Out of curiosity: How is the situation with several parties sharing one solar farm? Since you’re sharing the house with several other inhabitants, how do you share the electricity bill? Do you have any form of metering on the different rooms?
We just rent to people “utilities included”. Even though the house is two units and two lines of service, it’s not wired with everything that supports one unit on one service, so this is what MA requires. While this does mean incentives aren’t quite aligned it hasn’t been a problem: electricity costs are pretty low compared to rents here: we pay ~$190/month in electricity and collect ~$3.2k/month in rent (source).
If you’re, say, roommates in a house that has solar panels, you can do what most people do and split the electricity bill evenly—it’s just that, some months, your electricity bill will negative and you’ll all get a payout. If you’re in a condo or other situation where you share ownership of the roof and the solar panels with a household with another electrical meter, you’d have to work out sharing the profits/ cost reduction, but you could do it if you wanted to.
Good point—I’m not sure how to handle that off hand but people have been involved in business ventures where they have put in different amounts of capital for centuries, people could probably figure it out.
Out of curiosity: How is the situation with several parties sharing one solar farm? Since you’re sharing the house with several other inhabitants, how do you share the electricity bill? Do you have any form of metering on the different rooms?
We just rent to people “utilities included”. Even though the house is two units and two lines of service, it’s not wired with everything that supports one unit on one service, so this is what MA requires. While this does mean incentives aren’t quite aligned it hasn’t been a problem: electricity costs are pretty low compared to rents here: we pay ~$190/month in electricity and collect ~$3.2k/month in rent (source).
If you’re, say, roommates in a house that has solar panels, you can do what most people do and split the electricity bill evenly—it’s just that, some months, your electricity bill will negative and you’ll all get a payout. If you’re in a condo or other situation where you share ownership of the roof and the solar panels with a household with another electrical meter, you’d have to work out sharing the profits/ cost reduction, but you could do it if you wanted to.
That seems like it wouldn’t handle cases where capital expenses (buying the system) weren’t split evenly?
Good point—I’m not sure how to handle that off hand but people have been involved in business ventures where they have put in different amounts of capital for centuries, people could probably figure it out.