LEHI, Utah, Aug. 22, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — Vivint Solar, Inc. (NYSE : VSLR ), a leading full-service residential solar provider, today announced the Florida Public Service Commission has approved its solar lease product proposal, allowing homeowners in Florida to install solar panels from Vivint Solar for no money down and get guaranteed solar production.

Solar leases from Vivint Solar will be immediately available in the St. Petersburg and Orlando areas. New Vivint Solar customers in other markets in Florida may also have the option to qualify for a solar lease.

“We appreciate the commission for clarifying its position and removing any stumbling blocks to the expansion of customer choice for solar power in Florida,” said Vivint Solar CEO David Bywater. “Our solar lease product allows many more customers to benefit from clean, renewable energy, and we are excited that our new Sunshine State customers can adopt solar at zero down for the first time.”

Under a lease agreement, Vivint Solar designs and installs a solar energy system for no upfront cost. The company provides clean, efficient energy from the abundant Florida sunshine to customers, who pay a fixed monthly amount, which provides most customers with overall energy cost savings compared to their local utility. On average, Vivint Solar customers across the United States save up to 20 percent with Vivint Solar’s leases relative to their current utility rates.

Vivint Solar takes care of all necessary permitting and paperwork and customers have no maintenance responsibility for the system.

Vivint Solar expanded into Florida in 2016. The availability of leases provides more flexible options to go solar for Florida homeowners, who can also purchase a system from Vivint Solar outright or finance the purchase with monthly payments through one of the institutions Vivint Solar has relationships with, or through their preferred lender.

For more information, visit www.vivintsolar.com/state/florida.

About Vivint Solar 

Vivint Solar is a leading full-service residential solar provider in the United States. With Vivint Solar, customers can power their homes with clean, renewable energy and typically achieve significant financial savings over time. Offering integrated residential solar solutions, Vivint Solar designs and installs the solar energy systems for its customers and offers monitoring and maintenance services. In addition to being able to purchase a solar energy system outright, customers may benefit from Vivint Solar’s affordable, flexible financing options, power purchase agreements, or lease agreements, where available. For more information, visit www.vivintsolar.com or follow @VivintSolar on Twitter.

Press Contact

Vivint Solar

Helen Langan

Senior Director of Communications 

385-202-6577

pr@vivintsolar.com

SOURCE Vivint Solar

Related Links

https://www.vivintsolar.com

“This is a historic day for everyone here today,” Trevor Lauer, president and chief operating officer of DTE Electric, told a crowd of about 200 people gathered in the Belle River Power Plant Clubhouse on Aug. 21 for the symbolic groundbreaking on the Blue Water Energy Center. “This is the first time DTE has built a new power plant since Belle River opened in 1984.”

The Blue Water Energy Center, billed as a state-of-art, $1 billion natural gas power plant, is set to be constructed in East China Township, east of the Belle River plant.

Kiewit Engineering Co., the Detroit operation of the international firm of the same name, will build the plant, spending a minimum of $200 million on Michigan-based labor and materials. GE Power will manufacture the major generation equipment for the plant.

Gerry Anderson, chairman and chief executive officer of DTE Energy, focused his comments on the company’s commitment to reduce its carbon emissions.

“We believe our company and our country have a responsibility to address climate change,” Anderson said.

Anderson talked about DTE Energy’s pledge to reduce its carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050.

“In fact, we’re already doing it,” he said. “Since 2009, we have driven investments of more than $2.5 billion in renewable energy with more investments coming. But as we continue to retire coal-fired power plants — all of them by 2040 — we need to complement wind farms and solar arrays with high reliability assets.”

Anderson said he and his company love renewables.

“But as we Michiganders know well, the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine in our beautiful state,” Anderson said, gesturing to the rainy weather outside. “And that’s why we need natural gas-fueled plants like the Blue Water Energy Center. When it begins operations in 2022, it will represent our single largest step in reducing carbon emissions to date.”

Construction is slated to begin next spring.

The plant will have 70 percent fewer carbon emissions and 99 percent fewer nitrous and sulfur emissions than a typical coal plant.

DTE Energy will retire three coal-burning plants when the Blue Water Energy Center comes on line: the St. Clair Power Plant, also in East China Township, and the Trenton and River Rouge plants.

“It’s a great day in St. Clair County,” said U.S. Rep. Paul Mitchell, who represents Michigan’s 10th District, which includes St. Clair and Macomb counties.

Jeff Bohm, chairman of the St. Clair County Board of Commissioners, noted that DTE Energy was responsible for 11.5 percent of the county’s state equalized value and a stable producer of employment.

“I would like your second and third plants and I’m not shy about saying that,” Bohm told DTE Energy executives.

Lawsuit to stop the plant

Not all Michigan residents were cheering the new plant.

“A coalition of organizations are filing briefs appealing the regulatory decision which would allow DTE Energy to increase electricity rates for customers to pay for the plant,” a press release from the groups involved states.

The clean energy groups are the Ecology Center, the Environmental Law and Policy Center, the Michigan Environmental Council, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, the Solar Energy Industry Association, the Union of Concerned Scientists and Vote Solar.

“The organizations contend the three-member Michigan Public Service Commission failed to require DTE to demonstrate its plant was the ‘most prudent’ way to generate electricity, as required by state law,” the statement reads.

The MPSC issued DTE Energy its required certificate of necessity in April.

The groups argued that the “new gas plant will be more costly and far riskier than a portfolio of cleaner, cheaper resources, like solar, wind, energy efficiency, battery storage and demand response.”

They said a $1 billion investment in such a portfolio would generate 10 times more construction jobs and four times more permanent jobs than the Blue Water Energy Center.

The new plant is expected to create more than 500 construction jobs and about 35 permanent jobs.

“DTE did not prove that its plan was the least risky and most cost-effective choice for its customers,” Margrethe Kearney, senior staff attorney for the Environmental Law and Policy Center, said in a statement. “In fact, DTE failed to do the analysis necessary to fairly compare this plan to a portfolio of other resources that included renewable sources, demand response and energy efficiency.

“Under Michigan law, DTE should have been sent back to the drawing board to re-do its analysis. We believe the commission erred in approving the plant given the inadequate analysis presented by DTE.”

Jim Bloch is a freelance writer. Contact him at bloch.jim@gmail.com.

SUNNYSIDE, Wash. – After 10 years of searching, the City of Sunnyside has found a possible business to make use of a 147 acre cattle lot.

You can imagine a feedlot that size when the cows were there, the smell that traveled with it.

“I’ve been told it had 50,000 cattle, and it caused quite a bit of dust, quite a bit of stench,” said Sunnyside City Manager Don Day.

A thick odor many locals can still remember evilly roaming the town with thousands of flies traveling with it.

“It was terrible because it was so close to the town that it was an everyday thing.” said local Felix Garza.

Since the lot was sold, locals say the town is starting to feel and smell a bit more like how Sunnyside should. Now a new kind of reusable energy may be taking it’s place.

OneEnergy Renewables has claimed dibs on a five year contract to purchase as much as 80 acres of land.

City Manager Don Day says the solar power company is using that time to test the soil and see if the property fits their needs, and if they are able to sell the power they produce.

Day says if the solar power plant agrees, the lot will finally start paying back the financial burden that came with the city buying the $2.5 million feedlot.

“The city has been paying for that property over the last ten years. The city took out a bond to pay for it, and has been paying interest on that property to the tune of about $270,000 a year,” said Day.

During the five year lease, OneEnergy Renewables will pay the city $2,000 for the first year, then raise one grand for the next four years.

A 26 year-long contract will be signed and a possible 10-year renewal after if the solar company decides to use a portion of the feedlot.

Nearly 80 acres will remain if the deal is sealed with OneEnergy Renewables. The city is still looking for another buyer to purchase the remaining acres.