The past few years have been amazing for solar in the U.S. New capacity added in 2012 grew by 76 percent over the previous year. NREL recently estimated that the US has the potential to meet 20 percent of its total electric demand with solar. This estimate is becoming prophecy as prices continue to drop, falling by 58 percent just since the beginning of 2011.

Yet, despite all of the great news, solar still only provides one percent of the total U.S. power demand.

So why, if the potential is 20 percent, are we only at one percent?

Cloudy Germany has achieved 22 percent solar penetration, with government assistance in the form of feed-in tariffs, a guaranteed rate that solar power can be sold back to the utilities for.

Here in the U.S., we don’t have the political will to take that approach. And with prices coming down so rapidly, it might not be necessary. Why, then, is it coming so slowly?

One big roadblock is the availability of financing. People are interested in going solar, but they don’t have a way to pay, especially post-meltdown, when banks are reluctant to lend.

Some utilities, in places like Hawaii, are beginning to offer on-bill financing, where the cost of installation is amortized by the utility and paid for by the energy savings realized. But not all utilities are willing to carry the risks of such a program. Funding for projects of this size, in many places, can be difficult to find.

Last year, Mosaic announced a funding opportunity that they estimated could be worth a potential $90 billion, if participation reached one percent of the retail investment market. They act as an intermediary, gathering capital from many micro-lenders who are willing to invest in their communities and their future.

Mosaic claims that they were inspired by crowdsourcing pioneer Kiva, who with their extensive lending community, 900,000 strong, accessible by anyone with Internet access with $25 or more to lend, can join. Kiva is currently distributing some $2.2 million in loans per week with a total of $420 million since they started in 2005. Kiva’s website matches up borrowers with lenders looking for a project to support. Kiva’s repayment rate of 98.9 percent compares favorably with the national average 96.5 percent bank card rate and edging out the national composite rate.

Now, Kiva is announcing a new crowdfunding program, specifically for renewable energy. How many times have you wished you could do more to help reduce the impact of climate change but didn’t feel you could afford to take a major step like putting solar panels on your house? Or perhaps you live in an apartment building but still want to do something?

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