Hi,

I'm wondering if anyone has successfully put solar on multifamily and then submetered the tenants?

So concept would be:

- replace tenant meters with one master meter for the whole property

- install solar on the roof

- install submeters for tenants, and charge them the same as the PSEG rate

You have receiveables exposure to tenants, but then you get to collect RECs for solar and potentially save on the PSEG rate with a larger meter.

It seems like the economics of this could be compelling since it would increase NOI significantly.

Has anyone heard of this before?  

Thanks!

Lloyd, very interesting question.  Though I don't have an answer for you I am very interested in following along and hearing what others have to say.  

I am interested as well.  While I appreciate you trying to squeeze the most out of your tenants, do you really want to start becoming a power company with billing them?  If they don't pay the bill, I don't think that you can shut your electric off.

Maybe you can call PSE&G and ask the what the average electric bill is and incorporate the electric expense into your rent?  You can now market that electric is included as an amenity and charge an additional $20 - $30 more a month?  You get whatever tax benefits and the REC income and the tenants don't have an electric bill.  Maybe that will work?

Yes, including it in the rent would be easier but all my units are in rent controlled parts of NJ, so I don't think I could raise the rent by the amount of their usage.  There are 3rd party companies that do submetering and billing so I could outsource it, but yes, I'm not sure if I could shut off for non-payment.

My main question is what is this called?  In California it appears to be called "net metering aggregation" but I can't find a similar terminology on the East Coast.

So you would still make money having a company outsource the billing? I have 3 SFHs. This may be more profitable for a SFH than a multifamily. I am interested. Please let me know what you find out.