The Best Way to Get People to Go Solar: Beer?

When it comes to incentives to getting people to go solar, tax credits and rebates are always top of the list. However, there may be a new, interesting incentive on the horizon. And that amazing incentive is beer. Unfortunately for lovers of breweries everywhere, this incentive is currently limited to the Missoula Electric Cooperative in Montana, but if successful, it would be an interesting idea to start spreading to other places.

Kettlehouse K3 Brewery and Missoula Electric Cooperative partnership.

The Kettlehouse K3 Brewery will be partnering with Missoula Electric Cooperative in 2019. They’ll be opening a new taproom with solar panels on it, where people can come in and become part of their solar panel membership in an exclusive club called the Renew-A-Mug club. How does it work? Just purchase one of the 188 solar panels the Missoula Electric Cooperative is selling through the brewery, and then you’ll be able to come to the Kettlehouse K3 Brewery every day to get a free beer!

Another great aspect of this brewery’s panels is that they’re on a south-facing roof, meaning people will get the best solar possible for the next 25 years.

How much can people expect to receive?

Many people are confused about community solar and uncertain how much energy they can actually get from using it. But according to MEC general manager Mark Hayden, “One panel puts out approximately 350-kilowatt hours a year. Members can purchase the output of one or more panels, and that will be credited right off their monthly energy bill.”

Even if a person just gets one, and not, say, three, (which would likely be able to power their whole home) just the one can help bring green energy into their lifestyle and cut down on their utility bills.

How much does it cost?

Getting one panel from the brewery will cost $650, which is much cheaper than it would cost to install an entire system onto your own home, and it will pay for itself in just a few months. Not to mention, the free beer will help cut down on alcohol costs, saving consumers even more money.

The beauty of this system.

Between the savings these panels will provide on utility bills and the free beer, this program will save consumers money in more ways than one and help start them on a path towards helping the planet.

“What we really want to do is provide the access of people who may not be able to (install solar) in their houses,” said Kettlehouse Brewing co-owner Tim O’Leary.

That’s the amazing thing about community solar: for people who don’t own their homes, can’t afford solar, or live in an apartment, this is a way to get solar to them.

“It will be probably a lifelong path for us, but I like to say a journey of 1,000 beers starts with the first sip,” O’Leary continued. "And if you’re not trying you can just throw your hands up in the air and feel hopeless. We want to give ourselves hope and we want to give other people hope that there are access and opportunity to folks to take that first sip or first step.”

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