Michigan residents find savings by bundling solar purchases
Woody Gontina installed a 5.4-kilowatt solar-and-battery-storage system in his Royal Oak home, and soon got a real-world demonstration of what the setup could do during an early-spring storm. In the middle of a five-day power outage, Gontina said his house was among the few that kept lights on while neighbors’ electricity went out, an experience he later described as part of the early momentum behind a local Solarize initiative.
Gontina said he could not have predicted the storm, but he described the outage as an early “proof of concept” for Solarize Royal Oak, where he was helping encourage neighbors to install solar panels. He said “there wasn’t really a champion to push (Solarize) forward,” and added that he had the time and interest to take on the initiative. He also said he understood the city was “very challenged in terms of resources” and lacked the time to run a program like Solarize.
In Michigan, the Solarize model has spread beyond Royal Oak as residents and local officials have pursued group-buy discounts and federal incentives. The program’s approach is designed to reduce barriers that can come with rooftop solar, including upfront costs and uncertainty about contractor pricing, by creating organized community events that bring multiple homeowners together.
Solarize began outside Michigan, with roots in 2009 in Portland, Oregon, where residents hosted neighborhood seminars to learn about residential solar installation with local contractors. According to the Energy Trust of Oregon report cited in the story, the program expanded across Portland before it spread to other places. In Michigan, Ann Arbor resident and energy manager Julie Roth said she heard about Solarize and began considering it for her own neighborhood in 2019, when she was interested in solar but concerned about upfront costs and varying contractor quotes.
Roth said she pitched the group-buy idea to her solar installer, asking what the installer thought if she gathered people and pursued the purchase together. She said the installer agreed and “came up with a sort of discount structure,” and she then invited residents through Nextdoor and Facebook. Roth said she expected only a small turnout, but instead about 40 people came to the first meeting at her house, and within a year about a dozen people from that group installed solar panel systems.
As interest grew, Solarize’s administration shifted from a volunteer approach toward local and county involvement. The story says Solarize is now overseen by the Great Lakes Renewable Energy Association, and that city and county officials in places including Grand Rapids, Lansing, Kalamazoo, as well as Oakland, Washtenaw and Wayne counties have taken over administering Solarize for homeowners and businesses.
Oakland County Chief Sustainability Officer Julie Lyons Bricker said her county’s Sustainability Office has worked on energy efficiency across Oakland’s 62 cities, townships and villages while also guiding homeowners and businesses toward available incentives. She said the county hopes Solarize will raise awareness about how solar works and help people understand what they need to get installations done, including what customers should expect from contractors.
Bricker said that with Solarize Oakland County, resident groups can be matched with Great Lakes Renewable Energy Association-approved vendors and receive bulk discounts of 5% to 15% on solar panel purchases. She described the county’s role as a resource and advocate, framing the program as both a guide for navigating incentives and a relationship builder for residents.
The story also notes that solar expansion nationally has faced obstacles as policy changes have reduced some incentives and as the industry contends with broader pressures. It cites a Solar Energy Industries Association report saying utility-scale solar installations were down 16% and community solar down 25% in 2025, and it says a 30% Residential Clean Energy Credit for solar, wind and geothermal home installations ended early when President Donald Trump signed the “One Big Beautiful Bill” in July 2025.
Still, Solarize backers in Michigan say the programs can offer options even after the residential tax credit ended. Gontina said it is “an economic investment when you’re thinking about installing a system,” and that “anything that is available to help with that investment only makes it easier.” Bricker also said multiple incentives for businesses and houses of worship remain available through the end of 2027, while she said Solarize-style rooftop access can be harder for renters, lower-income residents and households with roofs unsuitable for panels.
Ann Arbor’s program has also been used as an example of how group-buy efforts can help drive local adoption. City data cited in the report says Ann Arbor averaged about 180 residential solar installations annually since 2020, compared with 17 per year between 2008 and 2019. The story says the city’s Sustainable Energy Utility—authorized by roughly 80% of voters—has been designed to help residents and businesses access solar and battery storage without upfront costs, with pilot projects targeting lower-income neighborhoods expected to launch in 2026.
Roth said she hopes Ann Arbor’s experience can serve as a model for other communities, describing the renewed visibility of rooftop solar as motivating. She said that in recent years she can spot solar panels around neighborhoods and that it is “really exciting to see the actual physical changes in your community,” reflecting the central idea behind Solarize: using neighbor-to-neighbor engagement to make the transition to renewables feel attainable.