Solar Advice

[Eldritch]

Interesting. So, you're providing a location for them to install the solar, they're selling you solar for less than you'd pay to PG&E.

Quite different from the residential solar contracts I've seen for individual homes.

Yeah, I am leasing them my Roof and Parking Lot space to maintain their system at zero cost. This is for large multifamily deals though, so Single Family Residential may be more of a screwjob, I haven't done one of those.

Sunrun is the vendor doing these deals if anybody wants to try their hand. They make their money by replacing the Electrical utility over a 20 year contract, so I am not sure what the minimum KWh purchase they need before it makes sense for them to do a deal like this.

 

[auntiebling]

Depends on the deal I guess. In my deals, I pay nothing for installation, and I pay zero to lease the system. The agreement is based off of me agreeing to buy electricity from the Solar Panel owner at a rate lower than the rate of Electricity from the Local Utility.

It is nothing but win. No real cost to me, they maintain the system, and I get electricity at a discounted rate.

in turn, they can put as many panels as possible to fit on your roof to maximize the power they can sell back to pg+e... or something similar?

that's what i see in my neighborhood. most houses that have solar have a reasonable maybe 1/4 of the roof covered only facing one direction (south-ish i assume) whereas the neighbor has panels on every facet of the roof with ~60% coverage. only makes sense to me if it's a lease arrangement and the panel owner is making money selling power to the utility because it looks HIDEOUS and weird

 

[kingmoochr]

DIY solar is actually pretty simple.

Tell me more.....I installed our transfer switch to run our house on generator when PGE pulls their PGE shit. Do you have any resources you can share for the install procedure? We just got a new (not re) roof last year...

 

[Eldritch]

in turn, they can put as many panels as possible to fit on your roof to maximize the power they can sell back to pg+e... or something similar?

that's what i see in my neighborhood. most houses that have solar have a reasonable maybe 1/4 of the roof covered only facing one direction (south-ish i assume) whereas the neighbor has panels on every facet of the roof with ~60% coverage. only makes sense to me if it's a lease arrangement and the panel owner is making money selling power to the utility because it looks HIDEOUS and weird

They send me blueprints I have to approve in advance and I am allowed to make modifications. I hire an architect to second guess their structural calcs to make sure my roof stays in good shape.

I buy electricity from them directly though, which is a better mark up for them than selling it to the utility.

 

[NorCalBusa]

+1

Solar companies can be a scam. Their typical pitch asks for your PG&E bill then slaps together a cheap system and BS ROI telling you telling you it pays for itself in 3 years. Their price and estimates are just trying to match your monthly electric bill and maximize their profit off your tax benefit.

All the components, (panels and inverters) can be researched and even purchased online. Installation is a matter of roofing work to install the panel racks and a pretty simple electrical panel addition. The panels and inverters are basically plug-n-play. Permits are streamlined in many places.

We requested bids after spec'ing the system basics. Highlight Solar in San Jose was the only company that matched what we wanted at a decent price. Our system has almost paid itself off after 5 years and we pay about $15/month electric to cover the minimum charges. If you get today I'd consider the battery. Prices have dropped and the battery can help you shift your electricity draw to avoid peak use charges.

^ this. You can also add a Tesla batt to an existing system or add to a new one down the road later on. I think the battery is what makes it all make sense- and the tax credits.

 

[mrzuzzo]

in turn, they can put as many panels as possible to fit on your roof to maximize the power they can sell back to pg+e... or something similar?

that's what i see in my neighborhood. most houses that have solar have a reasonable maybe 1/4 of the roof covered only facing one direction (south-ish i assume) whereas the neighbor has panels on every facet of the roof with ~60% coverage. only makes sense to me if it's a lease arrangement and the panel owner is making money selling power to the utility because it looks HIDEOUS and weird

Doubt it. When you sell excess power to PG&E you get the wholesale rate paid, and it's something meager like 3c/kwh.

 

[HappyHighwayman]

I am going to do a financial analysis to see if I can break even in 5-6 years otherwise I'm not going to do it now.

 

[buellistic]

I live near the foothills, surrounded by houses, streets, scrub brush and chaparral. But my power grid is on the Public Safety Power Outage list. And we get lots of wind here, so that's my motivation for a battery system. Been here just over a year and have already had 5 days of loss power.

I get lots of wind too.
My solar guy said I would never break even.
Said ..Get Windmills or Woble sticks...they work at nite also..

 

[Caddywumpus]

Wobbbblestix?

 

[HappyHighwayman]

Do they make home windmills ?

 

[buellistic]

Wobbbblestix?

Bladless wind generator..

 

[HappyHighwayman]

https://vortexbladeless.com/

Pretty cool but I don't have land to put it on

 

[berth]

My solar guy said I would never break even.

I never said it would break even.

I personally don't enjoy losing 100 years of technological progress combined with bad planning and policy.

The way I figure it, as soon as the battery system goes in, we'll never lose grid power again. That's my typical luck, anyway.

 

[motomania2007]

When putting in a leased system, it is pretty easy to put in an easement that transfers the agreement to the new property owner in the event of a sale. It is not a big deal. I'm doing that on about 20 buildings this year.

You can do this, I suppose.

When we were buying our home 5 years ago, no mortgage company would finance the house unless the solar lease was paid off in escrow. Not transferred, paid off so the lease was terminated.

We went through this issue on 2 houses and multiple lenders. One house had a 8kw system and the outstanding lease was almost $40k. At that time, $40k would buy a new 12+kw system and a new 8kw system was $25k installed.

 

[motomania2007]

Tell me more.....I installed our transfer switch to run our house on generator when PGE pulls their PGE shit. Do you have any resources you can share for the install procedure? We just got a new (not re) roof last year...

I paid my friend, a solar installer, $1500 for the plans, the paperwork for the permits, getting approval from PG&E and I bought all the solar components through him (he made about 10% commission on the inverter and panels). I bought wire, conduit, etc at Lowes.

I toured 3 of his installations.

I worked on it on several mornings and it took me a total of about 20 hours of work to install my 29 panel 8kw system.

It was pretty much like legos. Plug and play.

The building inspector told me my install was cleaner and better organized than most solar panel installations he had inspected.

We went from $300-600/month electric bills to about $1000 FOR THE YEAR on the first year and only about $100-150 per year since. We replaced our 35+ year old HVAC system with much more efficient modern HVAC system and that accounts for most of our savings after the first year.

Total cost of my 8kw solar system was about $18k plus my labor to install it.

My friend quoted me a 2 day installation with 3 workers, for $6k.

If you average out our electric bills to $400 a month equals our solar system was paid for in about 48 months.

 

[kingmoochr]

I paid my friend, a solar installer, $1500 for the plans, the paperwork for the permits, getting approval from PG&E and I bought all the solar components through him (he made about 10% commission on the inverter and panels). I bought wire, conduit, etc at Lowes.

I toured 3 of his installations.

I worked on it on several mornings and it took me a total of about 20 hours of work to install my 29 panel 8kw system.

It was pretty much like legos. Plug and play.

The building inspector told me my install was cleaner and better organized than most solar panel installations he had inspected.

We went from $300-600/month electric bills to about $1000 FOR THE YEAR on the first year and only about $100-150 per year since. We replaced our 35+ year old HVAC system with much more efficient modern HVAC system and that accounts for most of our savings after the first year.

Total cost of my 8kw solar system was about $18k plus my labor to install it.

My friend quoted me a 2 day installation with 3 workers, for $6k.

If you average out our electric bills to $400 a month equals our solar system was paid for in about 48 months.

Gotcha, a little more exposure than a few YouTube videos... lol. My struggle is the cost/benefit. Our bill only hits $300 when we've got heavy furnace use. And it's a pretty even 50/50 split between electricity and gas. We've got gas furnace, water heater and stove. It'll probably only become worthwhile if we were to swap to electric appliances in the future....or get electric cars.

 

[HappyHighwayman]

That's more than I'd pay with one of the the solar companies. You know we also don;'t all have friends who are solar installers to draw up plans and not rip us off with installations...

So no, unless you have a friend, or expertise, it doesn't seem realistic to install and source it yourself.

 

[berth]

Total cost of my 8kw solar system was about $18k plus my labor to install it.

My friend quoted me a 2 day installation with 3 workers, for $6k.

This is pretty much what I paid a vendor for our house last year, only it's a 7500w system. There was a bunch of hassle with our system, the install is on two roofs, I have all the wiring indoors, the attic is particularly cramped (one of the workers had a bout of claustrophobia during the install), and everything else, it was worth 6K or so to have it done for me.

We have two banks, the switch gear, a cellular maintenance device broadcasting to the "cloud" to an app on my phone.

 

[HappyHighwayman]

Tesla's process is a real "don't give a fuck" process. Once they send you a design there is only a "let's do it!" button and no "Hey this has a mistake please fix it button"

They sent me a design with solar panels on all the roofs attached to my house which I don't own.

 

[Climber]

One other thing.
After the solar gets installed, make sure that you or somebody you hires goes up on the roof and inspects it for damage. In many solar contracts, you only have 2 months to report the damage, after that they're free and clear and you're SOL if you discover it later. They know that most people won't go up on the roof.