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I Bought a House with Solar Panels

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Re: I Bought a House with Solar Panels

#181

Post by labster »

vkou wrote: post #175
skybrian wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even without explicit subsidies, it seems like rooftop solar is still getting hidden subsidies? If homeowners were paid wholesale rates for the power they provide, with prices based on the spot market, would any of it make sense financially?

No, it wouldn't. For the same reason that me operating a coal power plant in my backyard wouldn't provide me with cheaper electricity then just buying from the grid. A centralized utility, even a poorly run one, will always provide electricity safer, cheaper, and more consistently then thousands of tiny private installations.

Counter example: PG&E. More expensive than smaller, greener alternatives. And 85 people killed just last year alone is the safety record.

Re: I Bought a House with Solar Panels

#182

Post by socrates1998 »

While this company is doing some pretty shady shit, it's actually not worse than what traditional electric companies do.

Talk about corruption and dishonest practices.

In Florida, FPL, the electric provider for half of Florida, complained for about a decade (from 2004-2014) on how how they needed to keep raising rates so that they could continue to "upgrade the infrastructure" so that they could be prepared for the hurricanes that inevitably would hit the coast.

Some estimates that FPL made a few extra billion dollars on the price increases that went beyond normal inflation.

What do you think happened when south Florida got hit with the next major hurricane in 2014? Yup. same outages that we saw in 2004.

And the hurricanes weren't even worse.

10 years and billions of dollars in "upgrades" resulted in the same exact problems.

FPL took our money and didn't do anything with it.

AND they have been vehemently against people owning solar panels, even going as far as blocking legislation that would allow people to install them on their own homes without special permission from "FPL approved" companies.

And you can guess how many "approved" companies they would actually approve.

I have yet to see any major utility company operate with any decency, so while this solar panel company is doing some shady shit with their salespeople and leasing terms, it at least didn't scam millions of people for billions of dollars like FPL.

Florida should have the cleanest electricity in the world. Sunshine almost every day, but we don't have it because:

A) We don't price in the environmental impact of non-solar producing coal and natural gas plants, thus keeping solar "more expensive" than fossil fuel electricity.

B) FPL actively blocks the widespread adoption of solar panels on people's homes.

C) Politicians are happy to take money from FPL and other interest groups that don't want to adopt solar.

Re: I Bought a House with Solar Panels

#183

Post by aidenn0 »

michaelt wrote: post #75
zeroonetwothree wrote: post #22

I bought a house in CA a few years ago and had to assume the previous owner’s SunRun lease. I didn’t really want to but even if it ends up costing me slightly more in the long term (for now it’s unclear) it’s very minor in the land of $1.5 million housing. This article seems to be making a huge deal over a minor $30/month cost.

The article says the payments to buy out the contract totalled $27,300. I wish I had the kind of income that made me call that a 'minor cost' !

That's about a third of what the realtors get on a $1.5M sale.

Re: I Bought a House with Solar Panels

#184

Post by merpnderp »

diafygi wrote: post #171
merpnderp wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious how solar could have put a dent in overall power production needs as peek energy usage comes around 6-8pm when solar panels are producing almost no power. And since utilities need to plan their production around peak usage far more than around overall usage, has solar really done that much to lower utility production requirements?

Yes, there is just that much solar being installed. The grid demand curve used to look like a bell curve (peaks mid-day, goes down in the evening). Nowadays, in California there's so much solar that it basically decapitates the curve half way down. Here's today's CAISO demand curve: http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/default.aspx The industry term for this is called the "Duck Curve", where you install so much s…

I know it breaks HN protocol to leave a comment just saying thanks, but thanks. Those were very interesting/educational links.

Re: I Bought a House with Solar Panels

#185

Post by watmough »

imgabe wrote: post #13

When you get down into the meat of how the tax credits and Sunrun's financing work it's astonishing. Essentially it sounds like Sunrun's investors are paying to install solar panels on your house so they can claim the tax credit to offset their own income. Meanwhile you are paying Sunrun for the electricity generated by the solar panels. There doesn't seem to be much benefit for the homeowner. You're better off buyin…

Yep!

We had something similar show up in my Houston suburb.

I read the gist of it and tossed it in the trash. If I want solar panels, I will pay outright, or borrow as needed to install the system.

Why in the heck should I enter into a contract to park someone else's assets onto my own property, to pay for the privilege, and to risk a massive penalty to get out of the contract, a penalty likely linked to an inflated valuation on aging panels, and on expensive installation carried out by someone with every incentive to maximize the cost.

Hahahahaahahaha! No thanks!

Re: I Bought a House with Solar Panels

#186

Post by grogenaut »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #87
AlphaWeaver wrote: post #5

>One former Bay Area employee sent me a Sunrun training manual he said was current when he resigned in April 2017. It’s called “Power Play 2.0: The Guide to Successfully Sell Sunrun.” (The company confirmed its authenticity.) It instructs salespeople to sow distrust in and disdain for traditional utilities and appeal to customers’ emotions. Over 61 pages, pain is cited at least 31 times and fear at least a dozen. Whe…

It is funny because we get cold called by these folks probably twice a year, and once a rep came up to our house and wanted to tell us about solar, so I gave them a short tour of the 5KW system we installed 15 years ago. The one that has literally paid for itself (about half way through year 11) based on actual generation and power consumption statistics. It would have paid for itself sooner except that PG&E has twic…

Did they try and sell you anyway?

Re: I Bought a House with Solar Panels

#187

Post by vkou »

labster wrote: post #181
vkou wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it wouldn't. For the same reason that me operating a coal power plant in my backyard wouldn't provide me with cheaper electricity then just buying from the grid. A centralized utility, even a poorly run one, will always provide electricity safer, cheaper, and more consistently then thousands of tiny private installations.

Counter example: PG&E. More expensive than smaller, greener alternatives. And 85 people killed just last year alone is the safety record.

PG&E provides ~100 TWh of electricity/per year.

Rooftop solar kills ~1 person per 2 TWh of produced energy. Mostly from people falling off roofs.

If you were to look at the big picture, and not one outlier year - and look at the entire past decade, PG&E will probably have a better safety record.

Also, if you want to do fair accounting, you can't solely blame PG&E for California wildfires. The entire state is a powder keg - and they just happened to be the last people who touched it. It would have burned sooner, or later.

If your horse bolts from a barn, because there is no barndoor, do you blame the last person who went into the barn? Sure. Are they the sole point of blame? No. Especially if your barn has a history of horses bolting from it.

Re: I Bought a House with Solar Panels

#188

Post by duskwuff »

astura wrote: post #179
duskwuff wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Solar panels are the most common instance in which anyone would run into this situation. I'm struggling to think of anything else, actually. Furnaces, air conditioners, water heaters, and water softeners are all often installed on contract.

They are? First I've ever heard of it. I just got a new furnance and some sort of contract wasn't even offered to me as an option.

These contracts aren't available through the same channels that you'd purchase equipment through. They're often offered to low-income homeowners, or sold by (shady, IMO) repair workers.

Many home equipment leases are abusive in nature -- they're deliberately made hard to cancel, with many leasors attaching extortionate "equipment removal" fees to cancellation.

Re: I Bought a House with Solar Panels

#189

Post by analog31 »

someguydave wrote: post #71
throwaway5752 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The implication of caveat emptor is to not to take the word of someone selling you something, period.

Some folks manage to act and speak in the customer's interest and still sell things.

Sure, I just don't take their word. If they point out something that I was genuinely unaware of, and I can verify it, then of course it's in my interest to consider it.

But as a general rule, I hope that I don't have to ask the salesman for any information.

Re: I Bought a House with Solar Panels

#190

Post by phyzome »

georgeecollins wrote: post #148

An important take away from this article is simply the perils of home buying. People usually only do it once or twice in their life (I have done it twice so far) and it's really easy to make a very expensive mistake. Imagine this article with another property problem instead of Sun Run: a mother-in-law unit with a tenant, a disputed property line, a requirement to retrofit the house to make it earthquake proof, illeg…

I think we should probably assume the author goes by she/her, given that she's pregnant by the end of the story and her Twitter bio doesn't give explicit pronouns. :-)
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