Professional solar= financial scam almost every where USA vs regular utility rates.

[khanh dam]

Professionally installed solar is a financial loss almost every where in the USA, costing home owners MORE THAN $12K to $30K+ IN LOSSES, over just paying regular utility rates. Is the conclusion I have come to after training with and trying to get a job in solar sales for the last month. The website that spells this out most clearly is google project sunroof. Here is an example from my neighborhood:
Project Sunroof - Savings estimator (google.com)
8.5kw roof ONLY SAVES $5000 OVER 20 YEARS.
Cost of $3.44/kw BEFORE any rebates or tax credits $2.58 after tax credits.
3 local solar sales companies quoted me around $3/kw after tax credits.
And some rip off companies are charging $5 or more per watt.
They lie about yearly increases in estimated energy prices. They lie and say system will last 40 years to make the numbers look better. They lie and say ROI is 100% because you own it and the utility rate is 0% ROI because you never own it. The amount of number manipulations are not alwasy the salesmen's fault either, they are often trained that way and do not know better..

And the above example is based on buying the system 100% upfront and paying them to install it.
If one gets a 6% Home equity loan from a bank then the investment winds up being negative ROI.

Given that 90% of solar jobs are financed it has become aparent to me, almost all solar sales are scams. By scams I mean your investment typically takes 15 or more years to break even or you are at a negative rate of return with your money.

Are there any honest installers out there that can admit this? I've talked to 2 or 3 out of hundreds that are on the facebook forums peddling solar panels. It's really sad to see something I am passionate about turn out to be a scam industry.

Sure there are exceptions to this. Name states that have Good SCRECS or super high utility rates like CA, but even in those situations you can get over charged. There was a 10kw system sold in Massachusets and the sales guy posted the $40,000 check braging about it. Customer will break even after a few years, but still got over charged tens of thousands.

do your home work and install your own system is my advice.

Now tons of people have disagreed with me, but zero of them have showed me the financial numbers to prove their point. I've argued with solar sales guys saying solar is good in GA even though Georgia power is 6 cents!/kwh. People telling me $4/kwh can be profitable in NC. Or the crazy salesguy that gives $3000 "rebate" checks to his customers (kick back from inflated loan) and then shows a 26% fed tax credit on this loan advance. Shady stuff!

[khanh dam]

sabersix you obviously sell solar. show me one place in the USA on google solar roofs project with a good value AND a local solar installer that comes in below that price. the combination is almost impossible to find. your petty name calling is sad.

[SunEagle]

Professionally installed solar is a financial loss almost every where in the USA, costing home owners MORE THAN $12K to $30K+ IN LOSSES, over just paying regular utility rates. Is the conclusion I have come to after training with and trying to get a job in solar sales for the last month. The website that spells this out most clearly is google project sunroof. Here is an example from my neighborhood:
Project Sunroof - Savings estimator (google.com)
8.5kw roof ONLY SAVES $5000 OVER 20 YEARS.
Cost of $3.44/kw BEFORE any rebates or tax credits $2.58 after tax credits.
3 local solar sales companies quoted me around $3/kw after tax credits.
And some rip off companies are charging $5 or more per watt.
They lie about yearly increases in estimated energy prices. They lie and say system will last 40 years to make the numbers look better. They lie and say ROI is 100% because you own it and the utility rate is 0% ROI because you never own it. The amount of number manipulations are not alwasy the salesmen's fault either, they are often trained that way and do not know better..

And the above example is based on buying the system 100% upfront and paying them to install it.
If one gets a 6% Home equity loan from a bank then the investment winds up being negative ROI.

Given that 90% of solar jobs are financed it has become aparent to me, almost all solar sales are scams. By scams I mean your investment typically takes 15 or more years to break even or you are at a negative rate of return with your money.

Are there any honest installers out there that can admit this? I've talked to 2 or 3 out of hundreds that are on the facebook forums peddling solar panels. It's really sad to see something I am passionate about turn out to be a scam industry.

Sure there are exceptions to this. Name states that have Good SCRECS or super high utility rates like CA, but even in those situations you can get over charged. There was a 10kw system sold in Massachusets and the sales guy posted the $40,000 check braging about it. Customer will break even after a few years, but still got over charged tens of thousands.

do your home work and install your own system is my advice.

Now tons of people have disagreed with me, but zero of them have showed me the financial numbers to prove their point. I've argued with solar sales guys saying solar is good in GA even though Georgia power is 6 cents!/kwh. People telling me $4/kwh can be profitable in NC. Or the crazy salesguy that gives $3000 "rebate" checks to his customers (kick back from inflated loan) and then shows a 26% fed tax credit on this loan advance. Shady stuff!

Actually I have been saying the same thing. For me if the final cost to install a 7kw system was around $2/watt it would still take me over 10 years to maybe get my money back. Most systems that I have gotten estimates on are more than $3/watt which puts the ROI way out there.

While I don't agree those installations are a scam I do think people need to do the math before they take the leap into solar.

[Mike90250]

If people don't do the math on their student loans, don't expect them to be able to do ROI math.

[heimdm]

If you pay someone to do your project as turnkey the payback is really never there. If you handle the solar aspects of the project, but hire out the general construction aspects such as the electrical interconnect, the payback can make sense. When I was talking to solar installers they would commonly ask me how much I thought the project was worth and what the maximum I would pay. It felt wrong, not to tell me what it cost to do that work I asked for. With most solar installers I think its like when you build a house, you pay list price for everything. If you select each component and find the best pricing you can save quite a bit.. and that is key.

Let's look at my setup, without the pergola structure, and go with regular ground mount...Prices with 26% discount

92x 405w panels: $17,000
3x 11.4 kw Inverters: $5,500
92 Power Optimizers: $5,000
Standard Ground Racking: $10,000
Electrical Interconnect Work: $3,500
Misc: $4,000

Total Cost: $45,000
Cost per Watt (45,000 / 37,260): $1.20

Price per kw from Duke Electrical is now around $0.12 with the latest rate increase. Per year, we pay about $5,000 in electrical cost. Payback would be about 9 years.

For comparison, I had 2 quotes from local installers and they were between 80k - 100k. Those prices reflected a small sizing of around 85x 325 watt panels.

[organic farmer]

... Given that 90% of solar jobs are financed it has become aparent to me, almost all solar sales are scams. By scams I mean your investment typically takes 15 or more years to break even or you are at a negative rate of return with your money.

I am a farmer. Nearly everything on my farm depreciates. this includes my solar power system. The IRS requires that solar systems must fully depreciate over seven [7] years. Every penny spent must be written off on your taxes over seven [7] years.

So it is impossible for the Return on investment to be greater than seven [7] years.

... do your home work and install your own system is my advice.

That was what I did.

[solarix]

Here in APS territory of Arizona, I've personally sold and installed hundreds of systems with virtually all of them about a 7 year pay back time. Energy Sage lists our area as $2.20 to $2.65 /watt installed. We routinely are $2.00 /watt or less. I agree there are many ripoff solar companies out there and CA must have some kind of sky high cost of living to justify the $3.50/watt I generally see. No wonder so many people are leaving the coast...
Go on Solarreviews.com for your area, find a reputable local installer and show you are passionate about solar when applying for a job.

[Cshama]

I have just signed a contract for an 18.36kw system producing around 22000 kw. It produces 113% of my current usage and is verified by pvwatts.

Coned charges .232 per watt and my average monthly bill is $360 or $4320.

The cost of my system after credits to s $21k. So to me that looks like a 5 year payback. Shorter actually because I am getting an electric heat pump and it will help defray oil costs for my boiler.

Just wondering if I am missing something here.

[khanh dam]

"3x 11.4 kw Inverters: $5,500
92 Power Optimizers: $5,000"

FYI you do not need optimizers on a pergola that does not have shading. They actual use a small amount of energy making them less efficient. I know solar edge requires them. You could save some money by using SMA sunny boys or Fronius units.

[heimdm]

Agreed. I have some shading in the morning (before 10am) and in the evening, depending on the time of year.

[J.P.M.]

While there's probably a kernel of truth or more than that in what you write, it's not that simple, or at least not like you seem to think.
I wouldn't be surprised if what you write is, at least in part, sour grapes, but NOMB.

I see a lot of the same crap you write of and more having its origins where its always been in most every selling situation - lack of consumer education. Folks lay the door open to getting screwed by not informing themselves before making large financial commitment. You want bad guys to blame, look to mentally slothful end users.

Examples of consumer ignorance abound. Hell, no need to look any further than this forum. They're in plain site.

If, as you contend, most solar sales/installs are scams, I'd suggest the way to reduce the egregiousness if not the number of those scams is education.

As for self installs: For many reasons - with at least a few of those reasons probably not of the consumers' doing or under their control - most folks wouldn't do it themselves even if they could.

As for calcing or even understanding and choosing the financial parameters that apply to their circumstances, I'm with Mike - good luck.

[Ampster]

I agree with much of what has been stated. In the past twelve years I have been involved with six installs. The first was a self install in 2009 and solar panels cost $5.00 a Watt then and a 2.5 kW grid tie inverter was $2000. The next one was a professional installer that cost about $4.00 a Watt in 2014 and the last one was in 2017 and cost about $3.25 a Watt. All of those systems have had reasonable paybacks in part because I have been able to leverage TOU rates by charging EVs with stored energy credited at rates that our two to three times what I pay at off peak to charge the EVs.

I have recently seen professional installs at around $2.00 a Watt and I know enough about what my needs are to not need any hand holding or sales effort. As I often say, it all depends on where you are standing and at my age, standing on a roof is not what I want to be doing. Therefore my choice in my next install will be with a commodity priced GT system. Despite the erosion of benefits with NEM 2.0 and new TOU periods I think It will make sense for me to install a fairly robust GT system. I already have a hybrid inverter that I can self install with some additional used panels that can charge my batteries and cover my daytime loads and do some load shaving with that.Even if my timing puts me into a worse case situation with a NEM 3.0 I think my batteries and hybrid inverter should allow me to only pay the Minimum Delivery Charges and some other small charges and I can make it work. I have a low cost of funds and therefore if I were to do a complex ROI analysis I am sure I could meet my target return. For me it is more about reducing expenses, charging EVs and giving me a hedge against inflation of energy costs. That would include the cost of natural gas or propane.

[khanh dam]

While there's probably a kernel of truth or more than that in what you write, it's not that simple, or at least not like you seem to think.
I wouldn't be surprised if what you write is, at least in part, sour grapes, but NOMB.

Kernal of Truth to what I write? more like a XXXL popcorn container of it. I can name a couple of states with electricity rates around the 6cent rates, never gonna work there. How about the states that dont' even have net metering? How about maps of electrical co-ops which dominate huge areas in the SE and almost always have poor net metering terms.

Kind of typical response I get on this forum to be honest. It's like when I asked about calculating ROI, increasing utility rates and other factors and I get the old: "you can do that in excel" IF it's so easy why don't you show me then? Fact of the matter is consumer are not educated because there are very few websites that make it easy. PVcalc has terms that I do not even understand and are not explained. Google Rooftop just gives estimates, but does not allow one to change parameter and open solar is too technical for most to pick up and learn.

And to top it all off this very website/forum contributes to the BS salesmen ship. Guess how I got the local solar estimates? Yep gave this forums/website my info and within 24 hrs had 3 companies wanting me to sign up for $20K + loans.

If you think solar sales is so freaking good, dish out the numbers. show people how much money they will save, not just some vague sour grapes BS.

[khanh dam]

I have just signed a contract for an 18.36kw system producing around 22000 kw. It produces 113% of my current usage and is verified by pvwatts.

Coned charges .232 per watt and my average monthly bill is $360 or $4320.

The cost of my system after credits to s $21k. So to me that looks like a 5 year payback.

23.2 cents per kwh in new york? Sounds high so I googled
Con Edison rates and got this website

https://apps.coned.com/CEMyAccount/csol/MSCcc.aspx

Jesus Christ all mighty. Your rates are 4 cents per kwh?

Am I reading this website right? Market Rate based pricing? God help me another complicated utility price plan no wonder solar financial are so hard to figure out.

[Cshama]

In my recent search to buy a pv system the quotes I had ranged from a net $20k to $50k for essentially the same output.

From what I saw you really have to shop around and educate yourself and finally haggle a bit. If you just buy from a national dealer with limited knowledge you are probably going to get screwed.