Solar Energy, Master Limited Partnerships, and Crowd-Funding

2GreenEnergy supporter Steve Levy asks for my opinion and advice on getting a large number of small investors to back the development of solar energy projects.  He sent me his latest paper – one that he presented at this year’s meeting of the American Solar Energy Society, dealing with creating a new kind of ‘investor,’ based on the agglomeration of micro-investments.

He notes: The issue that I am most interested in is, if 95% of the public believes that solar energy is what they want; then, what would be the entry level investment that the public would accept to become an investor in a MLP (master limited partnership)?  How does one convince the public that it is a good investment?

I reply:  To be honest, Steve, this is an area that dumbfounds me.  Obviously, most investors want a combination of safety and ROI.  But what makes them tick on an individual level?  What type of person gets into SRI (socially responsible investing), and how much risk will he accept?  How much sacrifice will he make?  What gets people involved in crowd-funding certain projects?  I really don’t have a clue.

With your permission, I’ll publish this; readers may have insights that you’d find valuable (even if I personally don’t).

Having said all this, I dispute your premise.  Unfortunately, in the U.S., the majority of the people think that solar energy is an expensive fad that exists only because of crony capitalism in a big, quasi-socialist government.  We lag far behind the rest of the world in our appreciation of the merits of renewable energy. Happily, a great number of phenomena are occurring that is bringing about a considerable sea change here, one of which is the falling cost.