Who's Protecting The Power Companies?

Huh? Who? That's what I want to know. These hippies and their schemes are going to ruin them.

Berkeley FIRST (Financing Initiative for Energy Efficiency Renewable and Solar Technology) allows property owners to install solar systems and make energy efficiency upgrades with no upfront cost.

Berkeley pays the upfront costs through the issuance of a new kind of municipal bond. The bonds are repaid from a new line item on participating property owners' property tax bills over 20 years. Participating property owners pay for only the costs of their energy project.

The program is 100% "opt-in" and property tax expenses remain unchanged for those who choose not to participate.

The result: solar and energy efficiency projects are paid for over a long period of time, in bi-annual installments. The interest rate is fixed. Property owners do not need to access their own capital or credit. And if the owner sells the property, the repayment obligation transfers along with the property itself.

. . .
A study soon to be published by a team from the UC Berkeley Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory found the potential for this type of financing to go national -- investing $240 billion in renewable energy and energy efficiency, reducing 37 million metric tons of CO2, saving homeowners an average of $190 a year, all at no net cost to government.