In my first blog, I mentioned the idea of organizing a system to solicit neighborhood group pricing for goods or services, especially as a way of getting lower unit costs for solar system installations. Little did I know that such a system already exists - founded here in San Francisco of course! We read about it in the Chronicle, which I think is doing a great job with green news, by the way, in an article by Paul Kilduff published October 11. See article .
With the unlikely name of 1bog (for "one block off the grid"), it is a bargaining collective founded by Sylvia Ventura and her husband, Dan Barahona after they struggled through installing their own photovoltaic system. They were doing tons of research trying to understand the different options and the technical aspects of these systems and determined to make that information available to others, setting up an informational website, www.solar4SF.org, to do so.
But then they realized the other major stumbling block stopping people from setting up these systems was financial - even with government subsidies the prices were too high. So their next idea was to set up a bargaining collective - a way of helping many people deal collectively with solar vendors to elicit the best pricing and service. the system seems to be growing fast and has brokered a good number of systems already. Check out the collective's web site: www.1bog.org . Do it with someone you love - or just a friend - or someone you've never met.
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