So you'll be paying this off for 26 years.... is it guaranteed for that length of time?

For your calculations you may want to look more closely at your electric bill. Not all of the bill goes to energy costs.

Not sure about the sealing. Just got new double pane windows, new hybrid water heater (high efficiency, heat pump with conventional electric coils), blew another 10" of insulation in attic, new AC (not high eff.), new gas furnace.

@JACK Payoff is 25 years, warranties for 35 years.

@Bryan Krause So that will make it even less practical.

@tnknepp Likely what makes it more or less practical is the financing. What's the actual cost of the system, and what's the assumed interest rate?

@Bryan Krause Interesting. The cost is $72k for 41 panels, $58k for 33 panels, both at 1.99 percent for 25 years.

How much of your usage is at night? My heat and AC run a lot at night and without a energy storage system, solar wouldn’t help. Solar is just too expensive for most cases right now. And to finance for 30 years? What if you sell the house? What breakthroughs will happen in the next 30 years?

@tnknepp $72k is what you pay over the course of the loan, or the amount of money being loaned to you? Also, is this tech someone that you invited to your house, or someone that came by?

@Bryan Krause We called for an estimate and the tech visited. The loaned amounts are $72k and $58k.

@tnknepp If someone loans you $72k, your monthly payments will be more like $304/month at 1.99% interest. $230 wouldn't even pay the principal in 25 years (almost, but not quite).

@Bryan Krause Sorry, I missed a detail. The $230/month assumes we use the 26% tax credit to pay down principle within the first 18 months.

Okay, that works out then. The price seemed unusually high and I was wondering if something fishy was going on here, but it seems like you're just looking at a much bigger install than my friends have done. But yeah, the stuff's pretty close to breaking even - if it weren't, electric utilities would be putting in even more solar than they already are (land has costs, of course, which you skip by being on your own property, but they have benefits of scale you don't have). You're basically making a bet that energy costs go up more in the future than your loan.

Is this the only quote so far or are you going to try to get more? Have you checked for state and federal programs to help pay? Are you selling to power company(net metering) or just using the power for yourself?

I have done some work in the solar area. I would not suggest going big right away. There is always some gotcha that you didn't think about a year down the line. I would suggest you get quotes and go with a company that you can easily add on panels. The other part of that is I would assume there will be continuous tax credits (which change every year but I thought these went in a 3 year cycle). So if you max out the credit now, add on in 3 years and max it out again and so on. I am not an accountant so you have to figure that out.

Also I would not be installing panels unless there was a for sure payoff - I would look at the minimum $50 after you calculate basic interest on the investment. If a company comes out and quotes you they should be able to make the numbers work. If they can't they don't have a good product or you aren't the right consumer.

Given the cost difference between residential and utility-scale solar, it usually doesn't make sense to go solar until you've gone 100% electric at the house, AND have your own EV. I'd save your cash for an EV or invest until it's time to replace that gas furnace, at which point the cost will have come down more and utility rates will be more favorable.

What else does the system do? Is your intention solely financial, i.e. make money with the panels to cancel your electric bill... or does it also have a battery system to carry you across power outages? How did you find this solar supplier?

Shop around and DO NOT FINANCE this! You will not ever pay this off during the lifetime of the equipment which is ~20 years. The price of $72K for a 15KW system is outrageous. I have a 3 year old system with 50 panels and a 15KW inverter that cost me $30K. My original payback period was 6 years and that has gone down now that the power company has raised rates. Hopefully you have not signed a contract yet.

I couldn't agree more, these prices are outrageous. This seems more like a "financial" transaction designed to charge what the market will bear based on financing and tax credits. It's like they worked backwards from energy pricing, mortgage rates and government rebates, found your break-even point (i.e. the max you would pay), and and trumped up a bunch of costs and fees to make it that expensive when it's not. In reality, solar prices are in free-fall. Panels are 20 cents a watt in industrial quantity, and more like 50 cents a watt retail.

@Harper-ReinstateMonica We had a guy come out and he was throwing around numbers like that. He didn't stay long....

From a financial perspective, the optimal number is....zero.

@Harper-ReinstateMonica Great points. At $72k for 41 panels the cost per panel is $1750. I just looked around online and I found the same panels for $400. Sure, the $72k includes inverters, install, inspection, etc. but I'd be hard pressed to believe this cannot be done for $15k-$20k myself. The payoff time at that rate is about 5-6 years.

@jwh20 Thanks for the advice. I think we'll pass on this. As I mentioned to Harper, I can buy the panels themselves for $12k-$15k, so we'll have to pass on this golden opportunity. I'd be interesting in learning how you built your setup. By the way, what is an EV?

My system is ground mounted and I did all the site preparation, hardware installation, and mounting myself. I had an electrician do the wiring. I have 50 330W panels with a Fronius Primo 15KW grid-tied inverter. In my locations we have net metering so there is no need for battery storage. The system was turned on in September 2018 and it's been performing well since then. On average it produces a bit more than my annual electric usage and currently I have about 7000 KWH of surplus built up.

The pitch this guy is giving you reminds me of the co-generation fad in the early 80's. Hospitals and county complexes jumped on it but the units never preformed close to the sales pitch and they were left holding the bag..

@tnknepp Would suggest googling solar power. In about a year of reading should know the right questions to ask of sellers. Knowing the information out there, you make better decisions on what you want, everything from complete DIY to renting roof/land space.

EV is electric vehicle. Basically, you want to have as much of your home load electrified as possible before adding solar to increase the chances you can use as much of the energy you produce as possible, because excess energy you sell back to the grid will always get a lower price than what you pay.