HELP - SolarCity vs. SunPower Quotes

[bonaire]

With purchase, you can latch-on to FITs and other incentives not yet there. With Leases, you just watch as they pass on by.

Look for a SolarCity and SunPower lobbying group to be setup in Washington DC and in each state capital for incentives to juice up their lease customers' valuation as they produce Solar REITs off the lease packages. (half-kidding, half not)

[gabrielrat]

From SC...

...attached the proposal with the BenQ panels. The purchase option and prepay option are listed as well. None of my customers have done the purchase in the last two years simply because it does not make financial sense. Not only do the combined lease payments add up to the cost of the purchase post rebate AND post tax credit, the prepay is thousands less with more security.

The bottom line is that if you go with either the $0 down or the PrePay option, you or the new homeowner will never want to purchase it as it simply will never make sense. There is nothing to be gained financially and you are voiding all of the guarantees, insurance, etc. That said, if you sell the house, you might prepay the remaining payments and transfer the agreement without monthly payments. While we do not offer the purchase option with the lease, even if we did it would never be utilized.

In terms of your production guarantee, here it is. Remember, these numbers are much more conservative than Sunpower for two reasons. One is that I was conservative with your shading estimates. Also Solar City doesn’t “push” the numbers to make the perceived savings look greater. We under estimate by 5% +:

Year Guaranteed kWh Total kWh


Year Guaranteed kWh Total kWh

1 6,547 6,547

2 6,514 13,061

3 6,482 19,543

4 6,449 25,992

5 6,417 32,409

6 6,385 38,794

7 6,353 45,147

8 6,321 51,468

9 6,290 57,758

10 6,258 64,016

11 6,227 70,243

12 6,196 76,439

13 6,165 82,604

14 6,134 88,737

15 6,103 94,841

16 6,073 100,914

17 6,042 106,956

18 6,012 112,968

19 5,982 118,950

20 5,952 124,902

[Naptown]

The big reason that people don't purchase from them is the highly inflated purchase price. Yes the salesman is correct that it does nto make economic sense to purchase from them. There are other dealers including the Sunpower dealer who gave you the lease proposal. But as a heads up Sunpower equipment cost the dealer almost twice what Solar City is paying for their equipment. (Kind of like the difference between a Corolla and an A4)

[bonaire]

We have to presume that SC and other "big boy" installers have bought containers full of modules and inverters at critically low prices (ie .the Walmart model) so that their costs are captured in a fast delivery project model, lease financing and so on.

A DIYer would easily beat the SC price if they know what they are doing and can arrange all the interconnect and other agreements. In my state of PA, though, the state rebate program does not pay its rebate to "non pro installs" so you cannot get the .75/Watt rebate (used to be more) if you DIY. Reason is the program is not just for the homeowner but for the business lifeblood of the installer base.

Leases make some sense. Usually for those in CA where high electric prices are making a squeeze and someone with limited income could benefit from a lease. The CEO of SolarCity simply says "we want to be a new kind of electric company". Their goal is to get the power flowing on as many roofs as possible and re-package them into REITs. They really don't care that much to save you money, they care about the leveraged financial instruments.

But using a solid installer with good prices - and doing a purchase - allows the homeowner to take advantage of future incentives such as the SREC market and others like FiTs and who knows what else. In 20 years, will we have the economy we do now? Will we want to have more renewables to fuel our electric vehicles? Will government finally feel and see peak oil as the world population hits 8-billion? No saleman can offer those guarantees. Sales is here and now - if it makes financial sense today, it may not tomorrow.

And, everyone is scared to see the 30% federal tax credit for new systems go away. Put a Republican in the white house and that'll happen. Even if they want "North American Energy Independence by 2020". You know Romney wasn't genuine in his statements about renewables...

[KRenn]

...attached the proposal with the BenQ panels. The purchase option and prepay option are listed as well. None of my customers have done the purchase in the last two years simply because it does not make financial sense. Not only do the combined lease payments add up to the cost of the purchase post rebate AND post tax credit, the prepay is thousands less with more security.

Have you seen what their purchase price is? SolarCity detests doing system purchases and they will pressure you to take the lease because its overall better profit for them.

The bottom line is that if you go with either the $0 down or the PrePay option, you or the new homeowner will never want to purchase it as it simply will never make sense. There is nothing to be gained financially and you are voiding all of the guarantees, insurance, etc. That said, if you sell the house, you might prepay the remaining payments and transfer the agreement without monthly payments. While we do not offer the purchase option with the lease, even if we did it would never be utilized.

Ask SunPower if the system can be bought out, they used to offer an EBO at the Year 7 mark, I know that was one big advantage they had over SolarCity as with SC, you will never own the system, the obvious salesperson response is "why would you want to own it?" Well, say you sell your home 7 or 8 years from now, if you can buy the system out for a price that is lower than the resulting proper value increase as determined by a licensed appraiser, then you can make some additional cash off your investment.

Regardless of what the salesperson tells you, a lease does not add value to your home, its an obligation, not a benefit.

In terms of your production guarantee, here it is. Remember, these numbers are much more conservative than Sunpower for two reasons. One is that I was conservative with your shading estimates. Also Solar City doesn’t “push” the numbers to make the perceived savings look greater. We under estimate by 5% +:

More salesperson nonsense, actually that was pretty bold on their part. These aren't just flimsy numbers that the salesperson is throwing out there, these are numbers that will be contractually backed and SC would be obliged to meet. Therefore it makes no sense to say "well, we're more conservative than they are." So basically what you're telling me is that they are backing their promises up through the contract to give me better production while you guys are afraid to do the same?

Every single leasing outfit will be extremely conservative with their guaranteed production numbers, they don't want to risk going below those numbers and having to compensate you for kilowatt hours not produced. If Company A says "we'll guarantee you 8000 kilowatt hours and pay you the difference if it falls below that point" and Company B tells you that they'll actually guarantee 9000 kilowatt hours, there's no way getting around Company B actually offering you the better deal.

Year Guaranteed kWh Total kWh


Year Guaranteed kWh Total kWh

1 6,547 6,547

2 6,514 13,061

3 6,482 19,543

4 6,449 25,992

5 6,417 32,409

6 6,385 38,794

7 6,353 45,147

8 6,321 51,468

9 6,290 57,758

10 6,258 64,016

11 6,227 70,243

12 6,196 76,439

13 6,165 82,604

14 6,134 88,737

15 6,103 94,841

16 6,073 100,914

17 6,042 106,956

18 6,012 112,968

19 5,982 118,950

20 5,952 124,902

What you'll see with other quotes is a bigger decrease in guaranteed production, but also a higher starting point. SolarCity likes to market that their production numbers drop very little, but if you undershoot actual production by a large amount, its a heck of a lot easier to make that promise.


Additionally, the warranties for the panels are as follow

SP-90% output after 12 years, 87% after 25 years

SC-90% output after 10 years, 80% after 25 years

[KRenn]

May be you could provide proof that SunPower modules do not have initial degradation?

But sure, you could not back you word, because you either seriously delusional believing in marketing BS, or simply got your agenda.

But here we go: http://www.sunpowercorp.co.uk/commer...ices/warranty/ As I said, QUOTE: SunPower claim initial degradation as high as 5%, and then more or less flat rate after first 5 years.

http://us.sunpowercorp.com/cs/Satellite?blobcol=urldata&blobheader=application%2Fpdf&blobheadername3=Content-Disposition&blobheadervalue3=attachment%3B+filename%3D35%252F474%252FMore%2BPower_A%2BBetter%2BInvestment.pdf&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1300258557830&ssbinary=true

SunPower's panels do not suffer an initial 2-3% decrease due to initial light induced degradation, other manufacturers don't touch on this whatsoever, they simply claim their usual "90% at 10 years, 80% at 25 years." If SunPower panels didn't degrade less than others, they couldn't offer a warranty of 87% original output after 25 years. Find me a panel that SolarCity offers that matches that at the 25 year point and we'll talk.

Ohh so posting outright lies here is Ok. Lies like SolarCity is not publicly traded company(they are) or that SunPower is a subsidiary of Total (SP is again public company). When people post outright lies here or trying to spread unsubstituted FUD it is ok...

Total SA has a controlling interest in SunPower, not sure what you are arguing against here.

But when I come and point out the facts, like real guaranteed SC degradation rates and that Sun Power could not match them...

Yes SolarCity has lower degradation rates, because they start their 1st year guarantee at a substantially lower level, what counts is total output over 20 years. Put a SC and SunPower quote side by side, exact system size and show me where SC guarantees higher OVERALL output for the full 20 years.

Yeah, the facts they heart you. It is hard for you to tolerate such things.

No, its just that your "facts" really aren't facts at all, not sure which random sales course they put you on but I've been around the solar industry longer than SC has been in business and can sniff out BS pretty easily when I see it.

[KRenn]

Also OP, list the exact equipment that SC is planning on using, panels and inverter(s).

[gabrielrat]

New Quote from Solar City....

Also OP, list the exact equipment that SC is planning on using, panels and inverter(s).

I made them call out the equipment specifically: (Please let me know your thoughts)

Black Frame (19) 260watt Ben Q Panels and a Power One Aurora PVI 5000 Inverter

4.94 kW DC Annual Production 7,112 kWh


YEAR

GUARANTEED KWH

TOTAL KWH GUARANTEED PRICE/KWH

1 6,757 6,757 $0.1137

2 6,723 13,480 $0.1137

3 6,689 20,169 $0.1137

4 6,656 26,825 $0.1137

5 6,623 33,447 $0.1137

6 6,589 40,037 $0.1137

7 6,557 46,593 $0.1137

8 6,524 53,117 $0.1137

9 6,491 59,608 $0.1137

10 6,459 66,067 $0.1137

11 6,426 72,493 $0.1137

12 6,394 78,887 $0.1137

13 6,362 85,250 $0.1137

14 6,330 91,580 $0.1137

15 6,299 97,879 $0.1137

16 6,267 104,146 $0.1137

17 6,236 110,382 $0.1137

18 6,205 116,587 $0.1137

19 6,174 122,761 $0.1137

20 6,143 128,904 $0.1137

[bonaire]

That's not too bad especially if they handle the warranties through the life of the lease.

I have two PowerOne Aurora 3.6's and they're quite nice.

[Naptown]

Well here's a bit of a conundrum
Ben Q is a division of AU Optronics.
The cells are manufactured in Malaysia in the AUO Sunpower plant. A collaboration between Sunpower and AU optronics.
Note these are NOT the same technology as a Sunpower cells.

[Ian S]

Don't fuss over guaranteed production. EVERYONE underestimates for the guarantee because they don't ever want to pay out. My Sunpower guarantee for the first year is 11,768 kWh but it looks like the system is going to produce close to 13,000 kWh. Frankly, I'd go with the larger system since you're not covering the total electric bill anyway. The two bids start out at a virtual wash price wise but when electricity costs rise, the larger system will benefit you more in $$ saved.

[KRenn]

That's not too bad especially if they handle the warranties through the life of the lease.

I have two PowerOne Aurora 3.6's and they're quite nice.

One thing he should be asking for is SunPower to include a PowerOne inverter as well, I'm a huge fan of those.

[SoCalsolar]

Might want to wait a minute or two

Might want to wait a minute or two before you sign if you choose to go with SP. They just had a large dealer conference in your area and that usually means a price reduction. Also they just signed a new 100 million dollar deal with US Bancorp to finance the next batch of leases. It's somewhat risky because the lease has been trending up in price but I am hearing that the next move in pricing (SP) will be down. You must be very confident that your LADWP will not be dropping anytime soon either. The SP lease algorithm is very sensitive to upfront money. I'm still in favor of a purchase if you can get good financing terms. But the Ben Q panels are ok.

[KRenn]

Might want to wait a minute or two before you sign if you choose to go with SP. They just had a large dealer conference in your area and that usually means a price reduction. Also they just signed a new 100 million dollar deal with US Bancorp to finance the next batch of leases. It's somewhat risky because the lease has been trending up in price but I am hearing that the next move in pricing (SP) will be down. You must be very confident that your LADWP will not be dropping anytime soon either. The SP lease algorithm is very sensitive to upfront money. I'm still in favor of a purchase if you can get good financing terms. But the Ben Q panels are ok.

I've heard the same thing about SunPower and one other leasing company undergoing pricing drops to remain more competitive in the market, this was about 3 weeks ago, so based on what you wrote, there might just be something to it.

[gabrielrat]

SunPower price went down when they included Power One 5000 inverter

I've heard the same thing about SunPower and one other leasing company undergoing pricing drops to remain more competitive in the market, this was about 3 weeks ago, so based on what you wrote, there might just be something to it.

SO i asked to quote with the Power One and Sun Power price came down.

Now I have 2 solid options:

SunPower 16x327 5.23 System
SolarCity 19x260 4.94 System

Both with Power One 5000 Inverter

Zero Down - Zero Escelator

SunPower is $4 higher - Seems like the winner.

As a side not Sungevity same system as SolarCity was $33 more expensive per month. Apples to Apples.