Bentham Paulos, senior research associate for the national nonprofit Clean Energy States Alliance, calculates that with California’s average electricity price at 32 cents per kilowatt-hour, Bright Saver’s 360-watt kit would save a household in the state about $150 per year; that translates to a payback of about three years. The timeline can stretch from seven to 10 years in places like North Dakota, where electricity rates are lower.
Households could reap savings for decades. Solar panels and inverters can last 25 to 30 years, quietly producing power from sunlight that falls free on everyone on earth.
“The solar revolution is the great sunny hope of our time,” said Bill McKibben, longtime environmental journalist and co-founder of nonprofit advocacy group Third Act. With plug-in systems, “now everyone can participate.”
Bright Saver’s annual membership fee covers some of the nonprofit’s overhead; the group runs mainly on donor funding and says it can keep the discounted sales going for up to six months without more cash. But membership is also a way to rally balcony solar supporters.
“We’re building a constituency,” said Kevin Chou, co-founder of Bright Saver. “Joining a movement that’s actually winning is its own kind of power. Every Bright Saver member makes the case for saving money and fighting climate change a little harder for lawmakers to ignore.”
