For so long solar panels have been for people who “get it” and have the funds to put them on their homes. Now it seems that the high end home market is starting to wake up to the idea of using solar power as a selling point.

Lennar, one of the nation’s biggest home builders, plans to install solar power systems in all its new homes in the Bay Area, representatives for the company said this week.

Lennar made the announcement at its high-end, all-solar development in the Milano housing community in Danville. Three projects in San Ramon set to open this year also will be solar-powered.

“Every home in Milano will come with a solar package,” said Peter Beucke, vice president of the Bay Area division of Lennar. “It’s now a standard inclusion in our homes.”

Lennar also is planning one of the largest solar communities, 650 homes, in two developments in Roseville.

Lennar is involved with the New Solar Homes Partnership, part of California’s Solar Initiative to install 400 megawatts of solar power in the next decade. To promote solar energy, the California Energy Commission offers incentives of $2.60 a watt for systems on new homes. Homeowners also are eligible for a one-time $2,000 federal tax credit.

“Historically, we’ve seen a low participation with solar in new-home construction. It’s been less than 2 percent,” said David Hochschild, who co-heads the solar homes partnership.

“The state builds around 150,000 homes a year. If we can get more builders interested, we could see as many as half of new homes being solar in five years,” Hochschild said.(via)

Because these systems are standardized, and because this company makes so many of them they can offer the solar systems at a much lower price. These homes have plans for a 2.3kw system coming in at 12-15 grand, a system like that retrofitted one home at a time would be 20-30 grand.

These homes are rather large costing 1.2 million dollars and up. Having the wealthy adopt this technology will help to change people perception about how solar power works. It will be both easy, desirable, and standard. Because every home in the development will include solar it instantly builds in a shared sense of doing something good, a consumer base for repair and maintenance technicians, and an example to others in what good green planning can do.

This is only the first step in making solar power cheaper for home owners. All new home construction should have some form of renewable energy technology installed by default. Almost every climate in the united states could benefit from solar power, or solar thermal panels. Making them standard will only drive down costs. Integrating these systems into home will also help low income residents. Having lowered fuel and electric bills because your energy is coming from renewable sources will allow people to spend that money on savings, food, health care, or more education.