I keep seeing these ads for "No Cost" solar panel installation in "qualifying zipcodes". Is any of this real? I realize the government subsidizes renewable energy a fair amount and know certain tax break are real but I'm curious if any of this is legitimate and how it works. I'm in Missouri for what it's worth.
When you buy tires at Costco you get a 50,000 mile warranty IF you have them rotated by Costco every 7,500 miles.
I have expensive BFG K02's so I play the game and sit at the pizza tables and watch the solar sales guy pitch every time. He says three lines with "you know you want to know" being my favorite along with "who's ready?".
Sometimes I mess with him so I ask for his sales details. One to two homes a week he sells - there's money here.......
I suspect the "no cost" is actually no installation cost (or money down)... which of course they roll into the loan you will be taking out, or the lease costs you will be paying.
I am pretty sure even the most extreme rebates etc. don't come near the entire cost of a solar installation. You can do some fancy math with rebates and power buy backs, but I suspect most of the "free" even in that case is after you assume your normal electricity costs (which of course are not zero).
Sometimes you see a topic and you just know that it will be canoe bait for years to come!
I have no personal experience, but I would apply the maxim that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Oh boy. Here we go again.
In reply to Patientzero :
Yes and no. You aren't getting a solar system, it's not "yours." You are allowing a competing utility company to build a power plant on your roof in exchange for a reduced utility rate. They keep all of the rebates and credits. You will still have a utility bill.
Plusses- you get a lower utility rate, and you get to "go green" for nothing out of pocket.
Minuses- it will never equal the return on investment of a bought and paid for system. Since it's their system, you have little say in what and how they install, and installation quality can vary greatly. It can make it difficult to sell the house, as the buyer would have to take over the agreement.
In reply to Boost_Crazy :
You forgot about the part where he may end up with a mortgage on his house which would have to be paid off before he could sell.
Here in Florida, only about half of the homeowners insurance providers will cover your house with
rooftop solar.
We had already decided against it before learning about the insurance angle.
The "no-cost" solar guy who came to my house quoted me $40k, and the "no cost" part was all the money I'd be saving on my electric bill. Whipped out a calculator and I could pay off my solar installation in just 110 short years.
NPR did a series last week on the new IRA and how there are billions of dollars for homeowners to electrify their homes, but even the experts they had on the program all week didn't have a clue how to access it.
It can work. In our case, it's basically long term financing with the array - NOT the house - as the collateral. We got several competing bids for the equipment and installation from established local companies. The key was the loan, which came in at a ridiculously low rate - obviously someone's getting paid somewhere else.
The end result is a lower monthly cost compared to our pre-solar bill with no up-front cost. Not only is it an overall savings, but we're now insulated from any electricity cost changes. I know what my monthly electric bill will be for the next couple of decades. Since I have to pay for electricity anyhow, there's no opportunity cost because I couldn't invest the money elsewhere. I'm paying a loan instead of paying rent, and the loan has an end date.
The savings aren't huge, a few hundred dollars a year. I basically get two months of electricity for free :) That insulation against future rate increases is the biggest financial bonus. A nice bonus is that it's easier to keep my shop cool thanks to the panels shading the roof.
I'm not saying it will work for everyone. I live in a very solar-friendly location, my utility offers excellent grid tie terms and we bought when the interest rates were quite low. But it IS possible.
Moving house does throw some wrinkles into it. I asked a Realtor(TM) friend about the effect on resale. Fully owned panels are a definite positive. Panels like mine - owned but financed - depend on the terms of the financing and if it can be transferred. If yes, they're a positive. The longer I live here (I do not expect to move again), the lower the balance on the loan and the more it moves towards the positive. I could always pull down the array and take them with me if I wanted.
The quote we got 2 years ago was $almost $60k. "No upfront costs" just a loan you a paid and the hope that your electric bill is zero. The savings on electricity would mean we could pay it off in just over 200 years.
EDIT: I forgot a step.... 300 months, not including interest, or 25 years. Our electric bill now is about $200/month average and we are still finding ways to cut that down.
In reply to bobzilla :
If the quote you got was 60k, and it takes 200 years to pay off, is your power bill savings really only 25$ a month?
The sun doesn't shine the same amount everywhere:
The lower the sun intensity, and the fewer hours of intense sunlight that you have, the larger your system has to be. More panels equals more cost and longer payoff times. If you're in the northern half of the country, particularly East of the Rockies it can be an uphill battle for financial justification.
Google has a quick estimator to see how viable rooftop solar might be for your address.
In reply to lnlogauge :
Interest
Friend installed solar in his second home, thinking it would make the home more sellable when the time came. Well, the time came really quickly and now he has to pay off almost $50k worth of solar panels out of the proceeds from the sale of the house. Ouch.
I've looked into it and at least here in the Metro Denver area, you'd need to spend at least 15 years in your house to get on top of the cost. This is if you buy the panels. Same friend as the above example has the panels on his house down here, he didn't buy them and just pays the solar company for electricity, at a fixed rate of 12 cents per KW, which is quite a bit less than the going rate from the electric company. So from that stand point it's hard to argue that it wasn't a good deal for him.
In reply to docwyte :
Did your friend see a higher selling cost for the house with $50k of panels on it compared to having no panels at all? Since he paid off the loan, they were essentially owned panels from the buyer's point of view.
It's definitely more of a long term investment than a flipper style makeover.
In reply to SV reX :
There are lots of ways to get solar on your roof. The one I described is the only one that I consider no cost, as the homeowner is not paying for the system itself. They are leasing their roof space in return for a lower utility bill. All of the other methods, like the lease to own and payment plan methods others described are not no cost- you are paying for them, just not up front. But as I mentioned, it can get in the way of selling your home. Usually, the new buyer would have to agree to take over the arrangement, or you may have to pay to have it removed, or some other methods of the "utility" that owns the system getting their money- the homeowner needs to read the fine print before signing. With the lease to own programs, many do require they are paid off when selling the home. But in my opinion, electric rates in the OP's state appear to be too low to really warrant solar, unless they have a tiered system where the base rate jumps with usage. If there is enough of electric bill to warrant solar, a paid for system offers the best return of the bunch. The one I described, where the installer becomes your utility and you still have a monthly bill, only makes sense if you have zero ability to buy solar yourself and plan on staying in the home long enough to satisfy any early termination requirements in the contract. Someone living on a fixed income in a high cost area for example.
In reply to Boost_Crazy :
Yes, but they are all sold as "free" or "no cost".
I notice that I didn't clarify in my previous post that people were getting their homeowners insurance canceled or not renewed because they had installed solar panels on their homes. Getting coverage in Florida is difficult to begin with, so their rates went up.
Another reason we decided against it was that we didn't want someone drilling into our new roof, and having to depend on them to seal it. Also we don't know if the roof would be as wind resistant.
Keith Tanner said:It can work. In our case, it's basically long term financing with the array - NOT the house - as the collateral. We got several competing bids for the equipment and installation from established local companies. The key was the loan, which came in at a ridiculously low rate - obviously someone's getting paid somewhere else.
The end result is a lower monthly cost compared to our pre-solar bill with no up-front cost. Not only is it an overall savings, but we're now insulated from any electricity cost changes. I know what my monthly electric bill will be for the next couple of decades. Since I have to pay for electricity anyhow, there's no opportunity cost because I couldn't invest the money elsewhere. I'm paying a loan instead of paying rent, and the loan has an end date.
The savings aren't huge, a few hundred dollars a year. I basically get two months of electricity for free :) That insulation against future rate increases is the biggest financial bonus. A nice bonus is that it's easier to keep my shop cool thanks to the panels shading the roof.
I'm not saying it will work for everyone. I live in a very solar-friendly location, my utility offers excellent grid tie terms and we bought when the interest rates were quite low. But it IS possible.
Moving house does throw some wrinkles into it. I asked a Realtor(TM) friend about the effect on resale. Fully owned panels are a definite positive. Panels like mine - owned but financed - depend on the terms of the financing and if it can be transferred. If yes, they're a positive. The longer I live here (I do not expect to move again), the lower the balance on the loan and the more it moves towards the positive. I could always pull down the array and take them with me if I wanted.
That's exactly it. It can be " free" in that under certain circumstances you don't put out cash when they go up. But as others point out you have to get competitive bids and then work the various companies against each other. Check on financing too. Some neighbors added it as part of their new house, calculating the added payment was about the cost of electricity. Others have a home equity loan. Again trading the electricity payment for the panel payment.
They way they come out is the panels are guaranteed for 30 years and depending on where you are and your electric costs they are paid off in 7-10 years. Essentially getting 20 ? Years of free electricity.
You also need a roof that is suitable. Shade from Trees or other buildings is a no-no. They can't ( or won't) work on Tile or Metal roofs. Plus in my case I have dormers cutting up a lot of my roof. Leaving me with too little space to put up the required number of panels to reach payback in my projected life span.
Plus some areas of the country it just doesn't make sense. Too few sunny days. Roof not oriented facing the sun. Others have said this as well, it's not something to put up if you expect or even think you will move .
Second, don't shop just price find the details about the panels themselves. Details like conversion rate. Older panels used to convert 18% of sunlit. into electricity. Newer ones are 22%+.
Panels are now expected to last 30 years. In the past 20 years was pushing it. All panels are rated as to loss of conversion over time. The panels intended for really hot climates deteriorate the most but stand up to the heat without failure.
The actual price of panels is dropping almost as fast as labor charges ( and profit) are going up.
Selling your surplus electricity back to the utility company used to be the only way to do it. Recently the utilities use that as additional profit. Now, they have batteries at affordable prices so under certain circumstances your excess generated during the day can be used at night. But the added costs increase the payback time. It's still a better deal than giving away your excess for almost nothing.
Personally I would wait for the sodium batteries over the Lithium. Lithium is needed for energy density in an EV but the added bulk of sodium isn't a problem in a home. The extra 20-30% size is still smaller Than a big hot water heater.
Here I'm going to offend some Tesla People. Tesla has its own solar panel company. Hearsay has their panels are much more problematic than others. Nothing wrong with their power walls though. They've really simplified those so they are supposed to only take 3 hours to install and connect. As you r heard Ford has bi directional charging on the F150 lightening. According to several sources the Tesla Cyber truck is supposed to also have bi directional charging.
Currently there are 2 companies that can convert any EV into bidirectional charging. In effect that could be your battery wall.
Those in my neighborhood with sun panels. Calculate payback in 7-10 years. ( that's assuming a conservative 1% annual increase in the cost of electricity). You need to do the calculations yourself.
My Daughter who lives in southern Florida tells me her neighbors can get $6-800 monthly electric bills. Her 26 solar panels leave her with a $65/85 a summer month electric bill. But nothing back in the winter when her use drops.
It really seems location specific.
In reply to STM317 :
This is some good information - I see it as a bad investment for me. Really it's like buying US Savings bonds - a low return investment?
In reply to frenchyd :
Not completely true about metal roofs. We install them on commercial metal roofs all the time. Depends on the type of metal roofing. Solar can be installed on standing seam roofs easier than any other type of roofing with ZERO roof penetrations. They are installed with clips that clamp to the standing seam roof.
In reply to SV reX :
Thank for that information . I wasn't aware of that potential. The bids I got specifically said no metal roofs.
Datsun310Guy said:In reply to STM317 :
This is some good information - I see it as a bad investment for me. Really it's like buying US Savings bonds - a low return investment?
No it's not like buying a savings bond at all. Those you pay additional money for. Panel payments replace the electric bill.
Yes it's not a good fit if you plan on moving in the future. Or in less than your payback.
While some paid cash, most paid for the panels as they went with the money they would have paid the electric utility. So no real cash out of pocket.
No, it's not an investment. It's a pay for the panels instead of the electricity situation. Once the panels are paid off then for the rest of the panels 30 year life you get free electricity.
In combination with an EV you could get nearly free transportation. My nearest neighbor with an EV used to spend $280 a month for gas for his Jeep. Since most of his charging is at home that bill too is now gone.
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