Wondering how Solarize Southeast PA and the Ready for 100 effort in Southeast PA connect?

The Ready for 100 movement has lit up the Philadelphia suburbs. People are going to evening meetings, stepping up to join committees, and teaching themselves about the needed energy transition. Previously shy folks are making presentations in their townships.

All of them are concerned about the climate crisis. All of them are stepping up into these leadership roles, encouraged and informed by the vision presented in the Ready for 100 campaign. That we ..can.. solve our way out of the climate crisis —  with a transition to clean renewable energy for all our needs.

The goal is to stop using fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas. How?

• First, by electrifying everything that uses fossil fuel energy.
• Next, by using less energy overall with a combination of conservation and efficiency. Conservation means turning off the lights as you leave the room. Efficiency means replacing burnt out light bulbs with efficient lighting. You need both conservation as well as efficiency.
• Then, by ensuring that the electricity that is used is generated from clean renewable sources, sources such as wind, solar, hydro, geothermal and storage. In our region of Southeast Pennsylvania, the most practical renewable source is solar.

Since the Ready for 100 campaign has woken up residents first, residents that are explaining this to other residents as well as their local government, it makes sense to organize a buying group for residential scale solar generation. Thus was born Solarize Southeast PA — organizing buying groups in the Philadelphia suburbs.

One of the team members at Solarize Southeast PA, Marion Biddle, was featured in an article in the April 2019 issue of Philadelphia based GRID magazine — The Solar Network — The number one factor that influences whether people adopt solar? If their neighbors install panels first.

The article talks of Marion Biddle’s investment in a rooftop solar project on her Victorian house built in the 1800s. Marion loves the monitoring system that comes with the solar installation and charts each month’s electric usage.

Seeing the surplus electricity, they have eagerly replaced their aging gas water heater with an electric water heater. Soon afterwards, they replaced their aging hybrid car with an electric car. When their gas dryer and stove need replacing, this family has no doubt that the new models will be electric.

This article’s key point, though, is the power we each have to convince our own neighbors about “going solar”.  So, if you already have a solar installation, please ask us for a yard sign. Especially if you’re on a busy road. We want your neighbors to talk to you about your experience, and then, come to us to help them with the transition to clean energy!