A new partnership between BMW and Real Goods Solar, a Louisville, Colo.-based provider of residential and commercial solar technology, will allow owners of current BMW ActiveE experimental electric vehicles and future buyers of the i3, BMW’s first full-production EV scheduled to launch in 2013, to buy solar panels for their homes at up to a 35% discount. They must live in California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts.
They will have the option to purchase or lease the equipment, which Real Goods Solar will install and service. The company’s website lists two 20-year lease options, one with zero down that amortizes equipment costs over the term of the lease, and another where owners pay $5,269 upfront and forgo a monthly payment. The website says the zero-down option has the potential to save ConEd customers in New York $71,036 over 20 years in avoided gas and utility costs, while the prepaid option could save up to $84,599. (Go to the Real Goods Solar website to see how it calculated those savings.)
The savings are potentially so large because the solar array wouldn’t just recharge electric vehicles. It would provide energy to the whole house for air conditioning, appliances and heating water, for example.
This announcement builds on BMW’s previous partnership announced earlier this year with Tendril Inc. The Boulder, Colo.-based firm provides software infrastructure to connect homes to the electrical grid and optimize energy usage. These so-called “smart homes” can communicate with the “smart grid” to charge up vehicles when electricity demand is low, which not only saves consumers money, but also keeps the grid from getting overtaxed.
The fact that BMW’s approach to selling electric vehicles is more holistic than efforts by other automakers thus far is encouraging, because the changes that need to occur for EVs to reach significant adoption go way beyond simply swapping a gas engine for an electric motor in each car.
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