Local Lincoln neighborhood looks to go green

It's the beginning of the process, but several Lincoln neighborhoods near downtown Lincoln are looking to go green.

Stephanie Barth hatched the idea -- getting neighbors together to use solar power instead of traditional electricity.

"It's so easy, you don't have to put installment on your own house, you don't have to ruin your own house with all this equipment, it's just in one spot and you buy a share," said Barth. "It's very simple and the energy costs are so much lower, by about a third."

The idea is that neighbors would form a group and buy into LES' power purchase agreement to get their energy. First though, they'd need a solar garden, or area where the solar panels would go.

Barth says that there are long term, low interest loans available for such projects.

She adds that LES would then hook up that solar garden into their network, and would meter homes separately who are apart of the solar power project.

Barth helped organize a community meeting on Sunday with LES, the Nebraska Energy Office and Dixon Power Systems to talk about the possible project.

Barth says that Central City already has a similar project going. She added that if all goes well, she would hope to have the project up and running by sometime in 2017.