When it comes to renewable energy, why go solo when you can go community solar?
Solar energy is, by far, the cheapest and most efficient way to generate electricity today. From personal experience, I can say that installing solar panels on a house is a sure way to save anything up to €3,000 a year, depending on whether or not the installation includes a heat pump and battery.
A recent study published in Nature estimates that the planet’s entire energy needs could be met by simply installing solar panels on half the world’s roofs, which is why more and more governments are encouraging people to do.
The problem is that most people in the world cannot install solar panels, either because they have no access to the roof of their house, live in rented accommodation, or because they live in apartments. One solution is community solar installations, which is enjoying a boom in the United States, where they are marketed as “the Netflix of solar”: users purchase or rent a portion of a solar installation located conveniently, and receive a credit on their monthly bill for the electricity generated by their part of that solar PV system, as if the system were located on their roof.
This approach not only saves money, but in many cases, domestic installations do not have the right characteristics in terms of shape or orientation, as well as requiring…
