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I believe Solar City is partnering with Home Depot. My husband and I were there and it sounded pretty good. Then we had a rep over at the house. Some things didn't sound the same then any more. This lady sent us then more than 20 pages for a proposal/contract to read. I've read each page and started to calculate my own figures. The following was my conclusion, and the emphasis is on "my".... If there is a financial option to buy solar panels and own them, not lease, do so. Solar is great. But I found it weird that your credit is pretty small compared to the electricity that the panels would produce. So again, my conclusion was, that you are renting them YOUR roof, you get a part of the produced solar, but they sell the other part and make their income. THEY also get YOUR rebates that you would usually get when you BUY the panels, and that can be quite a nice amount. There's nothing wrong with it, seeing it from the perspective of a business. Of course they need to exist from some income, too. My recommendation therefore is, that somebody, who absolutely can't afford to buy solar panels themselves, but want a reduction in their electronic bill, this COULD be an option. My calculation looking at my previous monthly bills showed that it wouldn't have been worth it, it would have been pretty much the same with the fees you pay them every month (my bills are low compared to the average). Also a negative side, that they try to sell is, that the value of your home increases. Well, I don't see it that way. If you sell, the buyer must think the same way as you do, in order to buy the whole package and contract from you. If the buyer is willing to take over the contract, it will cost you about $ 200 or so just for the fees (really not sure about the exact amount any more). But honestly, everybody who wants to lease solar can do it at any minute. So I can't see an advantage, but a reason not to buy the house. When panels are owned, then yes, you sell them with the house without a leasing contract, and that's adding to the value. But again, that's my opinion.
I do need to look into what buying a 10 kW system would cost even if financed because $175/month for 20 years is $42,000. Would a system that size cost the same or less if purchased? How long could it be financed for and what would the monthly payments be?
In the meantime, I did a little snooping around and got some info. It so happens that another house in our neighborhood already had solar installed and it happens to be the exact same floorplan! How convenient right? I went to the door but no one answered so I snapped some photos and talked to the neighbor behind them since he happened to be outside doing some yard work.
They have 29 panels on the side of the house (where the Solar City guy estimated we could have 28) and they have no panels on the rear of the house (where the guy estimated we could have an additional 14 panels) so it sounds like his estimates were pretty spot on. Solar City said each panel is .25kw, so we could potentially have a 10.25 kW system.
The neighbor's house actually faces NNW so all his panels are facing west more or less and none are south.
On our house, the whole long side faces south (the 29 panels) and the back faces east (14 panels) so it should be a better setup I would think.
If Solar City goes under, what happens to the system maintenance agreement? Inverters and the grid connect electronics typically have a shorter life than the panels, and need some periodic repair/replacement.
What's the status on APS wanting to collect some extra fees from customers with solar?
Thanks,
hikernut
The status is that APS gets about $ 5 instead of $ 100 from solar owners as a part to support the cost of their grid. That's ok, but their original requisition was simply insane and so were the TV ads with the incompetent statement of the lady that she doesn't want to pay for her neighbor's solar system. How much did they pay her for making her look like a fool?!
I got my first APS bill with us being in the house for a full month. Just an example of our situation. System is 6.8Kw (28 panels) for 2300 sq ft house with 10k play pool, 2 AC Units. We both work away from home 5 days per week.
Solar generated 799 kWh for the 29 day cycle = 386 kWh on peak, 413 kWh off peak.
We used 666 kWh in billing cycle = 43 kWh on peak, 623 kWh off peak
Here's is how the credit works as they keep the generated off/on peak separate.
On-peak electricity used from APS, in kWh 43
Minus on-peak electricity credited for current month, in kWh 386
Minus last month's on-peak kWh credit 604 (we weren't in house this month)
Net on-peak electricity, in kWh -947
Off-peak electricity used from APS, in kWh 623
Minus off-peak electricity credited for current month, in kWh 413
Minus last month's off-peak kWh credit 103 (we weren't in house this month)
Net off-peak electricity, in kWh 107
So we have almost a 1000 kWh on peak credit rolling over to future months and we had to pay for the 107 kWh off peak electricity that our solar/credit did not cover for this month.
With taxes and fees, this bill was $24.35. Lease is $131 per month.
Let me know if that doesn't make sense but I hope it helps see how the credit system works with some real numbers. It should be helpful for us when it gets super hot and the AC kicks on all day during on peak hours to have that much on peak credit.
So they keep the on-peak and off-peak separate? That's kind of crappy, isn't it? What if you don't elect to have a 12-7 plan? Or do they force you into a different "solar" plan if you have solar?
Let's take out what you had as credit from the previous month...so you used 43 kW on-peak and produced 386 kw so you had -343 which would roll into a "credit account", right?
Then off-peak, you used 623 but produced only 413, so you were (or would have been if you didn't have credits) for 210 kWh. Does it say on your bill the rate per kWh off-peak?
Are the panels producing the amount of kW that they promised? Less? More? I was told that if they produce less, they will actually pay you back cash for however much it's underperforming.
For the month of March, they are guaranteeing 1,470 kWh from a 10 kW system...your system is 68% of the size which would mean right about 1,000 kW if it scaled uniformly.
Here is some more to help you with calculation.
APS used to pay 0.05960 for the surplus production you have at the end of the year.
They changed that amount last year, in July 2013. Now they are paying you only 0.02890 for the kwh
Huge difference.
We used to be on a off peak/on peak plan going from 7 pm to Noon. After realizing in December of that huge price change, we went back to a normal on peak usage. Why ? Because of the way APS does the net metering. When you are on a plan they will calculate the total amount of electricity from APS in the month. After that, they calculate how much of that total was off peak and how much was on peak. Next they calculate the electricity credited, first total, then off peak and on peak. Your on peak credit will always be more than your off peak. Some months your off peak credit will not be enough to offset the electricity you are getting from APS. And they don't use your on peak credit to offset off-peak electricity. With the normal on peak plan, the electricity that we get from APS is deducted from the electricity credit.
Now comes the kicker !!
Last year in March we paid for Customer account charge 6.90 $
Metering : 5.39 $
Meter reading : 1.80 $
Billing : 2.03 $
This year in March, with the normal plan, Customer charge was 1.83 $
Metering : 2.61 $
Meter reading : 1.80 $
Billing : 2.03 $
So if you are on a on-peak/off-peak plan, they charge you more for Customer account and Metering.
Check out how much you pay for Delivery Service Charges. Since we have Solar we have not been charged anything for Delivery Service. Before Solar we paid (as an example) 52.42 $ for the month of July 2011. This amount depends on the number of kwh you used. June 2011 was only 26.94 $.
Ok so you do get to choose if you want the 12-7 on-peak/off-peak plan or just a straight up regular plan. It will be a lot easier to calculate the savings/usage with the regular plan as I know what Solar City guarantees for produced power but I have no idea of knowing how much is produced on-peak vs off-peak. But with the regular plan, I should be able to plug in the numbers to our electric bills over the past year and figure out if we had solar, how much the bills would have been vs what they were. Very cool.
Back to the on-peak thing though, you said that you almost never end up using the on-peak and it ends up getting credited while the off-peak production isn't enough. With on-peak being so much more expensive though (4x the cost of off-peak), isn't that ok? Especially if we use a considerable amount of power "on-peak"?
About the surplus at the end of the year, that is a bummer they reduced it to basically half, but I don't see us having any surplus anyway so probably not a big concern.
So they keep the on-peak and off-peak separate? That's kind of crappy, isn't it? What if you don't elect to have a 12-7 plan? Or do they force you into a different "solar" plan if you have solar?
Let's take out what you had as credit from the previous month...so you used 43 kW on-peak and produced 386 kw so you had -343 which would roll into a "credit account", right?
Then off-peak, you used 623 but produced only 413, so you were (or would have been if you didn't have credits) for 210 kWh. Does it say on your bill the rate per kWh off-peak?
Are the panels producing the amount of kW that they promised? Less? More? I was told that if they produce less, they will actually pay you back cash for however much it's underperforming.
For the month of March, they are guaranteeing 1,470 kWh from a 10 kW system...your system is 68% of the size which would mean right about 1,000 kW if it scaled uniformly.
Yea, they keep them separate as I'm on 12-7 plan. I'm not sure if it's more effective if I go to a regular plan and if the credited hours would all be equal, although kWh as a whole would be more expensive. But if total solar generated covers it, it wouldn't matter.
Interesting but my solar city account says I've generated 1000 kWh in April alone (up to today's date 25th) and my APS bill was from March 26-April 24. So something doesn't add up as it says I'm at 799 kWh from the solar?
We have a totally off-grid house in eastern Washngton. We have been looking into buying a "winter" home in Arizona.
When I saw how expensive electricity is in Arizona I definitely would consider putting solar on our roof down there.......
BUT FIRST.....conservation saves more money than solar.
For example, in our solar house.......
At night.....nothing is drawing electricity. No outside lights, no night lights, etc.
All our clocks run on batteries, all our radio's run on batteries, the TV and stereo have a barrier strip for truly off operation, the microwave has knobs instead of a push button always on operation AND there are NO heating elements running on electricity.
This last point is important. Anytime you run a heating element the electric use goes through the roof........so our stove is propane, our water heater is propane, our furnace is propane, and even our fridge and freezer run on propane!!
If you have access to natural gas or propane switch!!! Get rid of "phantom" loads due to TV's, clock's, radio, etc. Switch your lights to LED's. Turn off you outside lights at night and get them linked to motion detectors.
Doing those few items is cheaper than putting solar panels on the roof!! And you will save more money!!!
Our off-grid house uses 10% of our ALL ELECTRIC house in town. So the savings in electricity would be considerable.
Electricity in our town is only at 2.3 cents a kilo-watt hour.....however, in Arizona electricity is north of 10 cents a kilowatt-hour so the cost savings are considerable down there.
Here is a simple exercise. A watt is a watt. Go look at the watts used by radios, tv's, etc in your house. At noon, under perfect conditions that is how large a solar panel you would need to run that device!! Because people waste so much energy they need large solar arrays to make up for the wasted electricity!! STOP paying for electricity you do NOT need to use....turn it off!
After doing the conservation measures and living with them for a few months......then I would look into solar on the roof.
I agree wholeheartedly that serious conservation goes a long way, however, unless batteries and propane are free it sounds like you are saving on one utility and spending on another, not to mention the procurement expense. Besides, propane used indoors can be dangerous and, in many cases, stinks.
My Electric Bill runs about 50 bucks a month except for July and August when it jumps to about 80 bucks. I definitely don't waste electricity but I also do not want to live in the dark and/or be uncomfortable. I've converted to LED bulbs and researched / purchased "energy efficient" appliances whenever possible.
I have also researched solar panels and in my particular case . . . just not financially practical.
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To HX_guy
