Business Case

How to eliminate the electric bill for tenants and ensuring budgets go further to meet monthly living expenses.  

Background

The team at Solar Design Studio has been honored to work in partnership with the Westside Housing Organization through KCP&L Solar on the restoration of an historic property in Kansas City’s Northeast neighborhood. Too often, solar implementation is out of reach for those with low or moderate incomes, but partnerships like this one are bringing solar power to diverse communities that can benefit greatly as a result.

For this particular project, their largest yet, the dedicated staff at Westside Housing Organization set their sights on rehabilitating a dilapidated, abandoned building at 8th and Woodland. The historic property is being turned into a mixed-use commercial and residential space, with retail, restaurant, or office space on the first floor and 10 residential units above. The building was purchased for a small sum from the Land Bank and benefits from donations and investment from several partners in its transformation, including the Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC), the City of Kansas City, Missouri, and Neighborworks America.

Solution

The addition of solar panels to this particular project will have a big impact on the residents of the building, who will not have to add an electric bill to their list of monthly expenses. Adams-Leavitt notes that energy cost spikes in the summer and winter are especially hard on low and moderate-income tenants, who may not be able to respond as quickly to price fluctuations during high-demand months.

The Westside Housing Organization hopes to include solar energy in all future housing projects to remove this burden from tenants and to make sustainable, renewable energy available to a wider group of Kansas Citians.

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