Another Solar Thread (leasing, credit, loan)

[Powell on Property]

Did a search and most of the solar threads are a couple of years old now, figured it might be time to start a new one considering how quickly the landscape moves.

So, who's done it recently and has good advice? I like going through Costco due to their standing behind their products, but don't know anything about the contractor they use, Sunrun.

Lease/buy?
Cash/finance?
Return on investment time?
What are the "good" companies?
Battery options? This is a deal-breaker, I'm not going to just feed the grid willy-nilly.

Most off - is it worth it? Financially, not just for ethereal purposes. I'm under no illusions that solar panels are a net good for the environment.

[gx89]

Never lease, buying is only option
No right or wrong answer, I put down the tax credit amount, then pay off once the return comes in.
ROI depends on your usage and system size. Once your system cost breaks 20k you start to extend the ROI as NY state only gives a max 5k tax credit.

You are 110% going to feed the grid willy-nilly. Until NY takes it away and at some point it will happen you get 20yr net metering. The credits roll over for the 20yrs then you loose them. You will never pay a bill again, at night, cloudy days, winter etc when you pull from the grid whatever you use is zeroed out by your credit bank. If you go live in July or later you may owe some $$ in year one as you might not have enough credits to carry you through until March when the system starts over producing. My bills are $14-$16 just depends on how many days pseg billing period is. That is the just the daily connection fee, no taxes as I have no usage to tax. There is some nonsense solar fee that should be $3-7 a month but I'm not getting billed for it. If they change net metering you are grandfathered in.

Is it worth it? every home is different. My house is off the charts efficient and I have a Tesla. After factoring in my gas savings from my old car subtracting my $15 monthly bill and paying cash my breakeven is 48-54 months. The 6 month diff is rates can of course go up and down. I should get 15 years of free electric.

For me this was a business decision not an environmental one. I have solar and a Tesla neither was a green decision, the car was done because its just a fantastic machine and solar made economical sense. If they are are good for the earth then that's an amazing bonus. (I cant see how solar isn't good for the world)

There are many companies out there, prices are all over the place mine ranged from 17.5k to 28k for the the same sized system. The higher priced ones will after 25 years be at 90% efficiency mine will be closer to 85%. The 5% difference over 2 decades doesn't matter. I went with Tesla solar, they offer the lowest price by far in the country. There panels are mid tier and the customer service is terrible post install. For 10k cheaper I was willing to deal with it. If you can finance it and payment after tax credits are lower than you electric bill its worth it especially if you can pay it off in under 7 years. Rates are terrible now cash will yield years faster break even point.

[BugsyPal]

Originally Posted by Powell on Property

Did a search and most of the solar threads are a couple of years old now, figured it might be time to start a new one considering how quickly the landscape moves.

So, who's done it recently and has good advice? I like going through Costco due to their standing behind their products, but don't know anything about the contractor they use, Sunrun.

Lease/buy?
Cash/finance?
Return on investment time?
What are the "good" companies?
Battery options? This is a deal-breaker, I'm not going to just feed the grid willy-nilly.

Most off - is it worth it? Financially, not just for ethereal purposes. I'm under no illusions that solar panels are a net good for the environment.

See: https://time.com/6317339/rooftop-solar-power-failure/

[peconic117]

Originally Posted by Powell on Property

Did a search and most of the solar threads are a couple of years old now, figured it might be time to start a new one considering how quickly the landscape moves.

So, who's done it recently and has good advice? I like going through Costco due to their standing behind their products, but don't know anything about the contractor they use, Sunrun.

Lease/buy?
Cash/finance?
Return on investment time?
What are the "good" companies?
Battery options? This is a deal-breaker, I'm not going to just feed the grid willy-nilly.

Most off - is it worth it? Financially, not just for ethereal purposes. I'm under no illusions that solar panels are a net good for the environment.

Good advice from GX, that time mag article is worth a read too, although most of the people in it having issues today are a result of the solar boom in the 2010's that burst and screwed over a lot of people in the process. Basically the government threw a ton of money at solar startups in the US both to produce panels here and to install them. Tons jumped on board to get a piece of the pie, when it ran out though the entire domestic US solar production start up industry went belly up as did a lot of the early solar installers. Today it's a different landscape, the solar panel companies that are left are all owned by conglomerates or are large companies (like Samsung) and aren't going anywhere. Here's my 2 cents:

Forget leasing! You are pretty much trading one utility for another, the solar company then becomes your new "PSEG" and can (and will raise rates over time) you are also locked into a decades long contract with them, which would make selling your home more difficult as the buyer has to take the contract over.

Cash vs Finance depends on your financial situation, the size of your system, the loan terms etc no quick and easy answer here unfortunately there are advantages and disadvantages to both. From what I see most finance even those who can afford to pay cash.

ROI time varies on your draw, and the size of your production. ROI estimates will be given to you by any decent solar company when getting estimates done.

So you mentioned sun run who I strongly considered. Even got an estimate with them. They are very similar to Tesla, big company (actually the largest in the US) so not likely to go anywhere like a smaller company might, they use Samsung panels I believe, but their customer service like tesla after the install is supposedly horrible from everything I heard and read. Like GS said they solar panels they use are just "ok" and they are pretty much "no frills" you don't get anything extra. For example most of the local companies you get critter guards (an absolute must IMO) included where sunrun its a few grand extra. Local companies that come to mind Sun Nation, Hytech are two I know of with very good reps. They use better panels than the big companies and use micro inverters so if one inverter goes out you only lose production from that one panel if it goes bad until it can get fixed, on a system with a line inverter if it goes bad you can lost the entire or a huge portion of the array until it can be repaired.

Battery - Here's the thing as GX said you will be feeding the grid no matter what battery or no, there is no truly "off grid" solar here that's not how this works. If you get a battery they will charge to full, maintain a charge and then all your excess energy will go right to the grid. Batteries are still very expensive (tesla power walls are popular but there are other brands as well) you will likely need more than one. And unless you are laser focused on having back up power in an outage for the vast majority out there they are absolutely not worth the cost. Also note you can always add batteries to your system at a later date if costs come down and you will get the 30% credit on that as well.

For me it was absolutely worth it, having 2 Ev's, central AC etc my electric bill was getting crazy and getting worse, this saves me well over 100 a month (that's with a new roof rolled in) without the roof it would have been even more of a savings. I also can care less about environmental crap, for me I like the tech and it made financial sense. If your bill is not that high and solar won't save you much then IMO its not worth it. Your house also has to be in a decent position, you may have to take down trees, get a new roof (most companies won't install if your roof is over 10 years old) all of this can add to total cost and possibly make it not worth it depending on your situation. Also keep in mind that anything you do for the solar install (like tree removal, new roof etc) is all eligible as part of the tax credit.