Cedar Rapids, IA – June 5, 2017. Cedar Rapids, IA – June 5, 2017. The sun is shining for homeowners and commercial property owners across Linn County, as the Solarize Cedar Rapids & Linn County program commences this June. The program allows individual home and commercial property owners to access lower prices for solar installations through the power of volume purchasing.
The City of Cedar Rapids, Linn County, The Nature Conservancy, Indian Creek Nature Center, and Iowa 350 have supported a stand-alone bulk solar group purchase program for residents and businesses in Linn County. This program will reduce carbon emissions while providing residents with the opportunity to invest in their own high-quality renewable energy solar installation with potentially significant savings on installation cost.
“I am thrilled we are working with residents, businesses, farms, and other organizations throughout Linn County in order to save them money on solar installations, while also helping the environment in the process,” commented James Hodina, environmental public health manager at Linn County Public Health.
“The solar group buy is one of the first in the state of Iowa,” said Eric Holthaus, sustainability coordinator for the City of Cedar Rapids. “This collaborative partnership between several local groups will make it easier and more affordable for people to pursue renewable energy on their properties.”
The program is administered by the Midwest Renewable Energy Association (MREA) at no cost to the city or the county. This type of program has been successful in other jurisdictions in Illinois and Wisconsin as seen in Milwaukee, Urbana-Champaign, Bloomington-Normal, and elsewhere.
“We’re very excited to build on our recent success of group purchasing programs around the Midwest with Solarize Cedar Rapids & Linn County,” said Peter Murphy, Solar Program Manager at MREA. “The support of local governments and community partners is invaluable to helping increase solar adoption locally.”
Over the next few months MREA will provide free, public, one-hour long educational sessions called Solar Power Hours for prospective participants to learn how solar energy works and to answer questions. The program’s website, SolarizeLinnCounty.com, includes a signup form which will be used to announce Solar Power Hour sessions. The first of these sessions will take place on Tuesday, June 13, 2017, at 6:30 p.m. at the Cedar Rapids Downtown Library in Beems A (450 5th Ave SE, Cedar Rapids, IA 52401).