First of all, as the costs for wind and solar plummet and storage technologies evolve rapidly, the opportunity to move beyond coal for purely financial reasons becomes ever more viable. Second, resources built in this century should be extremely flexible in their operation to match the variable nature of the wind and solar that Colorado is so blessed with. Flexible is precisely what baseload coal plants are not — and we shouldn't be investing in them. Finally, coal plants need a supply of coal to operate and the truth about coal is that most of the U.S. coal that can be mined at a profit is gone. The U.S. coal industry is running seriously in the red, stock prices have cratered, the largest companies are facing billions of dollars of debt and Wall Street has largely left the U.S. coal industry for dead. Consequently, it is completely unclear who will be mining U.S. coal in the coming years and decades — what's less for the five more decades that Xcel's Comanche 3 coal plant is scheduled to operate. Spending money on coal plants in light of these harsh realities is the height of economic (to say nothing of planetary) folly — but that is exactly what the Colorado PUC is letting Colorado's largest utility do. While the PUC is firmly keeping its eyes covered and its ears plugged to the realities of the 21st century, it is long past time that the state's economic and political leaders took a hard look at the facts that the PUC is ignoring and put an end to Colorado's stranded asset machine.

COSEIA Launches Solar CitiSuns Advocacy Group

Recently at the Colorado Solar Energy industries Association’s (COSEIA’s) Conference: 2015 Solar Power Colorado: The Next 25 Years the organization introduced its new grassroots nonprofit Solar CitiSuns. The new nonprofit is aimed at engaging Coloradans in advocating for clean energy policy and making sure solar remains a viable industry in the state. It was a public unveiling of the new nonprofit, which was first introduced last November. “Without the grassroots support of citizens we don’t have the momentum behind us to advance such policy,” said COSEIA Board President Piper Foster, a vice president at Amaris Controls. “So this year the COSIEA Board of Directors voted to inaugurate a new non-profit for the purpose of cultivating this solar grassroots activism called Solar CitiSuns.” Solar on a home. Courtesy Solar CitiSuns “Stable solar policy is incredibly important to our industry,” said COSEIA Board member T.J. Slocum, a regional sales manager with Sunrun. He observed that in the last year there were at least 21 battles against net-metering across the country. “We won 20 out of 21 of those disputes.” The new nonprofit is based on COSEIA’s previous Million Solar Roofs campaign and is organized to engage Colorado’s residents in a way that COSEIA isn’t. “We’ve organized and had people come out to support solar but its always been a little bit difficult doing that through a network of companies and making sure we’re getting the message out clearly,” Slocum said. He added, “It’s not necessarily appropriate for people to be a member of a business association. Solar CitiSuns, Slocum said, is a way to engage interested people in what’s happening with policy in solar in general. “We’ll have a membership base that’s going to receive a quarterly newsletter and…they can become part of an engaged online community that we can call to action if we need to and get people involved,” he said. The organization started with $3,500 in seed funding at a party in Colorado Springs in November. It has a site at www.gosolarcolorado.org where people can sign up for quarterly newsletters and learn about solar legislation and advocacy efforts.

Grand Junction Community solar garden makes major financial impact

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. A one of a kind energy project in Grand Junction has been in the works for three years and it's now proving to be worth the wait. The solar garden - located on D 1/4 Road - is one of, if not the biggest, in Colorado. With 6,666 solar panels spread across 10 acres of land, it's contributing more than just bragging rights for the county. The solar garden has contributed $70,000 worth of energy to District 51 in the short time it's been up and running. The structure is responsible for powering 25-percent of the school district making District 51 one of the most energy efficient districts in the state. District 51 energy manager Eric Anderson said, "We're doing what we can to conserve energy - to use renewable power where we can - and do that in a way that's efficient and effective." District 51 isn't the only one benefiting. Other entities including governmental, non-governmental, low income and residential areas are taking part in the available renewable energy. Anderson said $50,000 worth of bill credits were expected to come from the garden within the first year, but just in the last couple of months they've already calculated $25,000 worth of credits - so the garden is well on its way to beating that original goal.

Solar Leaders Look Ahead At COSEIA's Solar Power Colorado 2015

The theme of the Colorado Solar Energy Industries Association's (COSEIA) Solar Power Colorado 2015 conference ostensibly was celebrating the last-quarter century and looking forward to the next one. Most of the industry experts seemed to agree that the outlook extending to 2040 is positive. There was a lot of discussion, however, on how to make it through the next few years, first. "We need to have a bigger vision of the future," said Hank Price, chief technology officer of Abengoa Solar and a member of the opening session panel for solar CEOs and executives. "We need to move the discussion to what is the long-term vision for energy for Colorado, for the country and for the world, what is the path to achieve that, is solar the right technology, and does it have a key role to play." Price added that the developer is already looking beyond 2016 and the end of the federal investment tax credit (ITC). "It takes us longer than two years to build a plant," he said. "So, we are in the post-ITC world." Panel moderator K.K. DuVivier, a University of Denver law professor, started the session by asking what it will take for solar to become the primary energy source. Glen Davis, CEO of RES Americas, said cost and system reliability give solar an advantage. Other factors that can help solar include battery companies developing better storage technologies and a shift from centralized to decentralized decision=making in energy generation. "One of the things about PV is modularity," Davis said. "Whether you build on a roof or you have hundreds of modules in a field, you are not losing economies of scale by going smaller." There are still some challenges, said Paul Spencer, founder and CEO of the community solar developer Clean Energy Collective. “Equipment is down in price and up in efficiency," he said. "That’s a great trend but a smaller piece of the pie in terms of the overall cost of solar. The other costs, such as design, interconnection, permitting, legal fees and finance costs, still need to decrease." One factor that Spencer said is not a threat - although it has gained some attention - is falling oil prices. Most states do not burn oil for electricity, so the only effect oil prices will have will be in shipping costs. Carbon pricing is important though, said Lou Villaire, co-owner of the installer Atlasta Solar Center. "We need to stop fossil fuel companies from polluting for free," he said. Customers of the installer often say they want solar because they want to reduce carbon emissions. "Whatever reason you want to do solar is fine with us," Villaire said. "People want a radically different energy portfolio than they have today." People also want solar installations on their homes to positively affect resale values. Villaire noted that it helps that real estate appraisers are gaining knowledge of how to value a residential solar installation. Community effort Of course, not everyone wants solar on their home, so community solar gardens were a major topic at the conference. During one community solar panel, J.W. Postal, senior vice president of the community solar company SunShare, said he expects the Colorado Community Solar Gardens program, which was created by legislation in 2010, to be expanded. "Community solar has an opportunity to be a game-changer," he said. "All citizens can participate. Consumers will choose the better fuel. That’s the future. It may be disruptive to some businesses, but that’s where the world is headed." Community solar programs are an example of states taking an increasingly important role in solar development opportunities, either through regulation or legislation. "I don’t trust the federal Congress to get anything done, so it comes down to the states," said Jared Schoch, principal at Turning Point Energy, a development, investment and advisory firm. "We can look at rates, from commercial, residential and community solar, and how to make the rate structure work so customers want to do solar. If not, I think we will have a shakeup in 2017. I don’t see us getting around it." The states’ efforts can be a positive force, said Mark Safty, a partner with the law firm Holland and Hart. "There is tremendous justification for hope in this area," he said. "We have a federal government that has certain powers, then 50 states that are generally free, which means at least 50 laboratories for rollout and deployment of this change." Colorado is doing its part with rolling out changes. At another session on solar financing models, speakers covered topics such as power purchase agreements for residential customers, property assessed clean energy (PACE) financing, green banks, credit unions and other methods to finance projects. Moderator Ryan Arney, a partner with the law firm Davis Graham & Stubbs, invited panelists to look at the future of finance. One tool might be a new version of PACE financing, which helps building owners pay for energy improvements. PACE for residential solar installations ended in 2010 with the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s rule against the program, although these have been coming back to life, led by efforts in California. Paul Sharfenberger, director of finance and operations for the Colorado Energy Office, said Colorado is getting ready to roll out a commercial real estate version of PACE financing this spring. Connecticut has a commercial version called C-PACE, and New York has the Energize Commercial New York program. "You have building owners who are paying utility bills, but the tenants are enjoying the benefits," Sharfenberger said. "Commercial PACE offers benefits that commercial property owners can pursue. It stays with the property; it's 20-year financing at six or seven percent interest, which is fairly commensurate with other commercial lending products." There are other alternatives, such as credit unions and green banks, said Blake Jones, president of Namaste Solar. But one finance issue must be settled first and foremost: "The number one thing I want is defending net metering," Jones said. "Plain and simple."

Rollback of renewable-energy standards dies in Colorado Legislature

An effort to roll back Colorado's renewable energy standard in the state Legislature died Monday in a House of Representatives committee. Democrats on the House State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee voted on a party line over Republican objections to kill Senate Bill 44. The bill, which passed the Republican-majority Senate last month, would have cut the minimum portfolio of energy the state's investor-owned utilities would have to obtain from renewable sources from 30 percent back to 15 percent by 2020, and it would have reduced the same standards for cooperative electric associations from 20 percent to 15 percent. Sponsoring state Rep. Dan Thurlow, R-Grand Junction, said the standards have helped to create a thriving renewable-energy industry but also have raised energy prices considerably in Colorado — to the point where companies are looking twice at the cost of locating here. "If we're trying to attract businesses, one of the biggest things we can do is give them a low cost structure," Thurlow said. But environmentalists and renewable-energy leaders argued that the rollback would send the wrong message about the state's commitment to clean power and that it could hurt a solar-energy industry that now employs 4,200 people in this state. "I'm sending you a message: The business community is very supportive of the renewable energy standard as it stands and does not support a rollback," said Roger Freeman, a partner at Davis Graham & Stubbs LLP in Denver and policy chairman for the Colorado Cleantech Industries Association, who noted that no utilities came to testify for the bill.

Appraising Solar Energy’s Value - Solar Panels and Home Values

New research sponsored by the Department of Energy shows that buyers are willing to pay more for homes with rooftop solar panels — a finding that may strengthen the case for factoring the value of sustainable features into home appraisals. The study, conducted by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, examined sales data for almost 23,000 homes in eight states from 2002 to 2013. About 4,000 of the homes had solar photovoltaic systems, all of them owned (as opposed to being financed through a lease with the solar company). Researchers found that buyers were willing to pay a premium of $15,000 for a home with the average-size solar photovoltaic system (3.6 kilowatts, or 3,600 watts), compared with a similar home without one. Put another way, that translates to about four additional dollars per watt of solar power. The study involved more solar property sales than previous research, making this sample particularly “robust,” said Sandra Adomatis, an appraiser in Punta Gorda, Fla., who is considered an expert in “green” valuation and is one of the study’s authors. “This study is important for the buying public and the lending side,” Ms. Adomatis said, “and appraisers can say, here’s some proof there is some value to the system.” More homeowners have been installing these systems as the cost of solar technology has dropped over the last decade. As of mid-2014, more than a half-million homes had solar systems, according to the report. Real estate agents, appraisers and lenders are still trying to catch up with the technology, along with other energy-saving features, in terms of calculating their effect on home values — or lack thereof — in any given market. Fannie Mae has acknowledged the growing proliferation of solar. In December, the government-sponsored institution issued a guideline specifying that if a house has an owned solar system, the appraiser should analyze the system and the market to see if it adds value. The guideline provides “critical verbiage to give us some leverage” with lenders, said Gerard O’Connor, an appraiser in Lindenhurst, on Long Island, who has been trained in green valuation. Long Island’s high electric costs have made it an attractive market for solar. About 40 percent of all systems installed in New York are on Long Island, according to the state’s Energy Research and Development Authority. Buyers are “certainly willing to pay more” for a house with the electric bills to prove the savings attached to its solar system, Mr. O’Connor said. But, he added, most lenders haven’t yet recognized that market shift. Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main story Arthur Wilson, a builder developing five homes (all presold) with geothermal and solar panels in Middle Island on Long Island, has had his own issues with lenders. He said that an appraisal of $498,000 for the second house to be completed was recently “shot down” as too high by bank reviewers who he said were untrained in valuing green home features. The lender asked Mr. O’Connor to look at the appraisal, and he said that he believed it was accurate in estimating the value of energy-saving features. “Any new item or feature is always a nightmare in appraising,” Mr. O’Connor said. He noted that, under the new Fannie Mae guideline, appraisers may not add value for leased solar systems, which are increasingly popular because they usually require no money upfront. The Berkeley lab report notes that more research is needed into the effect of leased systems on home value.