Going Solar

[The Sybian]

Anyone ever look into this? The Tesla home battery got me thinking, and a neighbor installed last year. After the 3 storms with 10+ days without power, the wife was intent on getting one of those automatic, built in generators. We had an estimate, and due to the location of our gas line and an addition in the back of the house with mostly glass on the rear wall, they could only put the generator in the backyard in a very weird spot 5 feet away from the house, and they would have to run a long gas line, which was beyond prohibitive cost wise.

Just had a guy from SolarCity come out, and we have good roof sun exposure.SolarCity is founded by Elon Musk, so they can install a Tesla battery, which they claim stores enough electric to power a house in limited use for 3 days, and continues to charge during an outage. Looking at the lease plan, the savings wouldn't be all that significant, and I'm not sure how many years it would take to save enough to pay off the purchase. On the plus side, our roof shingles were installed poorly, so we periodically have leaks, and the panels would cover that up.

[A_B]

I wouldn't count on the panels eliminating any leaks.

And I'm biased, but I've heard really bad things about these types of things rarely having a payback period that ends while you still own the house. YMMV.

[brian]

phxgators worked with Solar City and I think he's still around and can hopefully share his experience. We discussed it a little (him and I) since solar is very prevalent here, but the numbers didn't really work for us. I'm hoping in a few years the economy of scale will shift so that actually purchasing a system instead of leasing makes more sense (and will likely further improve resale value). Battery technology these days is more like Moore's Law -- the price and the size keep dropping faster and faster as do the cost and the width of the PV cells for the solar technology.

[rass]

Anyone ever look into this? The Tesla home battery got me thinking, and a neighbor installed last year. After the 3 storms with 10+ days without power, the wife was intent on getting one of those automatic, built in generators. We had an estimate, and due to the location of our gas line and an addition in the back of the house with mostly glass on the rear wall, they could only put the generator in the backyard in a very weird spot 5 feet away from the house, and they would have to run a long gas line, which was beyond prohibitive cost wise.

Just had a guy from SolarCity come out, and we have good roof sun exposure.SolarCity is founded by Elon Musk, so they can install a Tesla battery, which they claim stores enough electric to power a house in limited use for 3 days, and continues to charge during an outage. Looking at the lease plan, the savings wouldn't be all that significant, and I'm not sure how many years it would take to save enough to pay off the purchase. On the plus side, our roof shingles were installed poorly, so we periodically have leaks, and the panels would cover that up.

Are we to assume the solar install costs are significantly less than the quoted price for the generator and gas line?

[sancarlos]

We bought and installed solar six months ago. Our power bill has gone to pretty much nothing, now. They claim it is a seven year payback, which is probably bs, but even so, I'm happy we did it. They also fronted me the federal tax credit you get for installing them. We bought from a company called SkyPower Solar, with panels by SunPower.

[Gunpowder]

It seems to provide reasonable value only with grants, tax breaks, whatever else taken into account where offered.

But I think, as brian said, it's coming in a big way as technology improves. You could probably wait if you are only looking into it for financial purposes.

[howard]

We bought from a company called SkyPower Solar, with panels by SunPower.

But…but…'that's a swing and a miss!'

[Rush2112]

Just had our consult with SolarCity last week, panels go up in February (lots of backlog here,) if anyone else thinks of getting in on Solar City, exchange info as the referral gets 250$ and if it's a referral chance each "link" 100$.

Free money!

[phxgators]

We had a really good experience with Solar City a few years ago. The plan we signed up for was a 20 yr lease, fixed price for the entire term. We saved, after the lease payment, probably $40/month. But since it was a fixed price and electricity prices aren't, we figured we'd end up saving more over time.

We sold our house earlier this year, and we did get some feedback from a couple of people that looked at it that the solar lease was something they weren't interested in. I don't know if it was an education thing or what, but we did have information out about our bills before and after to try to make sure that wasn't an issue. The people that ended up buying our house knew all about Solar City and it wasn't a big deal to them. And Solar City was *great* to work with during the sale to transfer the lease. They really made things easy.

Our new house has solar, but the builder put it in so we didn't have a choice what we got. We have a PPA (Power Purchase Agreement), where we pay the solar company 80% of the going rate for the electricity the panels generate and the electric company the normal rate for the rest. I don't think I like this as much, because we are currently running a surplus of energy generated vs used, so we have to pay the solar company 80% of the rate, but I think the amount we would get back from the electric company is less than that. We haven't been in the house for a full year yet, so maybe it will balance out still.

If we didn't already have solar installed we definitely would have talked to Solar City again, but we may have looked into outright purchasing from someone else. Panel prices have fallen a lot in the last few years, so if you can pay for them (or maybe use a home equity loan or something similar) it may be more advantageous to do that. The pros are you own the system, so you can keep it for more than the length of the lease and it may be easier to sell your house if/when the time comes. Cons are you have to maintain them and you lose any maintenance or guaranteed production amount from a lease.

When we lived in Phoenix, we probably would have looked into the Tesla battery. We had a time of use plan where the price of electricity was pretty high during the afternoons in the summer months. Would have been nice to charge the battery during the cheaper morning and night hours, with either solar or grid electricity, and use the battery during the afternoon. Since we don't have a time of use plan here, we probably won't worry about it. Of course the first time the power goes out in the winter will probably change my mind.

[The Sybian]

Thanks for the details, PHX. If we do it, we would purchase. The battery is a 9 year lease, $4,000 all due at installation. He said they would have to charge $60,000 to sell the battery, which seems ridiculous. The rep said they cover repairs for purchased panels, and repair any leaks in the roof going forward. Right now, my electric rates are very low, due to a class action suit settlement because they overcharged during Hurricane Sandy. Without having their tech come out and get actual numbers, the sales rep told me the savings wouldn't be much, and not worth it if saving money was my primary goal. Resale value is a big concern. No immediate plans on moving, but it's always in discussion. What happens if you sell, and the buyer doesn't want to assume the lease? Do they let you out of the contract and remove the panels? If the work is done and everything in place, I can't imagine a buyer refusing the lease.

I think the cells and batteries are going to improve and prices will continue to fall, so I think we will wait a few years.

[mister d]

As a pro at looking at houses, I wouldn't do it if you're looking to sell any time soon. Its like a pool; someone might like it, but its not a benefit, just something that's not a problem to some and a problem to others.

[phxgators]

No, they don't let you out of the lease if you move. Either the new buyer takes it over or you continue to pay it. There may have been an option to buy out the lease but I don't remember for certain. In our experience, people not interested in having the lease wouldn't bother putting an offer down in the first place. I would say, though we had a pretty good experience, if you're looking at all to move within, say, 5 years - I wouldn't go the lease route. The comparison to a pool is a good one. If you're more inclined to want something like that in the first place, you won't see it as a barrier to purchase a house.