Why is Sustainable Development Hot Right Now?
Have you been reading the news lately? Sustainability, minimalism, and green building have been dominating the real estate market. Residential solar installations have been on the rise year after year. Elon Musk took a dive into the residential real estate market by acquiring SolarCity in 2016 through Tesla. In 2018, California became the first state in the country to require all new homes developed to have solar panels by 2020.
Florida is a bit different. Florida Power & Light (FPL), the main utility provider in Florida, operates as a regulated monopoly. Thus, the incentive to go solar in a big way is on their backburner, even in the Sunshine State!
As a Tesla Energy Advisor, I learned a lot about my clients and their motivation for wanting to go solar. Most in South Florida, due to their animosity with FPL and it unreliability/price hikes, go solar to achieve greater energy independence from the grid. Others go solar as an investment to save money over time, or to have power during and after an outage – especially during hurricane season. Most Floridians are dismayed by a lack of choice or control over their utility provider.
FPL’s top two sources of electricity generation is from natural gas and coal, both of which are dirty, unsustainable, and sometimes unreliable sources of energy. If you’re an FPL customer, you will always be subjected to their price increases year over year, which they justify as improvements to their aging infrastructure. If a major hurricane were to destroy FPL’s infrastructure or the grid in general, you the customer would bear the brunt of these costs.
The good news is there’s a better solution as every house has a roof! Solar allows your roof to transform into your very own power plant. You can own, produce, and store your own power. By combining solar panels with Tesla’s Powerwall 3 battery, homes are able to be self-powered without much use the grid/FPL. Solar offers the choice of energy independence, reliability, control, savings over time, federal tax credits, and sustainability. Most of my new business when I worked at Tesla came in the form of referrals because my clients were so passionate to show off their cool panels to friends and family alike; clients felt they were making a difference – they wanted to be part of a sustainable revolution.
Elon Musk had the effect of making solar cool and sexy. Tesla manufactures solar panels of course; however, Tesla’s real innovative product aka Solar 2.0 will be when they further introduce their revolutionary solar roof tile array to the mass market. Tesla’s solar roof allows you to blend in with the neighborhood without making a statement; it’s tiles look indistinguishable from a regular roof type. Tesla solar tiles come in textured glass tile, slate glass tile, tuscan glass tile, and smooth glass tile. It’s a sustainable developer’s dream.
At Bennett Development, depending on the scope of work, we aim to incorporate Tesla’s solar panels/solar roof paired with a Powerwall battery in our homes. By doing so, we plan to be the first to offer such an option for the growing duplex array in Coconut Grove. Our mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable real estate development, one home at a time.