CitizenRe Post 1: Rent Solar

This will be the first of a series of posts on CitizenRe.

I mentioned that my husband and I bought our first home last summer. We bought it because we like it, it's in a great neighborhood, it's close to my husband's office and he can drop me at a variety of bus stops on his way to work. We also bought it to grow into because we hate moving and will have kids some day. This last point means that it's bigger than we need right now, but my green side has come to terms with that because it also means that we are making long term decisions on improving it, more than just aesthetic modification.

The first major one is to add solar. For a long time this was a future goal because of the high up-front cost of solar combined with living in a state that doesn't have good solar rebates. This changed the day of the 2007 National Solar Tour. After visiting a local nature preserve that uses solar panels, we went out to lunch and found a flyer for CitizenRe, a company that promotes solar by renting and maintaining the setup through it's REnU program. The deal sounded really great which was the problem. It sounded way too good to be true. So I sat on it, talked it over with a coworker who has some hobby panels, and did some research online. I found that other people were concerned that it was a scam and there were plenty of arguments on both sides. Finally I decided to sign up and find out if it was real or not. I spent time reading through the terms and conditions and nothing looked fishy so I dove in.

I received a call from the sales manager assigned to us, but didn't answer so I only got the welcome message as a voice mail. Then we were sent papers to sign, confirming that we wanted to join the program. I recently received an email confirming that the papers arrived, but still no word about anyone coming to design our solar system. It is important to note that as of this date we have not been asked for social security numbers or any personal information other than our address and names and even the papers that we signed stated that we were not locked into anything until a systems engineer came and designed our solar setup and we approved it. I bring this up because the sites I found had incorrect statements along those lines.

I hope to have more exciting updates about our personal experience with CitizenRe, but for now, here are a few links that help prove that they are real if you believe what you see on TV.

CitizenRe on Living with Ed