TDSF Power Plant: Part 4 – Picking a Solar Panel Installer

Previously in this series:

Part 1 – how does a solar panel system work?

Part 2 – how a solar panel system affects your electric bill.

Part 3 – who should NOT get a solar panel system.

Now that you:

• know how a rooftop solar panel system works,
• understand how it can reduce your electric bill and possibly provide some income,
• have determined that you’re a good fit (physically and financially) to purchase one,

let’s discuss how to find an installer.

I am going to discuss two methods, the wrong way and the right way.

Wrong Way

My first two attempts to find a solar panel installer were the wrong way. Hopefully you can learn from my mistakes. Basically, for my first two attempts to find an installer, I just Googled “Solar Installers in Your Area.”

I figured (correctly) that giving local installers a fair shot first was the right way to go, since it’d be easier for me to hold them accountable for follow-up maintenance.

I have some experience with in-home sales folks and the techniques/tricks they use, so I felt confident I could deal with this. 

Attempt 1

I made an appointment with Vendor A. They sent Salesman A, who was reasonably effective at his job.  He patiently explained the product, the installation process, the payment process and answered all my questions. He took measurements of my roof and collected a copy of my most recent electric bill.

He was not there to pressure me to sign a deal. In fact, he needed to send all the information he gathered to someone at his office. The office would then prepare a report showing Salesman A’s recommended installation plan and what it cost. Salesman A delivered everything he promised, including a detailed proposal.

So why was this the wrong way? In part, because he never followed through – I challenged him on some points in the proposal and he did not respond. A few weeks later he apologized (apparently some personal issues kept him out of touch). But more importantly, I lacked the context to be able to understand the proposal – I had nothing to compare it to.   (Stay tuned, I’ll help you solve this problem in just a moment).

Attempt 2

I made an appointment with Vendor B. Vendor B did a lot of pre-qualification work on the phone, including requiring that Mrs. TDSF be there as well (Vendor A worked with me only). 

ALERT: When an in-home sales caller requires all decision-making parties to be at their initial presentation, you are going to get a high pressure presentation. Danger Will Robinson. Aooga! Aooga!

Mrs. TDSF and I are not rookies at this – this is not our first rodeo, we did not fall off the turnip truck last night, and we weren’t born yesterday. We knew what to expect – and we got steam-rolled anyway.  

Let’s be clear.  No matter how much experience you have at this game, the sales folks ALWAYS have more. Sigh.

Salesman B was nice. He was professional. When I say high-pressure, it was done with the softest touch, with nuance, with finesse. Before I knew it, I was signing a contract and writing a deposit check. Ugh.

After Salesman B left, something felt ‘off’ in my gut, so I called a friend of mine who has solar panels. We discussed the contract. Here’s what Salesman B proposed in his contract:

26 solar panels, at 305 watts per panel.

26 * 305 = 7930 watts or 7.93 KW.

The panels manufacturer is Mission, a reputable company out of Texas.

The inverter manufacturer is Enphase, also a reputable company.

Nothing wrong so far…

Except the price: $30,000.

My friend did not want to say it explicitly, but he made it clear that this price point was too high, and I should investigate.

So I did. And I didn’t get much sleep that night. The next day I cancelled the contract with Salesman B. Fortunately, if you sign in-home contracts of this sort you have 3 days to change your mind, at least where we live.

Here’s why I decided not to go with Salesman B:

It’s all about the math.  Solar system prices are generally compared by using this simple equation: Price/Watts. In this case:

$30,000 / 7930 = $3.78 per watt (rounded).  

This simplicity allows systems which may use different equipment to be compared based on the results they achieve.

As you’ll see in a moment, this price turns out to be not just high, but ridiculously high. 

For comparison, Vendor A wanted to install 39 solar panels, at 300 watts per panel, (39*300 = 11,700 watts), also for $30,000.

In that case, the cost was:

$30,000/11,700 = $2.56 per watt (rounded). 

That’s a BIG difference in price per watt.

The Goldilocks Problem

I intuitively felt that the first offer was for more panels than I needed (and the price was more than I wanted to spend). The second offer was for less panels than I needed – at the same price as the first offer!

So, how to find the ‘just right’ solution? I needed enough panels to supply my electricity needs, and I needed them at a reasonable price. I wanted to drive our bill to zero, but I also didn’t want to spend more than about $14K (net after incentives). The formula for the purchase price, where I live (due to incentives described in Part 3) is:

Purchase Price * .7 – $3500 where:

• .7 accounts for the 2019 30% federal tax credit
• $3500 accounts for the state and county incentives we are eligible for

Right Way

That night that I stayed up, I did a ton of research, and finally found a really great web site, EnergySage.com . This site is a great way to find a solar installer that will meet your needs.

(Please note that the link I am using is an affiliate link. If you care to support my site, please use this link.)

EnergySage.com provides a lot of educational material to help you understand how solar panels work and  how the installation process works. Most importantly, they act as an honest broker. You register on their site and they provide you with bids from affiliated, vetted installers. Then you contact the bidders as you wish, and decide which installer is best for you. They operate much like an Angie’s List or Home Advisor, except specifically for solar panel installation.

I registered on the site, and even posted the contract from Vendor B that I had just cancelled. I also talked to someone from the site, who patiently answered many questions. They were very helpful, and I highly recommend using them.

Note that the bidders cannot see your personal contact information, rather they contact you through the portal, so you have no risk of getting spammed.

I got 3 bids through EnergySage.com immediately, and a few more over time. This screenshot shows examples of the quotes I got (vendors masked):

These are the summary boxes, with all the details for each bid just a click away. Note all the great information presented in these boxes:

• Number of reviews (and average rating)
• Price/watt
• % need met (how much of your electric bill their proposed number of solar panels will cover)
• Net price after incentives (Net Upfront Price)
• Payback estimate
• Specific panels and warranty

I initiated discussions with all 3 vendors. Two were based out of Virginia, and one was local. All were very friendly, professional, and knowledgeable. The sophisticated high-pressure sales tactics were nowhere to be seen. I very much enjoyed my discussions with these vendors, and regretted that I had to tell two of them “no deal.”  

Through these conversations I learned something really interesting. The predicted annual production of a solar panel in MegaWatt Hours (MWh) is approximately:

Kilowatts of installed system = number of panels * watts/panel

Predicted annual production = Kilowatts of installed system * 1200

If you know how much electricity you use (10.5 MWh in our case) you then can figure out how many panels you need to cover your usage:

For our usage, 8.750 Kilowatts * 1200 = 10,500 MWh

In my case, 29-30 solar panels at 300 watt/panel would cover about 100% of my usage (8750/300 is 29.17).

Some Notes about these Numbers:

Different panels are rated at specific watt values. These values are determined through industry standard testing. Basically, under optimal conditions (sun at a certain angle, panel mounted at a certain angle, air temperature at a certain value) an individual panel will produce a specific number of watts at any moment in time.

Note that a panel rated at 300 watts will not produce 300 watts all the time.

This rating number is at or close to the maximum production value possible for that panel, under ideal testing conditions.

It is possible that a 300 watt panel will produce 300 watts (or slightly more) for a limited time during the day (they work better when the outside temperature is colder), but most of the day it will produce less. 

Over the course of the year a given panel will be exposed to some number of hours of sunny weather, cloudy weather, and rainy weather. Trees or other objects in the distance can throw shade as well.

The expectation is that the 1200 number used in the equation above will roughly approximate the total production in a year. Of course, some years are rainier than others, so this number is just for planning.

Now that I had this information about how individual panel production relates to annual power production, I was able to think more clearly about our options.

I concluded that the original salesman who wanted to sell me 39 panels was overdoing it, and the high pressure salesman who wanted to sell me 26 panels was a bit under.

Either way, both salesmen were charging $30,000 (or a net of $17,500 after incentives). This was more than I wanted to spend.

Originally, I wanted to spend $25,000 total, for a net cost of $14,000 ($7500 tax credit plus $3500 from the state and county = $11,000 in incentives and $25,000 – $11,000 = $14,000 net cost).

Surprisingly, it turned out that the first bid (shown above) from EnergySage.com was from a local vendor called Solar Energy World – the same vendor who gave me the original 39 panel bid from Attempt 1. So, if Attempt 1 was “the wrong way” why was this bid, from the same vendor, different?

The key difference was the salesman who put in this bid, Daren Weatherby. Because the bid came through EnergySage.com I didn’t have to deal with high-pressure sales tactics.

Instead, Daren came to my house on a number of occasions and really listened when I explained what I needed. He was very responsive, and provided me with enough additional information and a new bid that I felt comfortable accepting.

Daren measured the part of my roof with the best southern exposure, and determined that we could fit 34 panels on the roof. This is more than I apparently need. Daren explained that I have some shade issues, so I will need a few more panels than I initially estimated, in order to get the production I wanted.

The 34 panels fit nicely, and basically take up that whole section of roof. Daren admitted that he was over-provisioning a bit, but he emphasized that he wanted to under-promise and over-deliver.

The final contract I signed was for 34 solar panels, each rated for 300 watts. So the size of our system is:

34 panels * 300 watts/panel = 10.2 Kilowatts

Using the 1200 number mentioned above for planning annual output, this system will produce about 12 MWh per year, at least the first year.

10 Kilowatts of panels * 1200 = 12 MWh per year (I am rounding for simplicity as this is for planning only)

Note that panels will produce less output over time. About 25 years from now, this system will produce about 85% of what it’s producing now, or about 10.5 MWh per year (about what we use today). In effect, Daren was future-proofing the system for us.

So, what did it actually cost us?

We paid just over $27,000 for the system (before incentives) or $2.65/watt. This was a little more than I wanted to spend, but less than the other bids. After incentives, the whole system will cost us about $15,400, or about $1.51/watt. 

Think about that. We are generating all the electricity we will probably use (and then some) for the next 25 years, for about $616 per year (25 * $616 = $15,400) by paying in advance – this doesn’t even include the additional post-installation incentives I discussed in Part 2 and will elaborate on in a future post.

Compare this to the $1433 we are currently spending per year (at current prices, which will probably go up) and I think we are getting a great deal.

I asked Daren for a referral code to embed here, but he doesn’t have one. He said to ask for him at solarenergyworld.com and mention me (TDSF) as the referrer. 

The two take-aways from this post are:

1. Use EnergySage.com to get bids from approved installers in your area, and to learn more about the process.
2. If you live in the Maryland area, please consider using Solar Energy World, and specifically ask for Daren Weatherbee. They’re a great organization, and Daren did a great job for us.

In Part 5 of this series I will describe the installation process and show you what you get (besides the panels) for all this money. Stay tuned…