Let's talk about solar power... (insurance, home, buying)

[Juram]

Originally Posted by HX_Guy

Juram, I think you said your system is 10 kW? That's the same size of system we are looking at, maybe a tad bigger (10.5 kW). Do you have the monthly figures of how much your system produces for the past year? Are the panel facing south or a different direction?

Mostly south, some west facing, total annual production is about 17,800. However the equipment you utilize will certainly impact what your overall production will be. Another lie that some companies like to tell......"all panels are created the same." My neighbor has a slightly bigger system than me but actually produces about 800 kilowatt hours less per year. I would certainly take the time to familiarize yourself with the basics of solar panels and inverters, particularly in this heat-intensive environment which can reduce performance quite a bit.

[HX_Guy]

What brand/models of panels and inverters do you have and which company did you go with for them? Solar City?

With the panel from Solar City (not that I am going with them, will see, but they are the ones that gave me any actual numbers so far) they are guaranteeing 16,753 kWh per year from a 10.0 kW system. We would have 28 panels facing south and 12 panels facing east.

[HX_Guy]

Ok so now I'm just totally geeking out about this **** over hear but check this out, how cool (read: nerdy as hell) is this?!

I made a Google Sketchup model of our house sometimes last year, to scale, of course. I had no idea, but easily found out, that Google Sketchup has a feature where you can see the sun's shadow on any given day and hour throughout the year and it's completely accurate (since you enter your latitude and longitude coordinates into the program).

So freaking awesome!

This is on December 1st at 2:59 pm. Perfect tool for figuring out which parts of the roof get sun and shade and already helping me see that the system setup the Solar City guy would not be the most beneficial with panels on the east side (back of the house) as they would stop getting direct sun after 3pm in December. The best would be to put panels on all south facing sides.

I wonder if solar install companies use this...I should pitch it to them.

[MalteseJane]

Our system is 8.25 Kwh - we have 33 high efficiency panels facing southwest - The guaranteed power for 1st year was 13,242 (we produced more than that). The guaranteed power at 20 years is 12,039.
If they use high efficiency panels, they can use less panels to produce the same power. Our panels are Canadian Solar and we have 2 inverters. Besides cleaning the panels from time to time there is no maintenance. In 2 years we had them cleaned once.

[HX_Guy]

Jane, how much over did you produce the 1st year?

[MalteseJane]

Originally Posted by HX_Guy

Jane, how much over did you produce the 1st year?

This is from NRG Annual Performance Analysis :
Guaranteed Power 13,242
Actual Power Generated 14,136
95% of Guaranteed Power 12,580
Total actual Power exceeding 95% of Guaranteed Power 1,556

This was from 10/26/11 to 10/25/12

The latest we received from NRG (April 18, 2014)

Cumulative Actual Power 29,522 kWh
Cumulative Guaranteed Power 25,096 kWh
Surplus energy 4,426 kWh

The December 19, 2012 credit we received from APS was based on 3,900 kWh
The December 19, 2013 credit we received from APS was based on 3,726 kWh

In December 2012 the amount of the credit was 257 $ and due to the rate change of July 2013, the amount of credit for 2013 was only 107 $

[HX_Guy]

That's a bummer that they reduced the credit amount. Thanks for the info.

Going to have a few companies come out and give me quotes, will update later.

[lewdog_5]

Originally Posted by HX_Guy

That's a bummer that they reduced the credit amount. Thanks for the info.

Going to have a few companies come out and give me quotes, will update later.

So there is a down payment upfront even with the leasing option? Sorry if I missed where you mentioned this. This thread is moving fast.

[HX_Guy]

I think it depends on the terms, you can do a $0 down lease or you can put some money upfront so the monthly lease payment is lower.

[Juram]

Originally Posted by lewdog_5

So there is a down payment upfront even with the leasing option? Sorry if I missed where you mentioned this. This thread is moving fast.

What I did was make a single lump payment about 2 months after my installation had been completed. When I calculated what my costs would be paying the monthly option for 20 years, I decided that prepaid was the more financially viable choice, although mind you this is back when leasing made sense financially.