One Block Off the Grid has leveraged its group buying practices and its partners to offer New Jersey homeowners solar at a cost of $4.18 per watt installed, a level it said is the lowest installed cost in the U.S. The company handles sales and marketing for residents and then works with local contractors to install the system.

The modules that One Block Off the Grid is installing in New Jersey also come with Enphase microinverters.

“It’s a lot easier to do design and configuration with microinverters,” said One Block Off the Grid CEO David Llorens.

The microinverters allow individual module data reporting, but they usually add roughly 50 cents per watt to the cost of a photovoltaic system.

“$4.18 with microinverter technology is a rock-solid, good deal,” he said.

The company has learned from its past experiences how best to offer group purchase discounts, Llorens said.

“We’ve been doing the same thing for two-and-a-half years, where we sign people up,” he said. Then the installation was handled by the company’s local installation partners. “Sometimes it went really well. Sometimes it didn’t go that well.”

More recently, the company redesigned its site to allow homeowners to design their system online. The installers come out and check to make sure the system will work and then either install it or inform the customer that either changes need to be made or it won’t work, Llorens said.

The company also has partnered with SunEdison, an MEMC company (NYSE: WFR), Llorens said. It uses SunEdison’s residential financing program to offer solar lease-type arrangements.

“We jumped at that,” he said.

The partnership also is giving One Block Off the Grid access to SunEdison’s bulk procurement discounts, which helped to lower the cost in New Jersey, according to Llorens.

In New Jersey, One Block Off the Grid partnered with Corbin Electric to install systems for its customers. The company has experience in the marketplace and dealing with the local regulations, something that One Block Off the Grid looks for in a solar contractor, according to Llorens.

“We can save a lot more money in the system if we’re handing over a signed contract,” he said.

Under the One Block Off the Grid offering in New Jersey, homeowners can qualify for a lease for low money down or pre-paid lease, locking in electricity prices for 20 years, or they can buy the system outright, Llorens said.

In some states, like California, One Block Off the Grid only offers discounts in cities or regions.

The offering in New Jersey covers the whole state.

“We’ve had many group deals in New Jersey throughout the whole state,” Llorens said. “But this is first time we’ve been able to allow them to make a decision to own or lease a photovoltaic system over the phone.”

Image courtesy of NREL.