Earth Equity

I have always wanted to start a business that had alliteration. Call me a nerd but I just love how it rolls off the tongue.

Ok, down to business here. Alternative energy has been widely publicized as a focus by our new president. I am not an engineer but I do know the power or percentages.

My idea would be a company that leased solar panels to homeowners and small businesses. The current price of solar panels is affordable enough that the company could buy these panels for approx. $15,000 (To completely power a 2500 sq. ft. house) after government rebates and utility company incentives in Colorado. So lets say for instance your average utility bill was $120 to $150 a month for this house, which is about what mine is. The company would charge you a 6% fee (for example sake) of the cost to provide the energy to you (essentially a solar panel lease), which comes out to $107 over a 6% 20 year lease (It would be $96 if you did a 25 year lease). That would be your new energy bill. $107 dollars a month for the rest of the time you lived in the house/however long a contract you sign and lock in that rate. You could avoid the changing conditions of the electricity market.

In case you were wondering, these systems generally have a 20-25 year warranty and are estimated to last for approximately 40 years. So after the 20 years, however long the system lasted would be gravy on top of the 6% we made on the lease. It also takes about 3 days to install the system.

A few other factoids. Energy is estimated to increase in price by 3-5% a year for the forseeable future. If you are concerned about the changing technology... don't be. As long as it powers the home completely, a new owner to the house will want to keep the panels and continue the lease and pay a fixed electricity bill and pay less for the electricity. There have been solar panel companies in business for 10 to 20 years now. The price for the panels will stay around $15,000... at least I predict based on the fact that it actually costs $37,000 right now when you take the government and utility incentives out. However, as the production increases and prices decrease the government and utility incentives will decrease incrementally, hence the reason I think it will stay around that $15,000 price range.

This would be the driving idea behind building a bank that was focused solely on providing financing to help reduce our country's/world's carbon footprint. Who knows... maybe begin to provide financing to electric cars (once these become more affordable) and have a combination pack of the solar panels and a electric car into one payment per month. Maybe geothermal applications to new houses/buildings too.

Alright. I said my peace now shred it to pieces.