{"id":7886,"date":"2019-02-19T19:24:28","date_gmt":"2019-02-19T19:24:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/socialpanic.org\/?p=7886"},"modified":"2024-12-14T04:13:19","modified_gmt":"2024-12-14T04:13:19","slug":"fear-is-a-powerful-motivator-in-propaganda-messaging-how-its-used-to-sell-third-party-solar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/2019\/02\/19\/fear-is-a-powerful-motivator-in-propaganda-messaging-how-its-used-to-sell-third-party-solar\/","title":{"rendered":"Fear is a powerful motivator in propaganda messaging: How its used to sell third party solar"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sunrun is a third-party owned solar power business (TPO). They install photovoltaic solar power arrays on homes and lease the array to you, the homeowner, for 20 years. Sold to the homeowner as a cost savings program, the contracts have an annual lease increase built in such that eventually, they cost more than the local electrical utility – while the TPO receives huge government subsidies for installing solar. The homeowner, over time, ends up spending more money than before they signed on to the alleged cost savings program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The essence of their sales pitch is to instill fear in the target customer, a typical method of persuasive messaging:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

One former Bay Area employee sent me a Sunrun training manual he said was current when he resigned in April 2017. It\u2019s called \u201cPower Play 2.0: The Guide to Successfully Sell Sunrun.\u201d (The company confirmed its authenticity.) It instructs salespeople to sow distrust in and disdain for traditional utilities and appeal to customers\u2019 emotions. Over 61 pages, pain is cited at least 31 times and fear at least a dozen. When reviewing a customer\u2019s traditional utility bill, the trainee is told, \u201camplify the pain significantly.\u201d Among \u201ccomponents of success\u201d: \u201ccreating pain and fear.\u201d Among the \u201cfive fatal flaws\u201d to avoid: \u201cfailing to build pain or fear.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Source: What Happened When I Bought A Home With Sunrun Solar Panels<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As documented by Bloomberg, Sunrun lied about the monthly costs of the residence’s electric bill to persuade the homeowner to sign up for Sunrun services. It is likely that many TPO customers are victims of persuasive sales techniques and are not aware that the information they are provided is biased and potentially incorrect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sales pitch used a combination of false assertions, lies, cherry picking (emphasizing the early years savings) and fear.  Just like propaganda messaging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interesting observation in the article – California now mandates all new homes have solar PV arrays installed and it is expected that most will end up using the TPO model, as it is so profitable to the companies involved. In effect, California is de facto mandating that everyone participate in this phony cost savings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note – this post is not intended to be in opposition to solar PV, only to the marketing tactics of third-party owned solar PV companies. I had my own home built solar PV array in the 1990s. I do not currently have solar PV as where I live there are only 68 clear days per year (on average) and about 80 partly sunny days per year. The remainder are cloudy and rainy making this a poor environment for solar PV electricity generation. We hope in the future to move to a location with more sun and will seriously consider solar PV when that happens.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

UPDATE DECEMBER 2024<\/strong>: Since the above post we was written, we moved to the high desert – and sunny part of Eastern Oregon. We have had whole house solar PV in operation since January 2020 and it provides 100+% of our annual electricity usage. Our system is “grid intertied” meaning it both sends electricity to the power grid and may draw power from the grid, at times. This intertie is mandated by our local building code – we have no choice in that. Effectively, it uses the grid as a battery. However, we are contracted to add a whole house battery system in early 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Third party companies offer to install solar PV arrays on your home and promise to save you money on your monthly electric utility costs. Bloomberg found they use a mix of false assertions, lies, cherry picking and fear as sales methods, to persuade homeowners to sign up and lease the solar PV system for decades. Over time, the lease costs increase such that the homeowner spends far more in the future, while the third party company collects large government subsidies. Few homeowners understand what they got in to. When they go to sell their home, the lease is transferred to the buyer – in effect, TPO solar PV arrays become a dead weight on the home’s future sales potential, particularly to informed buyers who understand the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4,9,19,24,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advertising","category-assertion","category-cherry-picking","category-fear","category-in-practice","category-lies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7886\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}