Current:Home > Stocks$1 Groupon Coupon for Rooftop Solar Energy Finds 800+ Takers-InfoLens
$1 Groupon Coupon for Rooftop Solar Energy Finds 800+ Takers
View Date:2024-12-23 12:44:01
Over 800 people across the United States took advantage of a novel online deal to get a discount setting up solar panels on their rooftops.
One of America’s top solar companies, SolarCity, partnered with the coupon website Groupon for the offer. For $1—the price of a regular cup of coffee at McDonald’s—buyers could get $400 off a solar contract that includes solar panel consulting, surveying, custom design installation and ongoing customer service. It works out to getting three to four months of free electricity.
The deal ran through June and July, and put solar on the radar for millions of online shoppers who might normally visit Groupon’s website for deals on hotels or manicures.
“The Groupon program preformed very well and the response exceeded our expectations,” said Jonathan Bass, vice president of communications for SolarCity, a California-based company chaired by Elon Musk of Tesla Motors and Paypal fame.
The deal wasn’t Groupon’s first foray into solar campaigning—but it was the largest. The discount was offered to customers in 15 states, and comes at a time of rising popularity of solar power, especially the residential version.
In 2008, there was only 78 megawatts of residential photovoltaic solar up and running, according to the trade group Solar Energy Industries Association—enough to power more than 12,000 homes.
At about the same time, SolarCity started its solar leasing plan. The program streamlined rooftop solar access to consumers, offered lower upfront costs than solar panel ownership and ultimately helped spark the rise of similar companies.
Five years later, in 2013, the number of new residential PV solar installations tracked by SEIA jumped tenfold. During that time, the national average price of solar PV systems plummeted from approximately $8 per watt in 2008 to around $3 per watt.
Today, buying solar panels can cost up to $20,000, as much as a new car. Solar leasing can drop that initial cost to zero. Leasers pay a monthly fee and surrender their renewable energy tax incentives to the solar company. In most states solar owners can get breaks on their utility bills by selling the power they don’t use to the grid.
Power companies make their money selling electricity to end users—often boosting their profits by generating the electricity at their own fossil fuel plants. They see the rise of rooftop solar and other forms of customer-produced energy, called distributed energy, as a threat because they reduce the need for power from the grid. The Arizona Public Service Company and other utilities are fighting back by trying to impose extra fees on solar users plugged into the grid.
The utilities’ concerns are not unfounded. In Germany, for example, clean energy accounts for more than a quarter of the energy supply. Distributed solar generation helped drive much of that growth—and also has contributed to the drop in utilities’ market share and historic plummet in revenues. Private individuals own about more than a third of the country’s renewables capacity, while its big four utilities make up about 5 percent.
Despite the utility-led pushback against residential solar users in the United States, SolarCity’s business is thriving. Around 70 percent of 2013’s new residential installations came from solar leasing companies; SolarCity was the top provider. Since the company went public in 2012, its stock price has jumped from $8 per share to around $74 per share today.
But was the company’s Groupon deal a success?
The deal webpage states that more than 820 people purchased the deal, a fraction of the 17,644 new customers that SolarCity signed up in the first three months of 2014. Groupon and SolarCity would not share the exact number of buyers, and declined to say where those consumers live.
The campaign could be successful “if everybody that does the Groupon actually signs a lease,” said John Farrell, a senior researcher at Minnesota’s Institute for Local Self-Reliance, which focuses on renewable energy policy. “But there are going to be people who look at it [and it] turns out their house isn’t suitable for solar or…it just may not work out for them.”
Groupon will provide a refund to people who go through the consultation process and discover that their house can’t support solar, potentially because of roof design or too much tree shading.
The deal was a “creative way to reach people,” said Farrell. Most people who go to Groupon, he said, “probably weren’t thinking about solar energy as something they might find there.”
SolarCity teamed up with BestBuy earlier this year to make its residential solar service available at select stores.
veryGood! (867)
Related
- Monument erected in Tulsa for victims of 1921 Race Massacre
- North Carolina absentee ballots release, delayed by RFK Jr. ruling, to begin late next week
- Why Dave Coulier Respects Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen’s Different Perspective on Full House
- Injured reserve for Christian McCaffrey? 49ers star ruled out again for Week 2
- Noem’s Cabinet appointment will make a plain-spoken rancher South Dakota’s new governor
- Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker's Baby Boy Rocky Is the Most Interesting to Look At in Sweet Photos
- Sam Bankman-Fried’s lawyers claim in an appeal that he was judged too quickly
- The Promise and Challenges of Managed Retreat
- How Saturday Night Live Reacted to Donald Trump’s Win Over Kamala Harris
- Still adjusting to WWE life, Jade Cargill is 'here to break glass ceilings'
Ranking
- When is 'The Golden Bachelorette' finale? Date, time, where to watch Joan Vassos' big decision
- Bill would ban sports betting ads during games and forbid bets on college athletes
- Nevada is joining the list of states using Medicaid to pay for more abortions
- These Iconic Emmys Fashion Moments Are a Lesson in Red Carpet Style
- Isiah Pacheco injury updates: When will Chiefs RB return?
- Fani Willis skips a Georgia state Senate hearing while challenging subpoena
- The Biden administration is taking steps to eliminate protections for gray wolves
- An ex-Pentagon official accused of electrocuting dogs pleads guilty to dogfighting charges
Recommendation
-
John Robinson, former USC Trojans and Los Angeles Rams coach, dies at 89
-
NCAA approves Gallaudet’s use of a helmet for deaf and hard of hearing players this season
-
New Boar's Head lawsuit details woman's bout with listeria, claims company withheld facts
-
Workers who assemble Boeing planes are on strike. Will that affect flights?
-
California man allegedly shot couple and set their bodies, Teslas on fire in desert
-
As civic knowledge declines, programs work to engage young people in democracy
-
The Daily Money: Weird things found in hotel rooms
-
Young climate activists ask US Supreme Court to revive their lawsuit against the government