Get FREE SOLAR PANELS and lower electric bill!!!

[my-thyme]

Well, I just put on a new roof, so figured now was a good time to look further into these panels.

The 'guarantee', but they might not be around, concerns me.

And I'm on board with the environmental aspect, but it's not the major concern for me. Show me the money!

 

[getbent]

Has anyone used Solar City? Hubby says a friend of his has them. He hasn't paid one dime for them and someone that guys knows, same thing. Something to do with Solar City gets paid some kind of grant money for people getting them. I don't know much about it. If sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

 

[edinsomd]

And one of these scams is set up, doing business in the Navy Exchange.

 

[PeoplesElbow]

Has anyone used Solar City? Hubby says a friend of his has them. He hasn't paid one dime for them and someone that guys knows, same thing. Something to do with Solar City gets paid some kind of grant money for people getting them. I don't know much about it. If sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

They get the money for the electricity you generate for 30 years or something like that is how they can give them away.

 

[Baja28]

People need to be careful. First of all, nothing is free. Second, who is liable for your roof? What happens a year later when your roof leaks and they say it's on you? What happens 2 years later when they are out of business? What happens if it's not what you thought and want them removed? You sell your house? Who maintains them? Who maintains the interior equipment?

As someone suggested, have a lawyer read the contract. I have not seen any glowing recommendations on solar panels anywhere except from those selling them. Solar energy is not a good investment yet and may never be.

 

[PeoplesElbow]

How prophetic I just got a call from some dumbass that said they have been checking out my house on Google Earth and see I get enough sun to benefit from solar panels.

You can't see my house from Google Earth due to the trees.

 

[GWguy]

People need to be careful. First of all, nothing is free. Second, who is liable for your roof? What happens a year later when your roof leaks and they say it's on you? What happens 2 years later when they are out of business? What happens if it's not what you thought and want them removed? You sell your house? Transferable to the new owner Who maintains them? The installer company, under contract Who maintains the interior equipment? There is none, just exterior mounted control boxes tied in to your breaker panel.

That was the primary reason I did not want solar panels. I just had a new roof put on, and this install would void the 30 year warranty. A big concern of mine was, after your contract period is up, how to dispose of the panels if they fail.

However, my neighbor had it done by Solar City and he is thrilled with it. They put all the hardware in place and charge you nothing for it, in exchange for the revenue created by your KWH generation. Your benefit is a reduced cost per KWH. He is seeing some significant cost reductions on his SMECO bill.

 

[GWguy]

There was another reason I didn't want them, now that I think about it. Because of restrictions on back-feed to the grid, you can't have battery backup, you can't use the panels if the grid power goes out. Which makes no sense to me, there are automatic transfer switches for gennys, why not for solar powered batteries?

 

[getbent]

People need to be careful. First of all, nothing is free. Second, who is liable for your roof? What happens a year later when your roof leaks and they say it's on you? What happens 2 years later when they are out of business? What happens if it's not what you thought and want them removed? You sell your house? Who maintains them? Who maintains the interior equipment?

As someone suggested, have a lawyer read the contract. I have not seen any glowing recommendations on solar panels anywhere except from those selling them. Solar energy is not a good investment yet and may never be.

I agree. I looked at their website and the BBB, seems most people are leasing them for 20 yrs. I would guess you could hope the lease payment was cheaper than your current electric bill and you generate enough khw to not have to pay for electricity. That's a lot of hoping. I'd be worried about the roof too. They could say they guarantee it for 20 yrs but who's to say there's not some loophole and they'll find a reason not to be responsible if something happened. 12 pages of complaints about trying to pass the buck for issues like this in BBB website.

 

[Goldenhawk]

I suspect folks who think these panels are "free" are the same folks who think their cell phone is "free". Nope; both are subsidized. In the case of the panels, if you bother to read the fine print for even a moment, you'll see it's essentially a lease.

You CAN, however, make arrangements with SolarCity to buy the installation outright. You just have to ask. And you need about $30k to do it. One of my friends bought an installation a couple years ago, with all the appropriate electrical tie-ins; he dropped his electric bill to tiny monthly amounts. His payback time is about 8 years, after which he'll be making money selling power back to SMECO.

 

[my-thyme]

Ya'll are not giving me warm fuzzies here.....

 

[my-thyme]

There was another reason I didn't want them, now that I think about it. Because of restrictions on back-feed to the grid, you can't have battery backup, you can't use the panels if the grid power goes out. Which makes no sense to me, there are automatic transfer switches for gennys, why not for solar powered batteries?

Yeah, this made zero sense to me. If the point is to be environmentally friendly, wouldn't you want to generate and push back as much power as the panels are capable of producing? Why cap production at 90%, or less?

 

[Goldenhawk]

If you do some research you'll find that the utilities have a number of reasons for avoiding too much consumer-generated power, including:
- Their grid is built and maintained by fees paid by all the users. If too many people go off-grid, fewer people pay for maintaining the grid.
- Battery systems and solar systems can electrocute linemen when the systems are not tied in properly; they can't cut that power like they can cut the mains power.
- Power factor, which has to do with inductive versus capacitive loads, is adversely affected by solar power. No, I don't really understand it; Google it if you're curious.

To some extent, I think this is a case of "who moved my cheese"... power companies need to catch up, just like the music industry has had to figure out the MP3 world.

 

[Baja28]

.... after which he'll be making money selling power back to SMECO.

I would recommend researching that too. I don't believe you can backfeed the grid. I know Pepco doesn't allow it and if anyyone could install these and get checks from the utility, everyone would be doing it.

 

[GWguy]

I would recommend researching that too. I don't believe you can backfeed the grid. I know Pepco doesn't allow it and if anyyone could install these and get checks from the utility, everyone would be doing it.

I was led to believe that's how it works. Excess power production from the panels goes back out on the lines. That's where companies like solar city make money. If house consumption is less than panel production, the meter turns backwards.

I could be wrong, just speaking from 2nd hand info.

 

[sm8]

Our company sells and installs solar panels and solar ready heat pumps. My husband is the one who knows all about solar but I do know a bit. For owned solar panels SMECO purchases your back fed power through a net metering device at 4¢ per kw hour. At night you can buy back the power sold to them at the same rate. Once the power sold is exceeded you then buy at a regular rate. Essentially SMECO becomes your holding center.

 

[Baja28]

I was led to believe that's how it works. Excess power production from the panels goes back out on the lines. That's where companies like solar city make money. If house consumption is less than panel production, the meter turns backwards.

I could be wrong, just speaking from 2nd hand info.

I honestly am not sure either but I do know that we have to prove to utilities that new generators we install cannot backfeed the grid. There's a lot to it like synching the phases and the danger to linemen working on outages.

 

[BigBlue]

Our company sells and installs solar panels and solar ready heat pumps. My husband is the one who knows all about solar but I do know a bit. For owned solar panels SMECO purchases your back fed power through a net metering device at 4¢ per kw hour. At night you can buy back the power sold to them at the same rate. Once the power sold is exceeded you then buy at a regular rate. Essentially SMECO becomes your holding center.

So are the heat pumps solar or can I turn my existing pump into solar?I put in a totally new system a few years back ,would I have to do it again?

 

[Chasey_Lane]

Anyone have panels on their home? I'm looking into solar panels, but can't find much local info. You can PM me.

Thanks.

There are legit companies that install for free. The solar company takes your energy, sells it, makes money, and you see your electric bill decrease. I have several friends that have done this and all have good experiences.

 

[sm8]

We could just do solar if that is what you are interested in, We also have financing options. If you are interested just let me know and I can give you the name and number so you can call to set up an appointment for a free quote.