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Solar quotes - So Cal

8K views 67 replies 11 participants last post by  p7wang 
#1 ·
I am planning on getting solar panels so I started calling and asking for quotes. My estimated monthly usage is 1,200 kWh.
Most of the quotes that I got uses REC panels which are above 20% efficiency and 92% output at 25 yrs. The Solaria XT panel efficiency is above 20% but the output at 25 yrs is 86.7%, the reason the guy said he can bring the cost per watt to $2.70.
Some uses Enphase and some SolarEdge. I am not sure which one is better. I am leaning towards micro-inverter or depends on the price.
The prices below are based on financing, so it has some added cost. The cost per watt are pretty close to $3 on most of the quotes that uses REC panels. I will try to let them beat each others bids to bring the cost down. Prices below are before federal tax incentives.
I didn't include the quote from Sunpower which cost $42,600 for 7.47kW system and 18 panels 415W. That is $5.70 cost per watt!

Here are the quotes that I got from different solar companies:

Company #1
22 x REC Alpha 360W
SolarEdge SE6000H-US inverter w/ Power optimizer
7.92kW (Annual prod: 13,298 kWh)
Price: $24,130
Cost per watt: $3.05

Company #2
21 x REC Alpha 365W
SolarEdge SE6000H-US inverter w/ Power optimizer
7.67kW (Annual prod: 14,007 kWh)
Price: $23,500
Cost per watt: $3.06

Company #3
17 x REC Alpha 72 Series 445W
SolarEdge SE7600H-US inverter w/ Power optimizer
7.565kW (Annual prod: 15,047 kWh)
Price: $28,000
Cost per watt: $3.70

Company #4
25 x Panasonic 360W
Enphase inverter
9.0kW (Annual prod: 14,503 kWh)
Price: $27,000 (Cash price)
Cost per watt: $3.00

25 x Solaria XT 365W
Enphase inverter
9.125 kW
Price: $24,637 (Cash)
Cost per watt: $2.70

Company #5
24 x REC370AA (370W)
Enphase IQ7+ inverter
8.88kW (Annual prod: 14,??? kWh)
Price: $26,976
Cost per watt: $3.04
 
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#2 · (Edited)
Did you check Tesla? Since Tesla now only sells solar with batteries, you get 8 KW solar for $12K ($2.01 per watt) before incentives then buy 1 Powerwall to backup your 120V breakers in your house for $6800 before incentives. Seems for about the price of solar from the other vendors, you get solar plus a Powerwall.

The 120V breakers should include your regular 120v outlets and lights, along with your furnace fan - you need that if power goes out in the winter to run your gas heat. Anyway, these 120V items can run off the PowerWall during Peak and that will save you a good chunk more money.

Local solar installers get all upset when people bring up Tesla.

Another poster here is a Tesla+Powerwall owner. Hope he or she chimes in.
 
#3 ·
I have had Tesla Solar and Powerwall for over 1 year. Works great. I wish I had gotten about 3KW more of panels as I did not have the 2020 Bolt Premier when we had the solar installed. In Houston area, before Bolt , I had a running credit of $100 to $150. With Bolt closer to $10. My wife drives 240 to 280 miles per week.
 
#4 ·
The key is to keep presenting the lowest price offered to the other competitors to beat. I went through about 4 back and forths before I made a decision. 3 companies really competed for my business by continuing to lower their previous price.

I eliminated Tesla because it had abysmal reviews, required a non-refundable deposit, and wouldn't let you talk through any options before putting money down. On top of that, they were unlikely to secure a limited DOE subsidy which meant they wouldn't have been the cheapest option.

I went SolarEdge and power optimizers. Probably doesn't matter much, though I get the sense that optimizers have been holding up better than micros. I do think micros lend themselves to expansion more readily than optimizers since they don't require an inverter upgrade.
 
#6 ·
There is also the option of just getting a AGM based home battery system (About $20K for 20KWh storage), if your utility allows that... charge it during super off peak and use it during peak. You can charge the 48V battery pack from your Bolt EV's 60KWh battery pack with a "12V DC to 120V AC inverter" plus a "120V AC to 48V DC battery charger" and "refill" the home battery at 1KW rate. 24 hours and it's 24KWh. Can come in very useful if the utilities start load shedding again this summer.
 
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#7 ·
It was easy for me to calculate payback on my solar system because we have a flat rate (no TOU) and an annualized net-metering. There is no benefit having battery backup in my case because it doesn't offset any TOU cost, and could only provide a few hours of backup power during a power outage.

If I was on a TOU plan and could load shift with batteries, I'd seriously consider it.
 
#8 ·
It's been almost 6 years since I went solar in SoCal. I went with a full-pay lease, which let them take the tax credit and depreciation, but they still own it so they insure and maintain it for 20 years. 12 cheap panels with a clear southern view gave me 5 megawatt hours/year when new and I'm on track for about 4.9 for year 6.

One feature I wanted was the SMA inverter with a built-in outlet. During power outages I've been able to run the fridge, router, computer, etc. or slow-charge the car during the day. Obviously a battery would be far superior but costs a lot more. I have neighbors who recently added Tesla batteries to their solar and they are extremely pleased.

My system is with Sunrun. They have a $1000 referral bonus right now, which I'd be happy to split with anyone who went that way. PM me if interested.
 
#9 ·
When the inverter fails, see if they can replace it with a hybrid inverter that works on 48V and add 4 12V AGM batteries. This will give you some power after sun down.
 
#11 ·
I'd avoid a lease altogether. It's a huge burden if you sell the house because the new owners might not want to assume the lease terms, or there may even be a fee for transferring the lease. If it's profitable enough for a company to lease it to you, it's profitable enough to just purchase it.
 
#13 ·
I'd stay far, far away from the standard monthly solar lease. Most suck you in with zero down and a starting payment that's just a bit less than your standard electric bill, but they have built-in increases every year and onerous exit terms. The full-amount lease is a single payment up front. I paid about $8k up front and since then I've gotten almost $50 back due to 3 years where it generated less than the performance guarantee. The only unknown for me is what they'll say in 14 years when the lease ends. If they ask for a couple hundred bucks I'll probably pay it to keep everything legit on paper, but I expect that I'd be able to tell them I don't want to pay them anything more and they'll decide it's not worth it to come take it back and just abandon it to me. I like that they insure and maintain it. I don't like that I can't modify the system to add panels or a battery without getting a new contract with them.

Sunrun offers cash purchase, financing, and full-pay or monthly leases. Avoid the monthly lease. You can get quotes for the purchase and full-amount lease and see what the difference is. For me it came out to be a few bucks cheaper to do the lease than to buy it and get the tax credits back. I have no idea if that's still true today.
 
#12 ·
Leasing solar, overall, is no different than leasing a car. Difference is depreciation for tax purposes. To the individual, that's probably the marginal tax rate. If your marginal tax rate is 22%, then $1 item actually costs 78 cents. Whether you are better off or worse off, of course, depends on the deal. If the company charges 15% for cost of money, add more fees and then a disposition fee, then that cancels out the savings and then some.

Problem with PPA is it tend to have annual increases. Decade ago, solar sales would say annual energy price will increase 15% annually so sign here now. Ten year later, I see that the actual energy price increase has been NEGATIVE 17%!

I have not yet gotten solar.
 
#14 ·
Problem with PPA is it tend to have annual increases. Decade ago, solar sales would say annual energy price will increase 15% annually so sign here now. Ten year later, I see that the actual energy price increase has been NEGATIVE 17%!
Any rate increase calculation is junk because on average it will increase at the same rate as inflation. That means in real terms prices are fairly steady.

The solar companies liked to quote me an amortization schedule that factors in rate increases. They didn't factor my losses from not being able to invest that money...

At best, the heavily subsidized (3 different subsidies) solar at my place is a break-even proposition.

... if I had put the $10k I spent on solar last May into the stock market, it would be worth $14k today. Opportunity cost.
 
#16 ·
Another factor on the lease vs. buy discussion is failure of equipment. I have had 2 Sunny boy inverter replacements in 7 years on my Sunrun full pay lease system. Total cost to me $0 for the repairs -- of course some down time for shipping in the replacement unit.
 
#19 ·
The quotes that I received all have 25 yrs warranty on product and labor. So far none of them are going below $3 cost per watt. The other company that offered me $2.70 doesn't include panel upgrade cost, so after adding the panel upgrade cost, it went to $3 as well.
Only Tesla offers below $3 cost per watt but their bad customer service reviews worries me.
 
#20 ·
I can only speak for me, but my TESLA customer experience has been excellent. They installed within 3 weeks after I ordered. Took 2 days to install. Panels 1st day, Electrical boxes 2nd day. They also fixed some storm damage I had on my roof where they were going to install panels. Longest part was waiting for HOA approval. I had my neighbor who installs TESLA equipment (for a competitor) install the charger for my wife's Bolt. He said he thought the installers had done a great job.
 
#21 ·
Here's the various quotes I threw into a spreadsheet. I went with the one highlighted. The second group below was for my parent's ground mounted project, and I went with the 7800 watt one for them. They were lower income, so qualified for additional subsidy.

As I'm always saying, put whatever you are considering into a spreadsheet so you can make a rational decision. Doesn't matter if it's girlfriends or car purchases, seeing the numbers informs your decision.

34293
 
#26 ·
I've got another quote using 25 Panasonic 340W panels with 8 of them placed on the north facing roof. I asked him if its better to put in on south facing roof on top of the garage door. The right side will have shadings in the morning and left side in late afternoon due to neighbors tree. The guy said that north facing will get better production compared to the roof on the garage door with shadings.
He said north facing panels will produce around 60% - 70% while south facing with partial shadings will produce 50%.

34309
 
#27 · (Edited)
I've got another quote using 25 Panasonic 340W panels with 8 of them placed on the north facing roof. I asked him if its better to put in on south facing roof on top of the garage door. The right side will have shadings in the morning and left side in late afternoon due to neighbors tree. The guy said that north facing will get better production compared to the roof on the garage door with shadings.
He said north facing panels will produce around 60% - 70% while south facing with partial shadings will produce 50%.

View attachment 34309
... but having it on the south side will keep your house cooler. Decisions, decisions...

A solar installer told me that Panasonic will stop making their own panels. They will still be in business, just not make their own panels. Cheaper to find a supplier and just put their brand on it, I guess.

 
#31 · (Edited)
I believe the installer because he probably used a purpose built device that measures angle and horizon in 360 degrees. That info goes into a program that computes yearly production as the sun angle changes.

That said, I don't like the notion of placing panels in exactly the opposite angle from ideal. Can you get higher efficiency panels and install only on the south facing surfaces?

In my negotiation between installers, I asked for higher output panels to be installed only on the south facing roof rather than utilizing the west-facing roof, and they made it work.
 
#34 ·
That said, I don't like the notion of placing panels in exactly the opposite angle from idea. Can you get higher efficiency panels and install only on the south facing surfaces?
I asked him about getting 370W panels but for some reason he keeps on insisting on using 340W. Most of the quotes I received are using 360W - 370W. There is one that is using 415W which looks like a commercial panel?
 
#36 ·
I'd be tempted by Tesla, and was but for my unique situation in having an extra subsidy on the table that Tesla couldn't guarantee, yet the other installers could.

Commercial panels are usually larger, and less efficient per surface area. They aren't as attractive and have more void space.

Might be tough to get higher efficiency panels to make up for the loss of the panels on the north side since that represents about 25% of your production. You would need somewhere around 425 per panel to fit all of the production on your southern roof.
 
#41 ·
You might want to look at Sunpower series A 400 W panels. You would only need 20 panels to produce the 15,000 annual production you are looking for. And at 40” w by 72” h I have a feeling you just might squeeze 10 above and 10 under the dormers.

The large southern roof with the dormers is the most efficient placement on your house. I would be instructing the contractors to use that roof first.

Your other south facing roofs lower than the main roof are going to be in shade in the afternoon at some point. The least number of panels placed in the best sun exposure will give you more for your money while overloading your roof on the northern facing/other southern roof areas is money in the contractors pocket after he removed it from yours. For him the more the better. Not so much for the home owners.

I see many of my neighbors make the “more is better” approach, with panels all over every facings of their roof, and I just laugh. I seriously doubt that they actually use the power from 40 and 50 panels (even 240 W garbage) unless they are into indoor hydroponic growing, because I don’t see them driving EV’s.

Overproduction is going to take many more years before they pay for themselves. It doesn’t take Einstein to figure out that if it will take about 6 to 6 1/2 years for panels placed on only non-shaded southern exposure to generate the power to pay for themselves at the retail price of 12.7 cents per kWh (USA average), it might take more than a lifetime for the north facing panels that are undoubtedly not even needed to break even.

Overproduction is compensated at wholesale with NEM 2.0. This happens once a year at “true-up”. PG&E paid me 2.6 cents per kWh just last month. At 1/5 the “payback” rate now we are talking about 30 to 32.5 years for the completely unnecessary panels. I don’t know what they are thinking, but I think they got sucked in by some kind of pie-in-the-sky “Electricity Baron” / one-up the neighbor syndrome. Or they are growing weed
and smoking it right before calling the solar company 🤪

My solar system is (so far) about 10% larger than I actually need. I do plan on using more of the excess production by using electric space heaters more, and drive my Bolt more, now that the pandemic isn’t forcing me to stay at home as much.
 
#42 · (Edited)
Overproduction is compensated at wholesale with NEM 2.0. This happens once a year at “true-up”. PG&E paid me 2.6 cents per kWh just last month. At 1/5 the “payback” rate now we are talking about 30 to 32.5 years for the completely unnecessary panels. I don’t know what they are thinking, but I think they got sucked in by some kind of pie-in-the-sky “Electricity Baron” / one-up the neighbor syndrome. Or they are growing weed
and smoking it right before calling the solar company 🤪

My solar system is (so far) about 10% larger than I actually need. I do plan on using more of the excess production by using electric space heaters more, and drive my Bolt more, now that the pandemic isn’t forcing me to stay at home as much.
Use it, don't sell it back! The utility doesn't like having to balance your roof top solar with expensive battery, so help them out while helping yourself out too with an inexpensive, low tech solution. Win-win!

 
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#63 · (Edited)
The part where I have 60KWh in my EV plus maybe 20 KWh home battery to last a week or two of overcast skies. The EV can probably realistically bring back net 30KWh of energy for the house per trip. Plus a wood burning stove as backup in the winter. Maybe even capture methane from the septic system. LOL

Propane is very expensive, more ROI for overbuilding solar. What part of business case analysis do you not understand? LOL LOL

We happen to be in a period of cheap natual gas. It was not long ago when NG was over $1 per therm and between $1-2 before that.
 
#64 ·
Sounds like a good plan (for you)!

Let’s see... I am going to wear-out my EV battery much sooner, and I am going to get told by Tesla, GM, and all other EV manufacturers that the battery Warranty is void since I not only used it to V2H , I used it as a mobile power transfer device to go charge up at the nearby Boondocks DCFC Station so I could bring it back to my expensive home battery that also gets worn out just from using it (what was that 8 yr 20% storage loss all about again??)

Why? Because I don’t like transmission lines!

And I would rather burn through Powerwalls @$6500 (+install) per 13.5KWh of storage. Since I will only be getting twice as many Solar Panels than I actually need, I will need approximately 17 Powerwalls and my car to store one week-worth of energy to get me through the next CA wildfire in thick smoke that has dropped my solar production to 15% of what it would be with clear sky (yeah you read that right, that’s what happened last summer when the air pollution rating hit just shy of 500 =don’t breathe or 💀). The nerve of that happening right when I need AC because it is also 95 degrees! And what if it goes on for 2 weeks? Better get 17 more!

Sounds very doable (for you). Out of curiosity, when will you be installing this system?

ps: What are you planning to do with the overproduction electricity when you aren’t having solar generation problems? Can you also bring it back to the DCFC for a refund?

😂🤣
 
#65 · (Edited)
I guess one could not possibly just stay in the car during a disaster event and where do you see in the warranty that you cannot sit in your car 'idling' with the HVAC running? Even with 15% production, it may be enough to keep the car topped up. Your 15% production may concern is probably valid in the Pacific NW. But then in the Pacific NW the solution is probably more favorable for hydro and wind.

If that isn't obvious to you, yeah, you should stay in the city and on the grid.

I would agree it is a good idea to make sure you have water and electricity to the house. If it's just too expensive, one may be able to install an off-grid system and DIY $1 per watt... that's what they are paying in Australia installed.
 
#66 ·
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