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This might be irrelevant ,
But I built up my own system ,but mine i primarily a better system using solar and wind to supplement and other alternatives as well in the event those are down.
It is not a grid tie system , I use both and my electric bill ,because their is big equipment my system can't run, cost me about $28-$35 a month from edison .
I have people living with me and they make up the difference for what they use not a part of my battery system.
The reason I say battery system is because you can't store AC power , , so those of you that are on grid tie ,you go down when every one else does.
You have to, or it would both endanger your own system trying to cary the world, and endanger workers on the broken lines.
An isolated system can be built a little at a time ,solar panels are not matched in size necessarily ,you can have several different ones all making a contribution,
There are books on RV solar and repair, if you want to get into this method, I think it's great .
Received quotes from a guy that stopped by earlier today. Very impressed with their thoroughness and professionalism and their prices seem pretty good I think, but hopefully I can get some more input on that. He has been the only to actually go up on the roof and do measurements plus used some sort of device to calculate if there will be any shade in the winter months because our south neighbor has a 2 story house. Doing that, he actually figured that there would be some shade on the lower part of the roof and laid out the panels in a different configuration.
He gave me two quotes on bigger systems, one using the same Hanwha panels and the other using LG panels. The LG panels have better specs and I have to assume are better reliability wise, just by the brand recognition? He gave me two quotes on bigger systems, one using the same Hanwha panels and the other using LG panels. The LG panels have better specs and I have to assume are better reliability wise, just by the brand recognition? Both panels have a 25 year warranty, though I thinking theres a much higher chance that LG will still be around 25 years from now
Quote #1: 10.06kW system producing 16,564 kWh per year
42 x Hanwha HXL60P6-PA-0-240TB 240W panels
1 x Fronius USA IG+ A 10.0-240 inverter
$28,576 pre-tax credits ($2.85/watt) - $19,003 after tax credits ($1.90/watt)
Quote #2: 10.92kW system producing 18,121 kWh per year
42 x LG LG260S1C-G3 260W panels
1 x Fronius USA IG+ A 10.0-240 inverter
$32,552.85 pre-tax credits ($2.98/watt) - $21,787.00 after tax credits ($2.00/watt)
Ok so here come the big dogs! I finally got a quote on SunPower panels and inverter, which everyone seems to agree are the best in the industry. They actually quoted me on the largest system yet, 11.2kW, to cover 100% of yearly electricity. I'm waiting to receive the month-by-month production number so I can plug them in and see if it's worth going with a system that big.
11.2kW system producing 21,300 kWh per year
35 x SunPower SPR-320NW-WHT-D 320W panels
1 x SunPower SPR-11401f-i UNI inverter
$43,904 pre-tax credits ($3.92/watt) - $29,732.80 after tax credits ($2.65/watt)
You do get a better "bang for your buck" on these more expensive systems because you get a lot more back tax credit wise. So for example a $44,000 system will end up being $30,000 net, while a $31,000 system would be $21,000 net...so you get $14,000 for $9,000 basically.
One thing I've learned, which I wasn't told of until today, is that these 2.99% financing deals seem to only be available on the higher priced panels (SunPower, SunEdison). The lower priced (Canadian Solar, Hanwha) have a rate of 7.99% so you're getting a lot less for your money, combined with less tax credit, doesn't really seem to make a lot of sense.
One thing I've learned, which I wasn't told of until today, is that these 2.99% financing deals seem to only be available on the higher priced panels (SunPower, SunEdison). The lower priced (Canadian Solar, Hanwha) have a rate of 7.99% so you're getting a lot less for your money, combined with less tax credit, doesn't really seem to make a lot of sense.
Not to get off topic but wouldn't you be better off getting a HELOC? I think the average rate now is 4% and you'll be able to write the interested off every year. Unless the 2.99% is a fixed rate,that would be hard to beat.
Have you gotten a quote from REC Solar/Sunrun? They're the oldest solar company in Arizona.
That isn't true. There's actually quite a few installers that have been out here since the 80's. REC is a California based company that didn't start installing in Arizona until 2009.
I have been looking into doing it myself not for everyone but I have a electronics background and have done lots of electrical work with permits my self. I changed out my own 200amp panel I can't remember the last time I hired anyone with the exception of my pool remodel, but won't ever do that again. Most of these solar guys are charging double the cost of the equipment to install it. If your system cost 20k they charge 40k effectively making almost 100% profit. Under the guise that you will get rebates. The ROI is so long you could be dead by the time it ever pays off. I contacted the city and APS both said I would need plans no problem I found a company that can do that for me if I buy the kit from them. Not going to get into details but I was looking at the kit that has 1 panel and 1 inverter per panel it simple to connect no high current DC on your roof all AC. Plus with several smaller inverters if one blows out it doesn't take the hole system out and cost 10k to replace. Do It Yourself Solar In order to do grid tie you have to jump though some hoops. For example a this system 7500watts Enphase M215 Microinverter Gridtie Solar Power System - 30 Astronergy Solar Panels cost after 30% federal rebate $8400.00 My yearly avg bill is $250 a month so that's 3k a year in electricity my ROI is about 5 years.
My winter APS usage for last month was 1629KHW this system will turn out 1031KWH per month for 5 hours of sun. That's almost a wash for the winter and AZ has more sun then most states so you might get more then that. For $8400.00 plus about $650 for the city permits not bad. It might be possible to farm it out to others the work you can't do maybe you can bend the conduit and do some of the work and work out with a licensed electrician the other work.
Leasing would only work if you really know you will be here for 20 years but lot of fine print in those agreements those guys seem kind of shady.
I can guarantee the next rate case which is 2016 they will try very hard to add a connect fee to grid tie which will be much higher then $5 I think $100 per month. They feel that revenue based on usage is not working such as roads aren't getting enough money to through a per gallon tax. The people in charge at APS now vr who was there 10 years ago come from a very different mind set. They are trying very hard to keep profits up each quarters but revenues have been static due to slow growth no new meters. They like many utility's were blind sided by lease solar systems, and efficiency such as new bulb technology, new AC units have become a thorn in the side for APS. Not sure if you knew the ACC allows APS 9.5% profit one of the highest profit allowance for an electric utility in the nation. That was allowed when the company said their bond rating was one notch above junk back in 2006 or whenever they started to raise rates.
I have been looking into doing it myself not for everyone but I have a electronics background and have done lots of electrical work with permits my self. I changed out my own 200amp panel I can't remember the last time I hired anyone with the exception of my pool remodel, but won't ever do that again. Most of these solar guys are charging double the cost of the equipment to install it. If your system cost 20k they charge 40k effectively making almost 100% profit.
100% profit? So you're assuming that permitting, installation, wiring, racking, providing a warranty, other overhead is included as profit? If this was the case, we'd have a lot more, not fewer of these companies. From talking to a bunch of solar companies its pretty clear that other than for the leasing companies which aren't really looking to sell systems, thus they charge a hefty price for those or various scam outfits looking to make a quick buck, most of these companies are making relatively slim margins, they thrive on volume and not one big sale here and there. With prices down under $3.00 a watt fully installed, its been a basic race to the bottom. My system cost about $4.25 a watt on the overall gross price of a prepaid lease and that was just a couple short years ago, as equipment prices have plummeted and things have become more competitive, system pricing has also gone down. In general the solar margins tend to be comparable of those with electric, HVAC and plumbing contractors.
From my understanding it is and always has been a low margin business, volume is the only way these companies survive, without it, they end up collapsing like the hundred+ installers in Arizona which have gone to the wayside over the past few years. One of the companies I talked to, Perfect Power, basically collapsed because they screwed themselves in counting government grant money before they ever received it. They were one of the biggest and oldest local solar installers out here and things caught up to them pretty quickly.
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The ROI is so long you could be dead by the time it ever pays off.
I spent $12,000 for a 10kw prepaid lease in 2012. For a system that is saving me about $2,500 a year, I'll be reaching my ROI within a couple more years, and that was for the highest end panels I could find on the market.
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I contacted the city and APS both said I would need plans no problem I found a company that can do that for me if I buy the kit from them. Not going to get into details but I was looking at the kit that has 1 panel and 1 inverter per panel it simple to connect no high current DC on your roof all AC. Plus with several smaller inverters if one blows out it doesn't take the hole system out and cost 10k to replace. Do It Yourself Solar In order to do grid tie you have to jump though some hoops. For example a this system 7500watts Enphase M215 Microinverter Gridtie Solar Power System - 30 Astronergy Solar Panels cost after 30% federal rebate $8400.00 My yearly avg bill is $250 a month so that's 3k a year in electricity my ROI is about 5 years.
My first thought is I would be concerned with a possible clipping effect by pairing a 215 watt inverter with a 250 watt panel. It shouldn't be a big deal in the spring and summer but could result in some production losses in the winter, at least something worth looking into.
Looking at that site, once I started calculating the numbers, the deal didn't look as great. Once you add up the extraneous costs of racking, that site seems to charge about $2,100 at minimum, plus monitoring, it already puts you at about $15,700 before shipping charges have been calculated. This doesn't include any permitting or labor costs either. If you can do all the labor yourself, then you're getting a very good deal I imagine but if you have to sub it out to someone, that likely won't be really cheap either, particularly getting up on the roof, mounting all the panels...etc. The guys who installed my system spent about 3 days total going at it all day installing about 32 panels plus 2 inverters. If you have to pay for labor, now you're essentially up around the ballpark that an installer would charge you in the first place but the guy's off of Craigslist won't be providing a warranty of any kind nor will they likely have insurance.
I looked at microinverters briefly, I loved the idea of being able to monitor each panel independently but when looking through some of Enphase's white pages, I didn't like their commentary about temperature extremes and got the feeling that they really aren't suitable for this type of environment with the tremendous heat that we get. I ended up going with 2 central, transformerless inverters that use passive cooling, stuck them on the north side of my home and thus far I haven't had any issues with them. I made sure that they were capable of handling this sort of climate, that was one of my key concerns with the whole setup.
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Leasing would only work if you really know you will be here for 20 years but lot of fine print in those agreements those guys seem kind of shady.
Solar leasing nowadays doesn't really make much sense at all, for the people who got in the door in 2011 and 2012, they got some great bargains and deals.
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I can guarantee the next rate case which is 2016 they will try very hard to add a connect fee to grid tie which will be much higher then $5 I think $100 per month.
I don't see that happening at all. $100 would be absurdly excessive, don't think there is any willpower from the ACC to do so, we also don't know what the composition of that group will look like either. I could see them adding a few bucks to the charge. Like usual APS will ask for some huge increases, it will go to the ACC, they will mull it over, the AARP and other special interest groups will throw a fit and the ACC will give APS a small amount of what they are actually demanding.
If anything, in Arizona we tend to have fairly cheap power for the most part. Compared to living in California and a couple of other places, there's no comparison. With the government punishing coal as an energy source, APS is already primarily hooked up with natural gas and nuclear so I don't envision any huge energy rate spikes in the near future.
I'm sure APS will continue to pursue punitive new policies such as decoupling to discourage solar and energy conservation while talking out of both sides of their mouth's like usual, there's been enough pushback that they've really struggled to get their way much of the time.
That said, anytime APS jacks up their fees, it may not affect current homeowners, but it will effect the guy or gal you sell your home to, and then they have to take on all the new fee's which is an argument against a monthly solar lease in itself. If APS raises their fee's and you had a solar lease that was saving you about $10-15 a month, a few years down the road you might be trying to convince a potential homebuyer to take over a solar lease that they would be UPSIDE down on. That to me would scare me off from doing a monthly lease on its own. Back in 2012, even though a monthly lease didn't interest me all that much, the savings were roughly around $100 a month or so, nowadays it seems pretty laughable.
Update from me on the different between Solar city and APS solar generation numbers. I emailed APS last week and got a call back today. Talk about surprising.
She stated that the different in credited solar (799 kWh) and what the solar city said it is producing (1000 kWh) is that the 201 kWh missing are because that is the total electricity we used during the month while the solar was producing during the day. APS only gets what is sent back to them that wasn't used at the time of solar generated power. So that's good news on my end.
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