Seeking feedback for my newly amended 20-yr SolarCity 'prepay' SolarLease in Plano TX

[Naptown]

Kelly
In most cases a purchase is better than a lease long term. Provided you have the cash to lay out and wait for the return of the incentives etc.
Next best case would be low interest PACE financing where you basically finance the system on your property taxes. The down side of this is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will not allow this to happen at least not yet.
Next would be a prepaid lease One payment and it is essentially yours for 20 years.
Now if you don't have the cash to lay out a $0 down monthly payment lease may be appropriate. If it offers a purchase option all the better.

[bonaire]

Lower incomes are one of the main reasons to do a lease.

My sister in law bought an overpriced 1.8kw system a couple years ago. Would have been far better leasing. Leases also cover equipment failures like inverters while purchasers must either buy longer warranties or self warrant.

Leasing negates access to future incentive expansion. But, you get solar cheap and hedge against electric cost increases. Which are not happening yet except in California.

[Naptown]

Lower incomes are one of the main reasons to do a lease.

My sister in law bought an overpriced 1.8kw system a couple years ago. Would have been far better leasing. Leases also cover equipment failures like inverters while purchasers must either buy longer warranties or self warrant.

Two things in this post
Small systems cost more per watt than large ones.
Second a couple of years ago the costs were at least double what you paid for your system.

[bonaire]

Two things in this post
Small systems cost more per watt than large ones.
Second a couple of years ago the costs were at least double what you paid for your system.

Oh, true. They bought the system to "save on electric costs." Without really thinking it through. PP&L rates are not that high in Lancaster Co. PA. Paid about $17k for 1.8kw.

[Naptown]

My first one was 960 Watts and cost 11K
Today 11K will get you almost 3KW

[MIB]

I am in the first steps of looking at solar on my house.

I have a solar company coming on this Wed. to give me a quote.

Why did you not purchase instead of lease?

Any feedback would be help,


Kelly from San Diego

Hi Kelly, I wasn't trying to avoid an outright purchase, but I found the 'prepay' SolarCity lease to simply be a much better deal than anything else I could find. I like not having to worry about any additional costs for the next 20 years. Good luck!

[MIB]

As a minor correction, I had originally said:

15) PowerGuide energy consumption service is included.

However, this is not true for my lease, as it's an option that costs extra. No matter, I believe I can get the same info on my electricity usage through the TXU website.

[MIB]

UPDATE: Got my promotional iPad in the mail a few days ago, just returned it to the Apple Store for a $540.17 store credit!

[bobfromnj]

Wow you did your homework...BUT

D) SolarCity's BBB rating is currently 'A', with 25 complaints in the last 3 years, of which only 4 were not resolved to customer's satisfaction. Considering SolarCity's size, this seems pretty good to me!

This does sound good. But did you ever check the financial stability, which stinks. See below. This wouldn't make me happy !!!!!!!!

An article in the New York Times not too long ago reports that SC lost $47 Million in 2010, $73.7 in 2011 and $48.91 million for the first 6 months of 2012.

In addition, Solar City is being investigated by the IRS which is conduction audits of two investment funds, including a review of the solar installations that applied for a popular government cash grant program.

A new government investigation of SolarCity on the eve of its initial public offering (IPO) may explain how solar leasing is fleecing federal taxpayers and making U.S. residential solar more expensive than in other countries. At issue is the federal 30 percent tax credit for solar, based on the installed cost of the system. As an accepted practice, many leasing companies have reported the “fair market value” to the federal government in lieu of the actual cost. But in the case of SolarCity’s California operation, in particular, that reported price was often much higher for leased systems than for customer-owned solar arrays.

The data shows the reported installed cost for customer-owned and leased solar arrays that participated in the state incentive. It fingers SolarCity in particular, whose leased systems costs 50 percent more than residential solar projects that are owned by the customer. The practice of higher-priced leased systems is not new. Mr Jenal finds that SolarCity has had a significant price premium on its leased systems since 2008
Since the federal solar tax credit pays 30 percent of the system cost, and the significant markup on SolarCity’s leased system means a much larger tax credit. Mr Jenal calculates that SolarCity has cost federal taxpayers over $10 million in inflated tax credits since the beginning of 2008. SolarCity and its financiers (which include PG&E and U.S. Bank) presumably also took the federal depreciation bonus (also based on the system installed cost). At a 20 percent tax rate, the depreciation bonus would have a value of about two-thirds of the tax credit, adding another $6 to 7 million to the tally.

[bonaire]

The lease must be transferred to the new homeowner should you want to sell the house. Otherwise, it follows you when you move if the new homeowner refuses to sign the paperwork to takeover the lease. the CEO of SC was recently interviewed in Forbes (available online) and states that he thinks the lease arrangement is "good" in that manner.

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/03/04/solarcity-ceo-talks-the-future-of-solar-power/?source=yahoo_quote

The interview smells of typical Solar PV sales processes in the past that I've been through. The "increasing cost of electricity" and all that.

The prediction from many folks and you can see it in the FERC monthly spot prices of wholesale electricity - the cost of wholesale electricity delt with on the grid is flat if not falling from higher points back in 2007-2008 (even in So. Cal). The increases are coming in transmission charges - the cost of maintaining the wires we get power from the grid. The amount of Renewables added to the grid influences how much power must be kept online or near online for peak demands and as such, does not entirely spell "replacement" of original generation. So, the addition of renewables to grids undoubtably will cause slight increases to retail electricity prices by the lower demand downstream. So, they raise transmission rates to compensate. Natural gas generators are helping keep prices down and there's no gloom and doom ahead except in So. Cal and Hawaii. That's why I wonder how all this will play-out in the next 3-4 years. There may be some benefits to adding Solar PV to parking garages where some EVs will park during the day - that Solar PV can offset the added grid load of recharging EVs (most popular in California).

FERC has some fantastic data here: http://www.ferc.gov/market-oversight...c/overview.asp
Especially the Daily Report Archives. You can see the daily grid usage graphs and the spot hourly electric prices on the grid.

The graphs of grid demand in my market shows that the peak load is 6pm-9pm - long after solar is down for the day. No matter what we do with Solar PV deployment, peak loads in late afternoon and evening may never be dropped that much.

[russ]

A possible (likely) business plan of Solar City? Get through their IPO, collect the money and run while the VC bunch and the suckers take the hit.

[mperkel]

$400 for a referral?

I was quoted $250/referral. That's interesting.

Sounds like a great deal to me.

[mperkel]

D) SolarCity's BBB rating is currently 'A', with 25 complaints in the last 3 years, of which only 4 were not resolved to customer's satisfaction. Considering SolarCity's size, this seems pretty good to me!

Sounds great, but read this...

Sounds like SolarCity is not a very financially stable company. This was on the Internet as reported by the NY Times on Monday.
Solar panel installer SolarCity Corp filed with U.S. regulators to raise up to $201 million in an initial public offering. (IPO)
The company's total revenue was $46.6 million in the three months ended June 30, compared with $13 million a year earlier. It said it had an accumulated deficit of $70.3 million as of June 30
In addition, SolarCity said it was notified this month that the Internal Revenue Service is conducting audits of two of its investment funds, including a review of the solar installations that applied for a popular government cash grant program.
"If ... the Internal Revenue Service determines that the valuations were incorrect and that our investment funds received U.S. Treasury grants in excess of the amounts to which they were entitled, we could be subject to tax liabilities, including interest and penalties, and we could be required to make indemnity payments to the fund investors," the company said in the SEC filing
The company is losing money: In 2011, the company had net losses of $73.7 million, up from $47 million in 2010

SolarCity debt and lack of profit doesn't worry me because.

1. Since they are putting the panels in and not charging you except for power it's will take years before they make a profit per customer. Their profit is on the back end. And doubling in size every year makes that even worse.

2. Cost of expansion generally means a company isn't making a profit especially expanding so fast. They are building the worlds largest panel manufacturing plant, and that costs money up front.

So - if they were profitable now - then they wouldn't be growing fast enough,

[MIB]

I was quoted $250/referral. That's interesting.

Sounds like a great deal to me.

Yeah, unfortunatley they reduced it from $400 to $250.

[russ]

SolarCity debt and lack of profit doesn't worry me because.

And supposedly maintaining/insuring them for 20 years - if they go bust a new owner may be more problematic.