Resilience Energy keeps the title to the free solar it installs on other people's roofs

A homeowner on the sign-up page has to believe two things at once: that the hardware is free, and that peak hours are worth enough for a stranger to pay for it. Konkar said one challenge is simply convincing homeowners the program is not too good to be true. The company is recruiting through cities, counties and community groups, and in some places the utility will carry the message ^[17].

Ownership is what widens the list. An aggregator that pools batteries already installed can only sign households that already spent the money. "One of the benefits of this model is that everyone qualifies, including low and moderate incomes," Konkar said ^[4]. Resilience has also started signing rental property owners, who skipped solar in the past because the tenant, not the landlord, sees the lower bill ^[6].

Konkar put a figure on the local effect. "If we are doing 20,000 homes of solar and storage, that's unlocking about $500 million of capital for those homes in that community," he said ^[15]. Divide it and you get about $25,000 a home ^[19]. The capacity numbers give the other half of the ratio: 100 to 200 megawatts from 20,000 to 40,000 homes ^[16], which is 5 kilowatts a home at either end of the range ^[20]. So roughly $25,000 of capital sits behind about 5 kilowatts of peak contribution, near $5 a watt ^[21], and a lender funds that before any power is delivered.

The power purchase agreement is the collateral. Tech buyers have used those contracts for more than a decade to get utility-scale solar built ^[8]; here the same instrument backs equipment scattered across thousands of roofs, with partners handling installation ^[9]. Ownership changes what the project has to wait for. A large solar farm spends years in permitting and grid connection ^[13]. These homes are already connected, so interconnection is simple and the power price is competitive, per the company ^[14], and the project waits instead on a signed contract with a counterparty a lender will accept. Fast Company did not report the length of the homeowner agreements or the contract terms ^[24].

Two axes sort this for an energy buyer. One is what they need, peak-hour capacity or round-the-clock volume. The other is what is blocking them, the interconnection queue or the price per megawatt-hour. The company says the product is not designed to fully power a data centre and covers the critical hours when the grid is most strained ^[12], so it answers the corner where the need is peak capacity and the blocker is the queue.

For the property owner deciding whether to sign, the details are in the term sheet. The equipment stays Resilience's ^[1], the bill reduction of 60% to 80% runs while the homeowner uses it ^[2], and the things to pin down are what happens at the end of the term and who pays for repairs. Sign-ups are open across the contiguous United States, but a project only proceeds where enough homes enrol and a contract can be put in place ^[11]. Konkar said at least one is likely to be signed later this year ^[10].