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I Bought a House with Solar Panels

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Re: I Bought a House with Solar Panels

#211

Post by reaperducer »

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…

PG&E who, if you can believe their actions, is really concerned that people will just drop off the grid altogether.

It is.

It just looks to the east where nearly all of the largest commercial energy consumers in Nevada have dumped NV Energy and built their own solar farms to save money.

Re: I Bought a House with Solar Panels

#212

Post by munk-a »

dmix wrote: post #197
crankylinuxuser wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And again and again, @AOC is completely correct. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNjckHXBNBI There's no laws federally preventing corporate collusion and corruption regarding federal congress. And I would also make the claim it's also true for states as well. This Sunrun contract they peddle isn't good for anyone, except for their wallet books. Just how many homes will have unattachable liens from this debauchery?

People like AOC love pushing these types of these well-intentioned top-down gov economic engineering policies which claim to help the little guy (or the environment in this case) but ultimately either do the opposite and largely just create inefficient systems, promoting graft and cronyism, and generally making us worse-off than before. Often they work for a short period of time before the entire marketplace figures…

As per the gp

> There's no laws federally preventing corporate collusion and corruption regarding federal congress. And I would also make the claim it's also true for states as well.

This is where the graft and cronyism comes from, and not just for liberal "over-reaching government" policies - graft and cronyism also infect regulations to enforce monopolies by people trying to downscale government protections, and they infect the removal of some regulations that industries consider too onerous but which benefit society at large.

The issue in the US right now is that graft & cronyism are so deeply embedded into the government that we may not legitimately be able to get them out, but I'd urge caution whenever you're tempted to pre-judge people who want to make large changes as doing so for personal gain.

Re: I Bought a House with Solar Panels

#213

Post by MRD85 »

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…

How do you calculate savings at the 11-year mark? If you'd invested the same amount in index funds over an 11 year period you'd see your money double in an approximately 10 year period.

Re: I Bought a House with Solar Panels

#214

Post by ananonymoususer »

I'm closing on a new house tomorrow. The builder has a business arrangement with Sunstreet Solar and they have a ~4KW plant on the roof. While researching the details of the sale, I discovered that Sunstreet owns the panels and has an easement. They get 80% of the generated power and give me 20%. This did not seem like a good deal to me. I negotiated the purchase of the system from Sunstreet as part of the sale, and I got the home builder to reduce the price. This way I can claim the federal tax credit, and I get 100% of the generated power instead of 20%.

Re: I Bought a House with Solar Panels

#215

Post by itronitron »

michaelt wrote: post #53
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…

You're better off buying the system up front if possible When I looked into it in my country, the payback time for a solar system was 10+ years, and estate agents were reportedly estimated they added nothing to the value of the house. Buying is all very well if you're sure to stay in the same place for 10+ years - but if you move in that time, better hope you place a high value on feeling you've helped the environmen…

You don't want it to add value to your house because then you will end up paying higher property taxes on a higher appraised value. The benefit of solar can be stated to a prospective buyer as X dollars less on utility bills each year.

Re: I Bought a House with Solar Panels

#216

Post by yumraj »

rconti wrote: post #207
yumraj wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, very helpful. I do prefer local in general. If you don't mind, would love the name of your sales person..

Craig Rush / craigr@ clean solar dot com He's in Foster City, and was previously an engineer, so I felt he 'gets it'. If you need to get ahold of me, my username here at gmail.

Thanks.. I might take you up on the offer to contact you if I need more info/advise.

Re: I Bought a House with Solar Panels

#217

Post by ChuckMcM »

MRD85 wrote: post #213
ChuckMcM wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

How do you calculate savings at the 11-year mark? If you'd invested the same amount in index funds over an 11 year period you'd see your money double in an approximately 10 year period.

We have kept records of the power we've consumed, the power we've generated, the cost of the system and the cost of repairs/maintenance (one panel and one inverter so far over its lifetime).

For the financial analysis we assumed the money would be committed to paying for power one way or the other, there isn't really an option for putting it aside in the mutual fund so the 'invest' option was off the table. With the use of a current measuring system[1] we also have time of day usage numbers which is an option that helps people who aren't home during the day. In our case there is always someone in the house so the tiered rate metering was the only rate schedule we needed to consider[2].

With this information we can calculate the total money would would have spent just paying for power from PG&E and making no change, to the money we spent on the system install ($20,000) and the subsequent money we paid to PG&E for power and for their meter reading service. A bit more than 11 years after the install the total money spent over the period was less for the solar option. Our current annual electricity spend is about $420 (that is $120 for their meter reading + about $300 in additional KWh of energy above what we generate) vs roughly $3000/year or average $250 a month. Effectively $2600 a year is not being spent. If I were a min-maxer then I'd be putting that money into a mutual fund and it would start compounding and well, then the difference would start to look ridiculous.

[1] "The Energy Detective" -- http://www.theenergydetective.com/

[2] While it is true we could have changed further things about our lifestyle to fit into other rate schedules that avenue wasn't pursued.

Re: I Bought a House with Solar Panels

#218

Post by georgeecollins »

astura wrote: post #178
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…

>The realtor sounds extremely negligent to not correctly inform the buyer about the true situation until after offer is made. Its par for the course - realtors rarely know anything at all about the property they are selling other than what the MLS says (and the MLS is often inaccurate and/or missing information). I was looking at a house and asked if the fireplace was functional and the seller's agent answered with "…

I agree. My point is that people go into it thinking the realtor knows what they are doing. And they probably do in general. But there are a lot of blind spots.

Also, an earlier poster said that inspectors are highly motivated to protect you. I can only offer anecdotes, but my experience was that realtors liked some inspectors more than others. All inspectors probably know they have to tell you about big problems. Some are really thorough about all issues including small ones. Realtors, who want to get the deal done, hate the nitpicky inspectors. But nitpicky is good for negotiating. I am no expert, I am just sharing my impression.

Re: I Bought a House with Solar Panels

#219

Post by ChuckMcM »

grogenaut wrote: post #186
ChuckMcM wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Thankfully no. But they haven't seemed to have deleted my number from their phone number list either.

Re: I Bought a House with Solar Panels

#220

Post by aj7 »

I spent considerable time evaluating solar installation, in of all places, Tucson. The perfect place, right? I viewed it as replacing a fixed income investment. (1) The internal rate of return was 1% (2) It was obvious that any government subsidy was swallowed up by price increases. This was very sobering to a leftist like me. (3) Grid connection and resell are critical, but there is no way to guarantee the terms of this into the future.

After all that, my wife’s intuition was still crucial in nixing the panels.

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