Reputable Solar companies and what I need to know

[jsteach]

I'm having 10k solar system is stalled in the next few months. LG 28 panels of the 375 watts. w LG375A1C-V5. https://www.lg.com/us/business/solar-panels/lg-lg375a1c-v5# Waiting for approvals from city. With having spent around a 100 hours looking for the best products and the best warranty. I want to have it all. The best three panels are sunpower. Lg. Panasonic. Best warranty, quite a few with 25 years. Who has been is business the longest ? Who has the biggest bank roll. Sunpower 35 years. Panasonic over 100 years, But Panasonic is getting out of the solar business. Lg 60 years. Lg panels have the second highest output after sunpower. Only buy a few .10 of percentage. But there 25 year guarantee output is the best. For me Lg covers most of it. The best part in there Neon ace panels have built in Micro inverters and all cover by there 25 year waranty. I did a little research a found out that LG bail out enphase in 2017 and enphase help them with the micro inverter that they are using. For me it hit all the boxes. Huge profitable company , been in business 60 years, Built in micro inverter and all guarantee for 25 years.
Finding a solar company was a little harder. I found and received 17 estimates on the lg
panels I wanted. The larger well establish Solar companies wanted $38,000 for the install less rebates, 10 year or longer in Bussiness. . The mid size companies 28- 30 thousand less rebates Most have been in 5 years or less. I'm taking a gamble with a 5 year company with great reviews on yelp, google and Engerysage. There warranty is 25 years for install and roof leaks where they(installed) worked. I get it !!! I know!! Its only good unless they stay in business. Worth the 10k gamble !! Hope this will help!!

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[CHeil402]

I ended up using Tesla personally. After that derecho that moved through our area last summer that knocked out our neighborhood in some places for a week I started looking at getting a whole home generator. To get an appropriately sized one that ran on propane was between $5-10k. Then I read an article that Tesla had recently dropped their prices and guaranteed to match any competitor.

What I really liked about their approach was that it was totally transparent. I put in my address and existing yearly average electric bill and they made a suggested size. You can tweak the solar and battery backup sizing and see the pricing change on exactly what you're going to pay. I ended up going with a 12.24 kW system and 2 Powerwalls (27 kWh backup). That was estimated to meet about 120% of our annual usage.

The process was pretty simple all-in-all. I signed up in June with the $100 deposit. They sent a panel layout on my roof about a week later including the intended inverter and panels. They took care of all the permitting with the township and utility company which took about 3 months from deposit to install.

When I got the system design, I realized that the gateway they use has three internal double pole breaker spots which would have been totally filled up between my inverter and two Powerwalls. I knew that they were going to install this in my garage and that I was going to get an MME and that wouldn't leave me with any spares. I called the install team and asked for them to install a sub-panel in my garage instead of using the gateway's slots and couched it as "in case I want to add more Powerwalls in the future". They said no problem and changed my design and didn't add anything to the install cost to add more hardware and labor. They even set up the gateway slots as non-backed up spots with a 100 A breaker, also at no additional charge.

On install day, they showed up with 7 trucks/cars worth of people and had it all in place in one day by about 3 pm. It was super efficient. One team working on the inverters and ancillary electrical work and one team working on the panels.

I certainly would recommend them based on my experience for the communication, 100% remote design, ease of not needing to worry about anything, and 100% price transparency.

Some things to be aware of regardless of whichever solar company you use. Without a backup (like the Powerwalls) you will not have power in the event of a utility outage. The solar inverters sync with a grid source. When the power goes out, the Powerwalls automatically make a "micro-grid" for the inverters to follow.

Also, as mentioned before, go for the micro-inverters so that if there is an issue with any of your panels, it doesn't affect the rest of the string.

Lastly, check with your utility about their net metering and time of use policies. PECO had full net metering, so if I produce more than I use, I bank the kWh and can use it for future months (like in the winter) where I use more than I generate and I only pay (or get paid for) the annual difference. Although if you net generating more than you used in a year, they only pay you the generation rate which is less than the actual purchase rate. I also picked the batteries to allow for "time-shifting" of the power if PECO started charging time of use in the future (they don't now). That way I could use the battery power when the power is most expensive (and Tesla allows you to set all that scheduling up).

I personally also love the app and data that it tracks and offers. I certainly look at it every day, but that's just me. I'm sure most people would be fine with "set and forget".

I've only had the system running since September, but haven't had any issues and have been carefully tracking my usage to see what the pay-off period is. I'd be happy to answer any questions (or offer you my referral link to save $100 if you message me, but I don't want it to sound like I'm only recommending them for that).

For reference, here's my solar production and home usage graphs with a running average.

Also, FWIW, my system composed of 36 panels at 340 W / 19% efficiency. Here's my cost data before tax credits...

Solar Portion: $23,500 ($1.92 / W before tax credit, $1.42 / W after 26% credit)
2 Powerwalls: $14,500
Total: $38,000

 

[buffasnow]

Also, FWIW, my system composed of 36 panels at 340 W / 19% efficiency. Here's my cost data before tax credits...

Solar Portion: $23,500 ($1.92 / W before tax credit, $1.42 / W after 26% credit)
2 Powerwalls: $14,500
Total: $38,000

Isn't there an extra $500 in the Powerwall section somewhere?

 

[CHeil402]

Isn't there an extra $500 in the Powerwall section somewhere?

It's in the Powerwall installation line item... which for some reason has a big space between it and the gateway line item.

 

[buffasnow]

It's in the Powerwall installation line item... which for some reason has a big space between it and the gateway line item.

Ahhh, got it. My little brain did not put those together. ?

 

[Doogles]

Installed panels recently. Long wondered this question. I looked at reviews of the best companies - https://solwiser.com/best-solar-companies/ and chose SunPower. A big part of the quality is the panels and inverter, so this recommendation ticks this box. Additionally, since the labor is 90% roofing related and 10% electrical, the "clean" install is a winner. They had I purchased the best warranty. Also got a great deal. Highly recommend.

 

[TRP]

Just stumbled upon this thread..........

We are currently getting estimates for an install here in TN. We are in a very wooded area and will have to do a ground mount about 160-200 feet from the house to get into full sun (out in the horse pasture). So, we are also looking into a lean to structure to roof mount on to keep curious horses from breaking anything. That structure will definitely add to the cost, I don't know how much at this time tho. Depends on if we build it or have it built.

Anyway, found a company in Knoxville, Solaralliance.com, that came out and surveyed our site and sent us a quote.

$30,700 for 7.5kw (22 panels) Q. Peak Duo Blk-G6+ panels (good/bad ?‍) 25yr warranty. 9kWh Generac battery backup - expandable within same cabinet. Comes with 3 batteries and cab can hold 6.

It includes, inverter, trenching in cable from pasture, racking. Full monitoring capability. Our local utility does not offer much in the way of buying back excess production. A cutoff switch will be installed to isolate us from the grid in an outage.

I looked at Tesla, but with our unique situation mounting the array remotely from the house, I wanted someone that could come out and give us options.

Based on their estimated production numbers for our location this would cover a little more than half of our usage based on last years bills.

We thought that was a reasonable quote considering the uniqueness of our situation. We are not planning to do any of this until after the new year for tax reasons.

 

[Scooby24]

Yall...DIY it. 13.86kw system (42 330w panels) through Solar Wholesale. 21k before tax credit, 15k after. That's a whooooole lot of money saved for about 3 weeks of work (in my spare time)

 

[ZuleMME]

Yall...DIY it. 13.86kw system (42 330w panels) through Solar Wholesale. 21k before tax credit, 15k after. That's a whooooole lot of money saved for about 3 weeks of work (in my spare time)

I'd sure love to do that, have lots of reading to do before I could even attempt such a thing. But love the DIY perspective and it really shows you the actual service cost vs hardware costs. I imagine you have multiple arrays there so that you can cut the feed from the ones in the shade? Or somehow eliminate them killing your productions on the others?

 

[Scooby24]

I'd sure love to do that, have lots of reading to do before I could even attempt such a thing. But love the DIY perspective and it really shows you the actual service cost vs hardware costs. I imagine you have multiple arrays there so that you can cut the feed from the ones in the shade? Or somehow eliminate them killing your productions on the others?

Yeah there are 4 strings in total (1 east, 1 west, 2 south) but each of those is tied to microinverters so each panel will produce independently so shade isn't an issue.

FWIW I found these guys based on JerryRigEverything's youtube channel. Evidently they are a major wholesaler to the other installers. The panels are Next Energy Alliance, Microinverters are AP Systems.

 

[TRP]

Not sure my skill level is up to a DIY system at this point.

 

[Scooby24]

Not sure my skill level is up to a DIY system at this point.

It's intimidating to be for sure, but if you check out the steps actually involved, it's really not that bad. They come up with the design for you, give very good instructions for where to put everything, include EVERYTHING you need minus tools (fairly basic) and from there it's just a matter of putting in the time to do it, understanding that it's not a weekend project. I found I could only spend about 4 hours at a time on the roof...you have to force yourself to take breaks or stop sooner than you normally would on a project because it could cost you.

Youtube it and they give you great instructions. Everyone I've mentioned this to is shocked I was doing it myself when the reality is that the install consists of putting down some mounts, rails, microinverters, plug and play panels (just requires people to help lay them) and real simple wiring. It's really quite simple....and absolutely worth the savings of 20k+. A ~14kw system installed would have cost me 45-50k....I did it for 15. That's...huge.

 

[AZBill]

Every time I get a solar quote the payback period is 15-20 years. It will cost me $75K-$100K to replace the utility company, but currently I pay $440 per month. I can do much better in the stock market.

I am able to do 90% of my electric off-peak and average just over $0.08 per KWH. I live 40 miles from the newest nuke plant in the US, nice and clean.

 

[Jiji]

My situation, all electric house, geothermal heat pump with two EVs to charge (average annual usage ~2000 KWh per month). Went with a 72 panel ground mount with nearly 25kW output (3 inverters). This covers my use so I just get a $17 monthly bill with spring and summer excess production being used to offset the winter decline (short days, low sun, and soiling).

Total cost after state and federal grants/credits was $27k, I avoid paying 12¢/kWh so payback should be around 10 years, less if you count the avoided gas for the EVs.

I kept my propane backup generator, I need at least 100A continuous to run the heat pump, hot water, stove, etc, I would need at least four Powerwalls which didn’t make sense (plus I didn’t use Tesla Solar but a local and reputable installer.

 

[WWJPD]

I’m in CT and am in the process of getting an 18.5kW system with 50 panels and 19kWH Generac Pwrcell batteries. It was a real chore dealing with all of the crappy companies where it felt like I knew more than them and had to correct them, sort of like dealers and the MME. I ended up going with Green Power Energy, which is based out of New Jersey but has a CT office. So far so good with GPE, but it’s a race between the solar install and my MME delivery-I’m betting solar will be done first.
I have friends that used Tesla and IF you can get it, it’s a good deal. Their install seems very quick, efficient and nicely done. I really wanted whole home battery backup and that would have required a lot of Tesla Powerwalls. Tesla is also a very cookie cutter approach and if you don’t fit their S, M, L options, they bail. Their software is very slick and integrated, like if there is a grid outage, you can set the car to not charge(from the Powerwall.)

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