Municipal Solar Financing: The Biggest Revolution that You’ve Never Heard Of

The whole thing is happening without flashy ad campaigns, so it’s not surprising if you’ve never heard of municipal solar financing. But the financing program, also known as property tax financing, is a veritable underground solar revolution.

It all started in Berkeley, CA with the Berkeley FIRST Program, which allows homeowners to pay for solar panels through property tax bills over a 20 year period. The bills carry a fixed interest rate and stay with the house, so there’s no need to worry about paying for panels on a house you don’t live in anymore. The Berkeley program was so popular that California passed the AB811 bill to let any interested city in the state launch a similar program.

Since the passing of AB811, Palm Desert, San Diego, San Francisco, and Sonoma County have decided to launch their own municipal solar financing programs. And AB811 has been such a hit overall that Boulder, CO, Annapolis, MD, and the entire state of Louisiana have come on board with property tax financing programs.  Rest assured that similar financing initiatives will come to your state soon–the Berkeley program launched less than a year ago, and we can only imagine how far the movement will spread in another year.

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