Today is the the 40th anniversary of Earth Day: Earth Day 2011. Earlier, in Part 1 of this blog, I shared about hanging out at Asilomar, reflecting on the recent EarthFair, the last week of National Solar Quote Week and reading many wonderful articles about our industry in the local newspapers. In Part 1, I wrote about reading yesterday of a new study that documents how solar boosts home values.

This morning, I picked up the local Monterey newspaper, the Monterey Herald. It carried an article by Tracy Seipel of the San Jose Mercury News titled, ” ‘Solar Group Buy’ Program launched in California.” This one warmed my heart, because its about EXACTLY what we’ve been doing at WholeSolar for the past couple of years. It turns out that the article was written weeks earlier, but had finally found the its way, through syndication, to Monterey. While the concept is not new (see One Block Off the Grid), it certainly is important enough to repeat again and again.

What the City of San Jose has done is develop a pilot program, with the help of a $100,000 grant from the Federal government, that encouraged city workers “to band together to increase their buying power and simplify the sometimes confusing process of going solar.” They have named the program “SunShares.” The article indicates they have also “launched a new program that will allow businesses and governments throughout the region to take advantage of similar “solar group buys.” The goal in all of this is simple: to bring the cost down, generate jobs and demonstrate how simple it is to go solar.

“It’s the Groupon of Solar”

When I Googled the article title, I found that it is being picked up in strong numbers through syndication across the United States, which is great as far as the goal of Solarizing America. Rafael Reyes, director of the Bay Area Climate Collective put like this:

“It’s the Groupon of solar. Our challenge is to take a good model like San Jose’s and replicate it throughout the region.”

I love the comparison of SunShares to to the extremely popular online coupon program called Groupon. WholeSolar has been championing a version of the SunShares program to both independent installers, as well as homeowners, long before San Jose launched SunShares. It just makes sense. No one of us has the buying power of all of us. Together, we can reduce costs. Together, we can simplify the process of going solar. And in the process of doing so, we will create jobs.

Together, let’s solarize America!

To Be Continued…