Solar quote

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Ctwoodtick

Ctwoodtick

Minister of Fire
Jun 5, 2015
2,228
Southeast CT
Will be getting several quotes for solar soon. This was the first one from the company that my neighbor recommended after having them for a year or so:
I live in CT. Was just curious what people thought. They quoted $124 per month (I have yet to hear back from them to see what fees, taxes, etc may bring this total to. The below specs were given to me based on a 20 yr financing. I felt the quote was high, but was curious to see what thoughts/questions you folks with more knowledge about this stuff may have.

Your Solar Service​

19Panels
LONGi Green Energy Technology Co Ltd LR4-60HPH-365M
1Inverter
Delta Electronics E6-TL-US

6.94kW
System Size
1,224 Sun Hours (kWh/kWp)
8,491kWh
Annual Production

102
 
Sorry but I do not recommend having systems financed by a solar company. Too many potential loopholes and gotchas in the transaction. The firms are pros at it and few homeowners that are not lawyers and accountants have the skills are going to even notice their pockets being picked.
 
Agreed. It's a trap best avoided. They'll pad the expenses a lot to amp up the lease payments. My brother fell into this trap and the lease costs ended up being more than the payback for negative ROI.
 
I appreciate the feedback guys. My thought would be to do a loan set up, not lease, as it seems beyond silly to lease. That said, after looking at your feedback, which I trust a lot., I may very likely just put the brakes on solar right now. Not in a spot to purchase outright.
 
A good salesman can talk their way around anything. If leases have a bad rep , they quickly pivot to a PPA or a "loan" but there are usually state. local and utility specific incentives that a consumer may not know about and the solar firms will grab those incentives without the consumer even knowing about them. Many firms install hardware that reports to headquarters under the guise. The saleman work on commission and typically the commission is front loaded into the deal. They generally want to make their bucks up front then sell the installation to another firm. Another big thing is if the homeowner wants to sell the house, the firms usually can hold the homeowner hostage and force them to buy out the overpriced value of the system before they can sell the place under the guise that the buyer is not going to be approved. Buyers are advised to never buy a place with solar that is tied so some sort of attachment to the installer.

If you need to borrow money go to credit union and then get pricing on what it costs to install a system outright. Generally it will be from a local or regional firm, the national firms like Solar City (Tesla) Sunrun and Vivent all are known for takign advantage of buyers

If I have not done so, Solar Power Your Home for Dummies is a good basic way of getting up to speed on the technology. Sadly I do not know of good reference on how to avoid getting ripped off by solar company. There are plenty of good firms out there but they dont have to advertise and usually work by word of mouth and have a backlog.
 
Ctwoodtick said:
I appreciate the feedback guys. My thought would be to do a loan set up, not lease, as it seems beyond silly to lease. That said, after looking at your feedback, which I trust a lot., I may very likely just put the brakes on solar right now. Not in a spot to purchase outright.
Click to expand...
A loan can work. Our local credit union is very supportive of solar and has good rates for them if the ROI pencils in well. Stick with more locally based installers. Visit the bank or credit union and ask who they have found the best to work with.
 
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I second begreen's remark: I had a loan thru the local credit union. 0% interest in the first two years (when people could take the tax credit), and too high a rate after that - but I paid it off in 2 years (i.e. be diligent in not putting the tax credit towards the loan, and pay every month to it while it's still free). So I paid 0% interest on the loan. There were other outlets that had constant very low interest rates, which is generally cheaper if you don't pay it off in the interest free initial period.

Buying, and it's ok to finance imo, as long as you are committed to paying it off within a few years.
 
My guess is there will be an initial rush for solar in 2023 with the 30% federal credit returning. I also see a big run up in prices of components and labor. The US is putting a lot of money in getting production back to the US and the tariffs on foreign panels is only delayed not canceled. My guess is firms will staff up with the steady installation work and its going to take a while, like a couple of years, for the new production to get in the pipeline. So, it may be good to start saving now and holding off. Unfortunately power bills will be super high this winter until Europe straightens out.

The one big caveat is political impact, Mid terms are coming up and if congress swings conservative, there could be attempts to claw back incentives to consumers and manufactures under the guise f tax reduction. There is large oil and gas industry lobby that desperately wants to keep the US and the world from getting off fossil and they have been successful on a state wide level in several states by diluting net metering rules. It generaly doesnt prevent solar, it just substantially delays the payback.
 
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I used Aegis Solar here in Branford and I highly recommend them. My system has been running flawlessly for the last 6 years.

They are CT's oldest solar company having been in business since the early 90's. Most of their early work was installing Solar and battery systems out on the Thimble Islands that had no electricity from the mainland. You also keep your money in CT as its a local CT business.


I second the recommendation of using a home equity loan from a credit union. That is what I used 6 years ago and the loan was paid off and my panels reached their roi in 5 years.
 
Mine was not a home equity loan; the origination fees are larger, though the interest rate might be lower.

I had a loan specifically geared to solar without collateral.

It's good to carefully check what the cost of difference options is, in particular taking into account how quickly you can pay it off in view of the often non-constant interest rate for loans other than home equity ones. (Again, mine had two years of zero interest, after which it went up a ton. I was able to pay it off in those two years.)
 
My electric company also provides solar financing.
 
peakbagger said:
A good salesman can talk their way around anything. If leases have a bad rep , they quickly pivot to a PPA or a "loan" but there are usually state. local and utility specific incentives that a consumer may not know about and the solar firms will grab those incentives without the consumer even knowing about them. Many firms install hardware that reports to headquarters under the guise. The saleman work on commission and typically the commission is front loaded into the deal. They generally want to make their bucks up front then sell the installation to another firm. Another big thing is if the homeowner wants to sell the house, the firms usually can hold the homeowner hostage and force them to buy out the overpriced value of the system before they can sell the place under the guise that the buyer is not going to be approved. Buyers are advised to never buy a place with solar that is tied so some sort of attachment to the installer.

If you need to borrow money go to credit union and then get pricing on what it costs to install a system outright. Generally it will be from a local or regional firm, the national firms like Solar City (Tesla) Sunrun and Vivent all are known for takign advantage of buyers

If I have not done so, Solar Power Your Home for Dummies is a good basic way of getting up to speed on the technology. Sadly I do not know of good reference on how to avoid getting ripped off by solar company. There are plenty of good firms out there but they dont have to advertise and usually work by word of mouth and have a backlog.
Click to expand...

A lot of excellent advice here from @peakbagger

Avoid leases, PPAs, and be wary of loans offered by installers with very low or 0% interest loans. These loans often have a large dealer fee added on that can be as high as 25% of the project cost, and the companies have disclosure rules that basically make it so the salesperson cannot tell you about the dealer fee. The old saying that there is no such thing as a free lunch holds true here.

As others have mentioned, check out local or regional installers that don't offer any of the afformentioned financing schemes. Talk to a local credit union as a few of them have developed their own solar loans or can offer a home equity loan for solar. There is also the Clean Energy Credit Union based in Colorado that offers loans for all kinds of energy efficiency and clean energy projects including solar PV and solar hot water.

Clean Energy Federal Credit Union - Home

Clean Energy Credit Union is a unique new financial institution helping to finance the clean energy movement. See what makes us different.
www.cleanenergycu.org www.cleanenergycu.org
 
In any circumstance, I'd advise to be wary of entities selling someone AND offering to provide financing for the same.
 
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