NEW system pricing and questions i should ask installers

[Ian S]

Purchase is the only option that makes sense if you plan to sell before 20 years.

Why?

[Ian S]

Solar PV is not a good investement. It was a fun, cool, hobby for me to do. It's a dumb investment, though.

You really can't make such a general statement. It all depends on several key factors including electricity costs, solar insolation, rebates/tax incentives and competitiveness of the local installation market. Even your individual tax situation. In my situation, putting $6730 into a solar system that will effectively pay me back $100 tax free per month for 20 years is a GREAT investment.

[Ian S]

No leasing company is going to come out and replace your inverter just for fun. If it fails, then sure, otherwise they are going to leave it alone. But most likely it will not fail during the entire lease period or even at all.

While the string inverter failure distribution will span a number of years, I think the general consensus is that most will fail well before 20 years have passed.

[Ian S]

But I guess Sunpower would need to fix anything that goes wrong on lease with equipment etc so i am not totally worried about that

I have personal experience in that regard. My Sunpower installer went belly-up only a few months after installing my system but because Sunpower is the lessor and the only entity I actually contracted with, any problems will simply be dealt with by another local Sunpower dealer. That's according to Sunpower itself.

[ajpslp]

thats good to hear Ian , I really dont see why people wouldnt take over lease myself considering the rates are only going up .
waiting to see new quote from new person who said X series panels 37 with two inverters for around $165 a month

[Noob]

thats good to hear Ian , I really dont see why people wouldnt take over lease myself considering the rates are only going up .
waiting to see new quote from new person who said X series panels 37 with two inverters for around $165 a month

Is Sunpower the only brand they will lease? (If it's not something you own it may make less sense to pay for the best.)

[ajpslp]

the proble arises that i need about 15k kilowatts per year and these panels can produce that much the cheaper less expensive panels cant rally produce that much energy because of productivity. $320 vs $165 is a big difference

[Noob]

the proble arises that i need about 15k kilowatts per year and these panels can produce that much the cheaper less expensive panels cant rally produce that much energy because of productivity. $320 vs $165 is a big difference

Really? Is it because you would otherwise run out of space on your roof to use a greater number of the lower-output panels?

[ajpslp]

using 37 panels fills my entire roof on southside. Other side of house im guessing wont be efficient , but used 14k kilowatts last year with pool only open 1.5 months as it was newly installed

[Noob]

Okay, thanks. But I was also wondering whether they offered a lease option on cheaper panels, since I too am in NY and don't need quite the power you do.

[cyph]

using 37 panels fills my entire roof on southside. Other side of house im guessing wont be efficient , but used 14k kilowatts last year with pool only open 1.5 months as it was newly installed

Have you considered the possibility of filling your entire roof of the lower cost panels would (a) exceed the total production of the 37 panels by itself and (b) be cheaper as well?

[ajpslp]

cyph , dont want to really fill entire roof with panels. Another salesman said we should look a micro inverters so we dont have to have the inverter boxes attached to side of house ? Thoughts? I know these panels with micro inverters put out less energy then the X series panels but any suggestions would be great . Besides looks is there an advantage to micro inverters ?
thanks

[Naptown]

I dont know of any micro that will work with the x panels. Sunpower makes AC panels but are limited to about 240W and are the E18 or E19 modules so about 2 1/2 -3 1/2% less efficient. Not a huge deal but will take a bit more room on the roof to accomplish the same array wattage.
If you are thinking of selling a prepaid lease is probably the best way to go as it is the easiest to transfer to the new owner.

[Noob]

Wouldn't microinverters be a good idea for him? He's in a pretty densely populated area.

(The microinverters are supposed to do much better when there is partial shade, since the lower output of a shaded panel doesn't reduce the output power of all the other panels, as it would with a central inverter.)

[cyph]

cyph , dont want to really fill entire roof with panels. Another salesman said we should look a micro inverters so we dont have to have the inverter boxes attached to side of house ? Thoughts? I know these panels with micro inverters put out less energy then the X series panels but any suggestions would be great . Besides looks is there an advantage to micro inverters ?
thanks

Does the inverter bother you though? You should stand next to one and listen to the buzz to see if it bothers you. String inverters are superior on hot days because it runs cooler being on the side of the house. It seems that temperature is the limiting factor in efficiency.

With micros, you can check your power output per panel every five minutes. I don't know if the string inverters offer this. You may be able to buy an additional device for monitoring of strings or you have to look on the side of it. The Enphase has a web monitoring tool which is very cool.

Each panel is independent so shades on one would not lower the entire array's output. By the same token, one downed inverter or panel will not bring the array down. The system will continue working until you get the replacement. It supposedly last longer because it runs cooler (it seems to run hotter on warm days so I'm not sure how true this is). Then again, I can read the internal temperature of the micros but I don't know if there's a way to read the internal temperature of the string inverter so I have no idea how hot the string runs. The difference may be how much power is being transformed in the string versus the micro which may be why it supposedly last longer (25 vs 15).

You have many points of failure on the micro but one failure does not bring the array down. You have one single point of failure on the string but it's much easier to reach to replace but one failure means the entire array is down until it gets fixed.

Does NY have net metering with peak and off peak usage? If it's anything like net metering in California, you can size your system at 85% of usage and it will cover your entire bill and have excess left over. Our string inverters was sized at 60% of usage and so far since install we have a surplus with PGE. You may be able to save some money by not sizing your system to match your usage because it may be overkill.