Community solar company 1BOG launches Arizona campaign

One Block Off the Grid, a community solar company, recently launched a new Arizona campaign.

The campaign offers up generous solar rebates that grow more generous as more people decide to go solar, said One Block CEO Dave Llorens.

It starts with $100 in a community chest for every eligible homeowner. From there, the pot grows by $10 every time someone in one of the eligible communities—Phoenix, Tucson, Glendale, Scottsdale, Chandler, Gilbert, Peoria, Mesa or Sierra Vista—decides to go solar through One Block Off the Grid.

“It’s an extra incentive for people to tell their friends and family about and encourage them to go solar, too,” Llorens said.

The campaign represents a new frontier for the company, Llorens said.

One Block Off the Grid has historically worked with third-party vendors in the area to go out and give estimates. And that can still happen when customers want it. But Llorens said One Block will be able to look up satellite images of a potential client’s home, come up with solid price quotes and sell solar lease systems on the spot.

“It takes a process that used to take several days down to a couple hours,” Llorens said.

That opens the program up to those people who are just curious and who call to find out what it would cost them, Llorens said.

There are a lot of people who call during One Block Off the Grid campaigns who aren’t serious enough to want someone to come out to their home physically and sell them on a system.

But if they are curious enough to call, now One Block Off the Grid can present them with leasing options that require little or no upfront money and promise electric bills similar to the ones they pay now.

Arizona is prime for a solar campaign like this one.

“We’ve come to a time where the rebates are more stable there,” Llorens said. “And we decided this is the right time to re-approach Arizona.”

Arizona residents are also interested in solar right now. One Block Off the Grid membership in the state has grown by 98.4 percent over the last two years because of utility rate hikes and blackouts in September.