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Yes, they went bust pretty quickly.
Like David Leppik, I'm one of the Made in Minnesota customers with TenK panels. Back then, TenK was a customer of my employer, so I was happy to support them.
I have a 18x410w system (7.38kw) in Minneapolis (Xcel Energy), but facing east, so predicted output was 7.3mwhr/year. It cost a bunch for TenK panels ($29,800 in 2015, $4/watt). Tax credit was $8,900. Made in Minnesota (MiM) pays $0.25/kwhr produced in the first 10 years, which was expected to be $18,250 over 10 years. Net metering was expected to yield $9,125 over 10 years, for a 10-year expected value of $+6,475 (excluding interest).
Conventional panels would have been perhaps $8k cheaper, but Xcel Solar Rewards would have paid 8 cents/kwhr for the first 10 years, or about $12.4k less. And the $8k extra also provided $2.4k more in tax credit, making the TenK system better by about $6800 over 10 years.
Actual output has been about 11% less than what the contractor predicted:
- 2016 was 6.54 (vs 4.18 consumed)
- 2017 was 6.39 (vs 4.53 consumed)
- 2018 was 5.27 produced (loose wire caused a production loss) (vs 7.0 consumed... I got an EV).
At this rate, payoff is about 10 years, 4 months (when including a 3% opportunity cost of capital)
So far, I've had no problems with the TenK modules. Two sets of nine TenK panels feed DC into separate DC buses, and each DC bus feeds seven 500w inverters in parallel (I think APS YC500). The inverters could be hard to replace. My peak production is about 5.5kw (around 2.75kw per bus), so I am hopeful that even the loss of 4 inverters (out of 14) would only produce about 3 hours of clipping on peak days. Also, there are some large TenK installations at MSP airport (1.5mW) and Mandalay Bay Las Vegas (21,325 TenK modules, 8.7mW), so I'm hopeful that there will be some aftermarket/ebay inverters available.
Minnesota has good net metering, for now. Two years ago, the state legislature (house + senate) passed a bill to replace net metering with a wholesale rate production credit (3 cents/kwhr), but it was vetoed by the Governor. But it could be brought back at any time as part of a bipartisan energy bill compromise. Luckily the MiM 10-year production credit is paid from a dedicated fund.
After we replaced one car with an EV, we're now net-consumers (annually), so if I can still roll a production credit from one month to the next, then I will do OK if/when net metering goes away. Anybody who is over-producing and not getting paid should look at opportunities to boost their consumption. If you look at 5-year operating cost (including gas), driving an EV is often cheaper than a gas car. Or, if you need a new boiler or heater, there are heat-pump solutions which save money in their own right, plus may consume your overproduction.
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