Growing Pains for the Nascent Home Solar Power Sector
A little more than a year ago now, I made the jump to solar.
A representative from one of the new companies in the solar-for-home-use cottage industry came to my door. He walked me through a really novel business model. The catch that got me: I didn’t have to pay a dime for the panels.
My experience has been somewhat positive overall, but it also illustrates many of the growing pains of a sliver of the energy sector that is expanding, in some ways, faster than some of the individual startups can accommodate.
First let me tell you about my deal. With the company I decided to move forward with, I didn’t have to pay for the solar panels, nor do I actually own the solar panels. The company that owns them uses my roof to run their panels, and they sell the energy to me. On its face, this may sound like a bad deal, but at about 75% less than my prior electric bill, it’s like having your own at-home electric utility that sells only to you — and for a great deal.
But in actuality, they don’t sell only to you. The surplus produced by my panels is sent to the electric utility for its use. The electric utility benefits because they’re able to meet their quota (they’re responsible for delivering a percentage of their electricity from renewables), while I benefit because if I use more energy than the panels on my roof produce in a month, I can dip into a bank of credits I’ve earned with the electric utility from energy I’ve generated for them.
It’s not the only business model out there. You can also lease panels, wherein you’re not paying much (if anything) for any electric bill, but you are paying off the cost of the panels over time, usually on a 20- or 30-year plan. Or you can buy them outright, if you’re rich enough (not me). The key is evaluating the options and seeing which pencils out based on your monthly energy usage, your desire to go green and when you might recoup your initial investment.
For us, the “free roof access” route afforded us the most flexibility. If we move, the solar company will talk to the new homeowners and either continue our contract with them, or uninstall the panels at no cost or penalty to us. They’ll do the same if, God forbid, we need a new roof. And, of course, they claim all required maintenance and repair is on their dime too. My wife and I don’t plan on staying in this house forever, so this leaves us with options.
When it goes to plan, the switch to solar is a no-brainer. But like all best-laid plans, not everything went smoothly for me.
Like I mentioned, my first conversation with this solar company was more than a year ago. Pretty quickly after we agreed to move forward, they got a designer out to my home to assess the property, determine how many panels it would take to meet our energy needs and then draw up a plan. Then the city needed to approve. Whodathunk, but the solar company flubbed the paperwork, and had to start the process over a few times. The city apparently then dragged its heels on a few follow-up inspections, so that delayed the process a bit. All in all, it was months before my panels were on and the bureaucratic red tape was cut.
That might seem bad enough, however, the worst was yet to come.
Before the whole array was operational, it needed to sync up with my power utility, Southern California Edison. This “permission to operate” proved to be the biggest hurdle of them all. Between Edison’s delays and the solar company’s lack of focus and attention, it was another eight or nine months before the system was running. Meanwhile, I had plenty of Southern California sun and 48 panels on my roof doing me no good.
This is what I mean when I say it seems like this sector may be growing faster than it can accommodate. As solar becomes more cost effective, there are evermore players in this space muscling for turf — door-to-door, as the case may be — without knowing how to scale effectively.
Over the course of these many months, not knowing when my panels would be hooked up to Edison’s grid (or if they would), I had to become a pretty annoying customer. I connected with several different customer service reps, each of whom had sympathy for my situation but no corrective measures to offer me. Each also promised to personally see my case through to the bitter end — and, of course, I would inevitably wind up working with a different person a few weeks later.
When I felt neglected or forgotten by the company, I’d send pleading tweets or leave comments on their Facebook wall. I became the irate customer making waves on social. I don’t like to see that guy (especially when he’s talking about Chevy), much less be him, but it gets attention. I also found I wasn’t the only one in my “get my panels working” boat, illustrating some pretty glaring growing pains for this solar company.
With the benefit of hindsight, I’m happy I moved forward with solar. My wife drives a Chevy Volt and she’s very efficient with it; maybe 90 or 95 percent of her total driving for the lifetime of the car has been on the electric battery. With our own personal solar array, every part of her driving experience is clean — a car that’s truly running on sunshine.
If you’re considering making the jump to solar, I have three pieces of advice:
1. Be patient. If you can manage your expectations on the timeline, you won’t get as frustrated as I was when things didn’t just click on as I expected them to.
2. Be your own advocate. Know who at the city will be conducting your inspection and assessing your property and introduce yourself to them. Know who at the electric utility will be processing your case and make yourself available to them. And know who at the solar company is the best customer service rep to go to. That way if any cog in the process is jamming up the works, you know who to call. You need to do some of the fighting. The solar company can’t handle all of it.
3. Make sure it’s really worth it. Do the math. Unless you can actually realize significant savings from the deal, the personal hassle you might be faced with probably isn’t worth it. Of course, you’ll also want to do your homework and determine if you want to lease, purchase, or go “rent your roof” model. If it makes sense and you have a good feeling about the people you are dealing with, go for it. Otherwise, stick with the devil you know, and be comfortable with whatever percentage of clean energy you might be getting from your local utility.
All that said, I really do endorse making the jump. Reach out to me if you have any additional questions about my experience.
