Problem: Solar panels are expensive.

Fact: Solar panels cost less when you buy a lot of them at once.

Solution: Team up with all your friends and neighbors and buy a bunch of solar panels together to get lower costs.

This may be the simplest idea that no one is thinking about. Community solar. Not to worry someone is on top of this. The good people of Portola Valley have started to band together to purchase solar in large numbers in order to get a discount. Their success is inspiring other communities to follow their lead.

Mountain View’s Karney said he reached out to Foster City-based SolarCity after hearing about the successful bulk discount program in Portola Valley. SolarCity, which launched last year when Lyndon and Peter Rive left careers in the software industry, is backed by Elon Musk, who was co-founder of PayPal and chairman of alternative luxury car company Tesla Motors. Musk is SolarCity’s lead investor and chairman of the board.

After agreeing to give residents of Portola Valley a roughly 30 percent discount on their installation, SolarCity won nearly 80 contracts – a large number by any measure. There are about 5,000 solar roofs in the Bay Area, according to NorCal.

Lyndon Rive, founder and chief executive officer, said the average price for his company to do a home installation is $30,000 before subsidies and about $21,000 after.

Before agreeing to discount the homes, each community needs to have 50 or more committed homeowners, bringing the total amount of energy produced by the homes to 175 kilowatts, Rive said. SolarCity is getting a marked-down price from solar panel provider BP, Rive said.

Pay for themselves

With the bulk pricing and the state and federal incentives, Rive said that a homeowner with an average $150 monthly electricity bill could afford solar. The panels will more than pay for themselves, he said.

“The cost of solar does not need to be a barrier,” Rive said.(via)

I would hope that this model can be copied and passed along. It makes good sense for all parties involved. The home owners get a bunch of sweet solar roofs, the installer gets a big old chunk of money, the panel supplier can manage demand and ship in numbers large enough to make it “worth it.” Everyone wins.

Want to try this in your neighborhood, you could contact the Community Cooperative Energy group a solar co-op in California for information about how to set up your own bulk deal.

You could also contact BP directly and start working with them on a bulk order.

Got a celebrity in your area? If they install a solar system BP will install one for you (maybe). In one of the stranger promotions I have seen BP has celebrities install solar systems and then donates a free system to the community. Check it out, or Edward Norton will beat your ass. Hey it did win an award so who knows.

Short on celebrities? Try the company that set up the deal in the story above. Solar City seems to have a pretty interesting model and may be able to hook you up with information.

If all that fails we have talked about community based renewable energy before.