At the end of year five the meter reading was 98767, meaning we have produced about 1240 KWh more than we consumed over the past 5 years. The first three years we were slightly in the hole, as the meter read 00387, so the gain has come in the last two years. At the end of year four it was 99602 so we came out ahead by 835 KWh this year.
What is surprising about this is that this was our lowest year of production yet, producing a rounding error less than 9 MWh, whereas the first four years we did a little better than 9 MWh. We generated our 46th MWh on March 20.
Is this because the panels are losing their production capacity? Probably a little bit. They are guaranteed not to lose more than 1/2% per year after the first year. However, weather probably plays a factor as well. This past summer we were impacted by smoke from Canadian wildfires. This past February we had two back-to-back snows with freezing temperatures, so the panels produced no power for about 10 days. Just adding what would have been 80 kilowatt hours over that period back into our totals would be enough to get back over the 9 MWh mark.
We had built up enough surplus over the summer and fall that I was sure we would cover the winter deficit. We did cover through January, but the 10 day February shortfall used up the surplus and left us with a small bill (about $22) for that month. Fortunately, we are back in surplus again in March.
As a review, the way our billing works, the March/April bills produce a large surplus (days are longer, sun is higher, no AC) but this gets zeroed out at the end of the April billing period and we get a check in May for the supplier portion of this surplus. The utility keeps the delivery portion.
(Incidentally, the delivery portion has roughly doubled recently, from 2.5 cents to about 5 cents per KWh so electricity now costs about 16 cents per KWh – it was about 10.7 cents early in our journey).
This means we resume building a surplus to carry us through the winter (October – February) starting in May.
I sometimes get asked about the ‘payoff date.’ This is the amount of time until the savings from not paying an electric bill equals the cost of the system. Honestly, I don’t know when that will be as one factor is the current cost of electricity. As that increases, now up about 50% from when we went operational, that date shrinks.
I have rather focused on what the cost of electricity will be for us over the 25 year guaranteed life of the panels. By the way, they keep producing electricity in year 26!
Assuming our panels generate at least 200 MWh over the 25 year period (which seems conservative, as they have generated 46 MWh in the first five years) and assuming the SREC market supports a price of $50/MWh (this is not guaranteed at all – it is currently about $4/SREC in Ohio and over $300 in New Jersey and DC), and that our March/April surplus averages about $60/year, the total cost of the power our panels will generate will have cost us about 2-4 cents per KWh. That is a good deal.
Of course we will have to pay market rates for anything we consume above what the panels generate, but that is to be expected. As of now though, our electricity use continues to decline, as evidenced by the meter continuing to run backward, compared to the same month of the prior year. Should we get an EV sometime in the future, or convert our heat and hot water to electricity this will of course change.
Whether solar panels are a good deal are very much dependent on site location, federal and local $$ help with the project and whether there is something like an SREC market. For this project specifically, it seems to be a great deal.
Here is the comparative overview of the past 5 years on a monthly basis:
Our solar panels have been active for four years. In the first two years we used more electricity than the panels produced. I know this because I follow the electric meter almost obsessively. When the meter shows a low positive number, it means we are using more than we are producing, as of that moment in time since the panels went live. If the meter runs backwards (into the 99000s), then we have cumulatively produced more electricity than we have consumed.
I record the meter reading every March 26th around 1:30 PM, the approximate time we went live in 2019. Following are the readings and cumulative production totals at the end of each year:
Year ending March 26
Meter Reading (Kilowatt Hours)
Cumulative Production (MWh)
Annual Production (MWh)
2020
00455
9.67
9.67
2021
01098
18.77
9.1
2022
00387
28.1
9.33
2023
99602
37.25
9.15
After year’s one and two I had concluded that we should have installed a few more panels to be energy neutral. However, I also knew that over time we would probably use less electricity and that has proven to be true. We are now 853 KwH ahead (398 to get back to all 00000 + 455 above that.
Should we get an electric car or convert to electric heat/hot water (currently on natural gas), we would be under producing.
Under the current Maryland net-metering system, excess generation is paid out in May, based on the surplus KWh at the end of April meter reading. Since March and April are both good surplus months (days are longer, sun is higher, but no AC yet), this means the typical customer receives a check each May for the commodity portion of this surplus. Recall that the other major portion of a bill is the delivery fee. This is kept by the utility company.
There is one issue with this current system. Because the March/April surplus is paid out (albeit at about 2/3 the actual rate), we do not quite generate enough surplus May-September to carry us completely through the winter, although this year we came pretty close. This means we have to pay the full price for the energy consumed once our surplus is used up. Our first two winters this cost us about $135 each. We got better though in year’s three and four building up our summer surplus. These winters only cost us about $26 and $11 respectively.
A new law has recently passed the Maryland General Assembly that, if signed by the governor, will create an additional option, to accumulate this surplus indefinitely until the surplus is used up (for example by buying an EV) or until the account is closed.
Is solar a good deal in Maryland?
I continue analyzing our experience in light of the question, is this a good deal, and if so, for whom. Most people think in terms of payback time, which for us is looking to be about 10 years. Since the panels have at least a 25 year life span, this seems like a good deal if one has the money to install the system and one expects to stay in the home long enough to realize the benefit.
Another way to look at the problem is Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). My after tax cost for my system was $16,500 (This is documented in previous posts). To determine 10 year TCO we have to make some assumptions:
MWh generated : 90
SREC $$ generated: $4500 ($50/MWh)
May surplus re-imbursed: $600 ($60/year)
Subtracting the SREC payments and the May surplus checks from my after tax cost brings my 10 year cost to $11,400. Dividing this by 90 yields about $127 per MWh or 0.127 per KwH. This is about what rates are now. Will they go up over the next 6 years? I expect so, but I do not know.
Over a 25 year period, these TCO numbers look even better:
MWh generated: 200 (assuming a decline in output as the system gets older)
SREC $$ generated: $10,000 ($50/MWh)
May surplus re-imbursed: $1500 ($60/year)
This brings the cost down to $5000 for 200 MWh generated, which works out to $25/MWH or 0.025 (two and one-half cents per kilowatt hour). This seems like a great deal to me.
Note that we do not know how long the SREC program will exist or how the May reimbursement program will work – if we end up switching to the infinitely cumulative surplus, we could perhaps build enough surplus to power an EV for a long time, so these calculations are all subject to change. The point though is that the lifetime cost of the panels should be significantly less than the utility rates for the same amount of electricity.
In my Year 2 Report, I mentioned that we would have needed 2 more panels to generate more electricity than we consumed. That’s because the meter reading at the end of year 2 (March 26, 2021 at 1:30 PM) was 01098 and our worst panel had produced about 257 KWh/year.
What a difference a year makes. On March 26, 2022 the meter reading was 00387. This means we consumed 712 KWh less than we produced this year (1098 – 387). The 3 year reading for our worst panel was 778.2 KWh. So one more panel that was at least as good as our poorest producing panel would have put is in the black (the meter reading would have been negative).
Does this mean we produced 712 KWh more this year than last year? No. Here are the meter readings and total production for the first 3 years:
Meter Reading
Annual Total
Cumulative Total
0455
9.67
9.67
01098
9.1
18.77
00387
9.33
28.1
First 3 years of production
We produced a little more in year 3 than in year 2 (230 KWh), but the main reason for the improvement was a reduction in consumption (482 KWh). This reduction allowed us to build up a greater surplus going into the winter months so that we only had an electric bill for two months of the year, for a total of 200 KWh. The only reason we had these two bills at all is because BGE, our utility company, zeroes out the surplus after the April reading and sends us a check for the surplus supply amount we generate each March and April. This means we do not have enough credits by the end of the winter and so we have to pay for what we do not produce those last few months.
As you may recall from previous posts, the electric bill is divided into supply and delivery (and smaller amount for the meter charge and taxes). The delivery amount is about 3.5 cents per KWh.
Date
KWh
Rate (Supply)
Check Amount
5/20/2019
446
0.0879
39.20
5/22/2020
535
0.082809
44.30
5/24/2021
913
0.071446
65.23
Total
1894
148.73
Payment for March/April Surplus
I will not get a check for this year’s surplus until late May, but using .08 per KWh as an estimate for the supply rate and 300 KWh for the March surplus (300 * .08 = $24), we can guess that the total March/April surplus by the end of year 3 is about $173.
The $24 amount is interesting for the March surplus, as the cost for the 200 KWh that we got charged for in January and February (due to the zeroing out the previous March) was approximately $24 as well. If BGE did not zero out the surplus each year we would have essentially had no electric bill this year, except for the (approximately) $100 per year they charge for the meter (labeled as a customer charge).
Looking at this over the 3 year period, we used 129 KWh more per year (averaged out) than we consumed. This is calculated by dividing the meter reading (00387) at the end of year 3 by 3. Rounding a bit, using 0.12 per KWh or $120 per MWh, in theory we should have paid on average $15.48 per year, or $46.44 total over three years. In fact, because we are not compensated for the delivery portion of the March/April surplus, we paid more. Following is the approximate reconciliation:
Amount
Comments
Amount paid
$595
What we sent BGE over 3 years
Meter charge
$300
Approximate (varied from $8.22 – 8.75/month)
Net paid for electricity
$295
$595 – 295
Surplus BGE paid us for
$173
includes guess for March 2022
Actual bill for electricity
$122
$295 – 173
Delivery not reimbursed
$77
Approximate using .035 per KWh
Net should have paid
$45
Reconciliation of what we should have paid vs actual based on meter reading
So the amount we should have paid reconciles with the amount we actually paid. Effectively, the March/April surplus zero-out cost us an additional $2.14 per month.
How did we reduce consumption by almost 1/2 MWh? I’m not sure. Some of it was intentional. We found a few more bulbs to convert to LED. We set our thermostats a little differently, focusing on comfort at the end of the house we were in and reducing/increasing the setting at the other end. We took a couple of short trips, 3-5 days each and set the thermostat higher while we were gone. Finally, my wife required more sleep this year due to her health, and so she was generating less electricity while sleeping. I expected we would use less over time as we got older and as appliances got more efficient, but we have not replaced anything yet.
I have noted previously that the amount of solar energy we convert to electricity is highly dependent on how cloudy/rainy it is. Panels theoretically degrade slightly as the year goes on. However, we can see from this snapshot that more recent quarters sometimes produced more electricity than older quarters.
One last picture, to show that we had surpluses (or accumulated surpluses to zero out our bill in every month this past year but two:
One last note. As our annual production was over 9 MWh each year, we produced our 28th SREC on March 22, 4 days before the end of year 3.
Please respond with any comments or questions. I enjoy helping people decide if solar panels are a good opportunity.
(This post is now the latest in this on-going series. Here is Part 1).
The sales information on solar panels state that year two may see a loss of power produced of about 2%. Unfortunately, there is no way to tell if that occurred for our panels. In order to measure this, the weather would have to be identical each year, including the timing and density of clouds and rain. These two items play a much larger factor in how much this site produces.
This year snow was a small factor. Usually we have a warmer, sunny day after a snowfall. This year it snowed just ahead of the polar vortex that caused so much trouble in Texas and other places, so instead of melting off almost immediately, the snow stayed on the panels for several days, reducing output for those days.
Did I mention that my dog ate my homework? OK, enough excuses, here are the numbers:
Annual Electric Usage for March 27, 2020 – March 30 2021
Again we had 8 months of 0 billing and partial billing for 4 months. The sun does not provide much energy in the winter months.
Following are the meter readings at the beginning and at the annual anniversaries:
Date
Meter Reading
Accumulated Production
Annual Production
03/26/2019
00012
0
0
03/26/2020
00455
9.67 MWh
9.67 MWh
03/26/2021
01098
18.77 MWh
9.10 MWh
Data needed for calculating $ benefit of our solar panels. Readings taken at 1:30 PM on these days
The meter reading indicates that we are falling further behind (continuing to use more power than we produce.
Year 1: 9.67 + 0.433 means we used about 10100 KWh
Year 2 the meter went up 643 KWh over Year 1 (01098 – 00455). So year 2 usage is 9.10 + .643 = 9743 KWh. So we cut our usage by about 357 KWh for the year, but due to some combination of weather and normal 2nd year reduction, production dropped 570 KWh. Clouds got in the way.
Here is the full spreadsheet:
Two years of BGE electric bills after installing our solar panels.
Our cumulative spend for this period is $469.07. Subtract out about $200 for the meter costs (typically $8.32 a month) for an adjusted cost of $270.
BGE zeroes out any accumulated surplus based on the end of April reading. They pay us for the supply price of the surplus we generate in March and April. We will not have this number until late May. The cumulative total of the previous 2 checks was $83.50.
Assuming for the sake of discussion we get about $40 this coming May, these checks total about $123.00.
The price of electricity all in (supply, delivery, taxes) has actually gone DOWN since we installed our system. It was a little over 0.12 per KWh in year one and a little less than 0.11 per KWh in year 2. For a quick calculation, let’s use .1125 to see how much we have saved:
18770 KWh * .1125/KWh = $2112 – estimated value of energy produced.
Our last data point is the dollar value of the SRECs produced. To date we have received $895. In May we will receive $55 for the SREC produced in March, bringing this total to $950.
Approximate dollar value realized to date – $3185:
$2112 + $950 + $123 = $3185 – This is how much we did not pay ($2112) + real checks we got from BGE. Our installation cost after incentives was $16500. To date we have recovered about 19.3% of these costs (3185/16500). Because electricity costs have gone down (and perhaps because of those persnickity clouds) we are on track to recover our costs in a little over 10 years now.
The following chart shows that weather may play the most important role in power production:
Monthly Generation – Predicted vs Actual
Predicted
2019 Actual
2020 Actual
2021 Actual
January
487.8
326.78
302.78
February
607.3
516.92
376.02
March
944.8
848.07
1020
April
1095.4
949
1010
May
1231.5
1110
1150
June
1295.4
1260
1260
July
1284
1310
1320
August
1121.7
1130
1040
September
950.2
831
733
October
765.4
463
428.86
November
473.3
349
305.71
December
392.9
254
231.54
adjustment*
354
10649.7
8010
9170.88
*Note: April, May 2019 had some reading errors so totals are really higher
About 355 KWh readings not recorded properly
Predicted generation vs actual, by month
As noted above, April and May of 2019 had some monitoring errors (corrected by the company that collects the data) so these numbers are not necessarily comparable against 2020. It is clear that this past fall we had much poorer conditions than the previous fall. But then look at March 2021 – Much better readings than March of 2020 and much higher than the predicted number.
Last year I concluded that if we had installed two more panels that produced at least as well as our poorest producing panels we would break even. That still seems to be about true:
Two years of solar production per panel.
The worst panel shows a two year cumulative production of 513.62 KWh. The best panel produced 621.13 KWh during this period. So, 2 panels producing somewhere in-between would have broken even more or less.
As the surplus generated in March and April is paid off in May instead of crediting against the following fall/winter shortage, it would take another panel or 2 to avoid having a bill at all, except for the meter cost.
(This is the latest in an on-going series. Here is Part 1).
As 2019 wraps up, I have some good news and some not-so-good news to report.
First, the good news: in November we got paid $213.32 for the 4 SRECs we generated in the 3rd quarter (July – Sep). These were SRECs 4 – 7. (1 SREC = 1 Megawatt Hour of electricity generated. )
Now, the not-so-good news: in the 4th quarter (Oct – Dec), production dropped off drastically. It took us until Dec 21, 84 days, to generate our 8th SREC.
Megawatt (SREC) History
Date
MWh
Days
Cumulative
3/26/2019
0
4/21/2019
1
27
27
5/21/2019
2
30
57
6/14/2019
3
24
81
7/6/2019
4
22
103
7/30/2019
5
24
127
8/26/2019
6
27
154
9/28/2019
7
33
187
12/21/2019
8
84
271
From the table above, you can see that the time to generate each of the first 7 SRECs ranged from 22 to 33 days. Comparatively speaking, that 8th SREC took forever.
So, what happened? As mentioned in Part 9, the sun got much lower in the sky and the days got shorter. The oak trees on the south side of my house (some of which are in my neighbor’s yard) did not drop their leaves until early December. Finally, we had a lot of cloudy days. These factors all combined to lower power production greatly. Shown below in picture form:
Through the end of September’s billing period, we had built up a surplus of almost 600 KWh. By the end of November’s billing period we had used it all up, and then some. We owed our electric company about $5 above the $8.22 charge for the meter. So in December, we were billed for all of the electricity we used, less the 255 KWh that we generated. See the chart:
Date Due
Billing Period
Current Reading
Previous Reading
Metered Usage
Carryover Applied
Accrued Carryover
Amount Owed
5/20/2019
3/26 – 4/24
99566
12
-446
0
-446
8.26
6/20/2019
4/24 – 5/23
99265
99566
-300
0
-300
8.26
7/24/2019
5/23 – 6/26
98971
99265
-295
0
-595
8.22
22-Aug
6/26 – 7/26
98982
98971
11
11
-584
8.22
9/23/2019
7/26 – 8/26
99009
98982
27
27
-557
8.22
10/21/2019
8/26 – 9/25
98967
99009
-42
0
-599
8.22
11/22/2019
9/25 – 10/28
99262
98967
295
295
-304
8.22
12/19/2019
10/28 – 11/25
99608
99262
346
304
0
13.21
1/22/2020
11/25 – 12/27
83
99608
475
0
0
65.86
In picture form, here is our electricity usage (from our utility) – solar panels went live 3/26. Our billing cycle begins about the 26th of each month (varies slightly).
Agreeing with the Judy Collins’ song, I really don’t like clouds, at all. Here is what cloudy/rainy days in December look like compared to more normal days:
The really short lines around the 1st and the 15th of the month (and a few others) are examples of very low production on cloudy/rainy days. On good days in December, production tops 10 KWh. Compare that to the summer months, where a good day produces over 50 KWh. Big difference!
So what is the take away from this post? When we went live on March 26 our meter read 00012. When they read the meter for our Dec 27 billing, it read 00083. So in 9 months, we have used a net 71 KWh from our utility. In other words we have produced all of the electricity we need to run our house from our solar panels over this 9 month period, less about 3 days. Not too shabby.
As the days get longer and the sun gets higher, here are my predictions for the next 3 months:
January we will still be in the red, using more than we produce, but less than December. I am hoping we cut the December overage (475 KWh) in half.
February we will do even better, and I hope we cut the overage in half again.
That would mean we get billed for about 240 KWh in January and 120 KWh in February, or 360 KWh total.
In March I expect we will generate a surplus.
I will let you know how it turned out in future posts.
If you enjoy reading these updates, please drop me a note. I will be happy to respond to questions as well.
The idea that I could choose my own electricity provider made me laugh when I first started getting those pitches trying to get me to convert to another supplier. The more I look at this today, the more I wonder if this isn’t a giant scam. I don’t often use hyperbole, but in this case, it may be apt.
To recap from my solar panel series, your electric bill is divided into 3 parts:
Supplier Charges
Distribution (or delivery) Charges
Taxes and fees
In theory, you are choosing the supplier for your electricity and paying them a rate based on your sign-up agreement (which often comes with a low introductory rate and/or some incentive to switch, such as a gift card).
In fact, you are only choosing what your energy biller does with the money you send them – who they send the supplier portion of the proceeds to (for a fee I am sure).
You may think if you choose a 100% wind energy option that the electricity you consume comes 100% from wind.
You would be 97.37% wrong – if you live in my part of the country, anyway. At least for the year 2018 (a table further down in this article will show this).
In order to explain what I think is really happening, and what, if anything, you should do about this, I will need to use an analogy, explain some terminology, and conduct some thought experiments.
Ready?
The Analogy – how do you get your water?
Turn on any water or shower faucet or flush any toilet in your house and what happens? Water instantly starts flowing into the sink or shower, or after a few seconds into the toilet tank.
How does this happen? If you go camping and use a well at a campsite you may have to prime a pump. Not in your home though. The water flows instantly at the turn of the faucet.
Somewhere near you there is a water tower. It is a large reservoir of water high off the ground, probably higher than any floor in your house.
Large pipes come out of this tower and span out in all directions (we will assume this tower is central to all of its customers for simplicity). As the pipes get closer to specific neighborhoods or business districts the pipes probably get smaller and split off again. A smaller pipe runs beneath your street. A smaller pipe connects through a water meter, under your yard, into your house. From there pipes run to each cold water faucet and toilet. One branch of the piping runs to the hot water tank (or tankless system) and then connects to all the hot water faucets.
At any point in time the system is under pressure from the water tower all the way to each of your faucets and toilet tanks.
Unless of course they have posted those signs warning of ‘flushing of mains’. In this case when you turn on the faucet, you hear spurts and sputters and air.
That exceptional time aside, there is an unbroken connection of water from the tower to you, making this instantaneous draw of water possible.
Thought Experiment #1
Suppose the water tower gets its water from 3 suppliers. Suppose also that you are allowed to choose your own supplier.
Knowing that the water in the water tower tank is mixing in the water from its 3 suppliers, do you really think there is any way possible that the water you receive could come from just one of the three sources that you choose?
I hope you are not going to suggest that the water company build 3 separate output systems that run all the way from your tower to your house so you can choose which water you use!
As absurd as that is, let’s say they did. Now a 4th supplier shows up. Uh Oh. Now we have to build a fourth set of pipes to your house so you can ‘choose your supplier’.
So it goes with electricity. There is a regional ‘highway’ that suppliers feed electricity into. The highway distributes electricity to substations (akin to our local water towers), which in turn electrify the local lines leading to our homes. You see this highway as the high-voltage power lines that sit above tall towers.
In the Mid-Atlantic area (roughly) the owner of this highway is called PJM. It is named for the three original states it was originally designed to distribute electricity in: Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland.
PJM supplies your local electric utility, which in turn has the responsibility to monitor the local grid to ensure that your electric outlets (and everyone else’s of course) will produce electricity when you plug something in or turn something on, much as your local water utility keeps water running to your faucets.
PJM has grown to include other states. Per their web site:
PJM Interconnection is a regional transmission organization (RTO) that coordinates the movement of wholesale electricity in all or parts of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia.
So if you are a power producer in this region, you file the appropriate paperwork, pay the appropriate fees, conduct the required engineering studies, and upon acceptance, PJM installs the proper equipment to connect your power to this highway (aka, the ‘grid’).
The point is that your electricity comes from this highway, and all of its sources. So what do these sources look like? Each of these companies files a report in the state of Maryland to explain what the sources of electricity are in this state. They all look remarkably similar (there are minor differences due to the exact date range of the report). This is because, in fact (in the fine print) they are all getting this information from PJM. Here is what the report looks like (just picking one example, but they are all similar to this):
In this specific example, about 94% of Maryland customer’s electricity comes from Nuclear, Natural Gas and Coal. Less that 3% comes from wind, 1.5% comes from Hydroelectric, and just over 1% comes from all other renewables.
The point is that the table above seems to only change a small amount year to year. So you may pick a ‘provider’ that advertises that it is a wind or solar producer. The supply portion of your bill will be funneled to them through your local electric utility. That may provide them with the revenue they need to stay in business and even expand. All of this may be a good thing. I am not trying to discourage anyone from picking one of these suppliers. But if you do, please, do not make the claim that your energy is provided by a wind or solar company.
This is simply NOT the case.
Thought experiment #2
You campaign vigorously and get everyone in Maryland to choose the same wind farm as their supplier. Does anyone believe for a moment that the nuclear, natural gas, and coal plants would all simply shut down so that this wind farm can supply 100% of the electricity in Maryland?
This is not technologically possible today. First, the wind farm would have to be huge, large enough to supply all of Maryland’s needs. Second, the wind is not always blowing where the wind farm is located, so the wind farm would have to invest in a storage system large enough to provide the state’s customers with energy 7*24*365. There are stories about this happening in Australia and California to a limited extent, but as of this writing it is a very expensive investment.
In the unlikely event this happened, the nuclear, coal, and natural gas plants might still not shut down. PJM would still allow their power to feed the grid, as it is supplying energy to the large region described above. As PJM’s highway system of high voltage lines runs near your local substation, these local plants are going to in practice still energize these nearby substations, as well as supplying energy to all of the states covered by this company.
So, keep up with the news, pick the supplier of your choice, and perhaps one day we will all be supplied by renewable energy most or all of the time. Understand though that this is a long journey.
If you work in the IT or Engineering fields you are probably well aware of the expression RTFM – Read the Fine Manual (google it for the more vernacular translation).
I am coining a similar term: RTFP – Read the Fine Print. No vernacular needed.
Truth is, I got this expression from my wife – the next three paragraphs are a (meant-to-be) humorous explanation of how this occurred.
In the Jewish tradition, a marriage has a legal document called the Ketubah, which is the document given by the groom to the bride that lists his obligations. It is written in Aramaic, my understanding of which is a bit rusty.
The Ketubah often comes up in those memorable discussions a married couple have whereby my wife explains to me that I will end up doing something she wants because, you guessed it, I didn’t read the fine print.
As in ‘Why am I the one who always has to take out the garbage?’ “It’s in the Ketubah,” she tells me. Apparently I didn’t RTFP.
Back to our main topic.
In previous posts I had mentioned that Anne Arundel County offers a $2500 property tax credit for installing solar panels. My salesman did ask me if I am paying that much in property taxes (which I am – but here comes RTFP).
I received the following letter from the county:
RTFP: taxes levied on the building, not the land,,,
In case you have not seen an AA County tax bill, it looks something like this:
Homestead Credit and Land value reduced the solar tax credit.
The portion of the bill attributed to my county tax starts at $3859. This first gets reduced by my homestead credit by $1465, leaving $2394. (The homestead credit limits increases in property taxes for primary residents, to avoid forcing owners from having to sell due to higher taxes – very beneficial to retirees on a fixed income.)
As the letter states, the tax is only on the building, meaning it is not on the land. Our house holds just over 59% of the value of our property. So the math looks something like this:
Initial Property Tax: $3859 Subtract Homestead Credit $1465 $3859 – 1465 = $2394 — remaining property tax Calculate Building to Total ratio: 243,600/412,800 = 0.59 rounded. $2394 * 0.59 = $1412 — the value of our solar credit
As the letter states, this is a one-time credit – no carry over into next year. So that is it. Because of the fine print, our county property tax solar credit is $1412, instead of $2500.
In other words, the price we will end up paying after incentives will be about $1088 higher than the roughly $15,400 we projected, or closer to $16,500.
Note that we did not lose anything here – this was always how the tax credit was going to work. The only change is in my less-than-perfect break even calculations. That number is a best guess anyway, and will only be revealed as we take this journey. The information on how this tax credit works was probably available from the county. My calculations are only off because I did not RTFP.
Two updates regarding previous posts:
The web site where you can track SREC values is here. The price has varied a bit in the last few months, rising as high as $67.50 for a couple of days, but settling in around $50 as I write this. It will be a few months before we receive our first check.
The July bill came in. We almost broke even this month, consuming 11 KWh more than we produced. This was subtracted from our roughly 1/2 MWh surplus to date:
AC is expensive: first month we used more than we produced – but barely
Googling ‘social benefits of solar power’ or something similar retrieves a large number of solar company articles talking about things like local jobs, less pollution, less fossil fuel generation, blah, blah, blah.
While there may be some truth to this, mostly it is an appeal to the tree-hugger in you to entice you to sign a contract.
To be clear, as outlined in previous posts, we installed our panels to help ourselves. We are lowering future budgeted costs to reduce the amount spent from drawing down retirement savings on these costs, perhaps if we so choose, to spend them on something else. When was the last time you heard someone express joy upon paying their electric bill?
This is nothing more than the invisible hand at work. However, as with most tax policy, the government has deemed it socially desirable to reward higher earning taxpayers for doing something they feel benfits society, in exchange for reducing their taxes. In effect, the government has added a few fingers to the invisible hand.
The combined Federal, State, and County purchase incentives account for over 42% of the purchase price for the system we bought. The combination of electric bill reduction to near zero (about $100 a year for the meter) plus the potential for $600 – $800 per year in income for the next 25 years, justifies the purchase in and of itself.
About that $600-800 number. This comes from estimating our production overage at 2 MWh per year (worth about $176 at today’s rates) plus the current SREC rate of about $50 per MWh * 12 MWh output estimated per year generates this yet to be proven number. Note that all items here are variables subject to change, so the cash flow is also likely to be volatile.
When I first started journaling this effort, SRECs were only worth about $15 each after brokerage fees. The Maryland legislature has since mandated an increase in renewable energy incrementally over the next decade or so, including an increasing amount from solar. The day the legislation passed, the SREC market in Maryland jumped to $55 ($50 net to owners after the brokerage fee). We will probably generate about 12 MWh per year.
SRECs trade in a marketplace subject to supply and demand. The utility companies buy SRECs in lieu of producing their own solar power – this is the demand. The supply of course are the rooftops (and any solar farms communities might deploy). If this legislation results in a large increase in deployed solar panels in Maryland the market price of SRECs will drop accordingly.
The paragraphs above explain how the government is incentivizing high earning taxpayers to install solar. That does not really answer the original question, what is the social utility of going solar – it just describes the economic price the various government units are willing to pay.
To understand the benefit to society in real terms, understand this very important fact about electricity – it is used immediately upon generation.
You may read about some battery storage systems in Australia or some water pumping schemes to move water uphill when demand and rates are low and flow it through generators when rates are high.
These storage or time of day arbitrage efforts are real but to date represent a small percentage of electricity generation. For the most part, as of today, electricity is generated and used. Or not. If the electricity is generated and not used it is for the most part wasted.
To complete the thought we will use a traffic analogy. Picture any of the various loops (beltways) that surround many of our cities. They may be 6 lane in some places, 8 lanes in others, maybe even more in some larger cities. No matter how wide they are, there is still a time of day when traffic is very dense and moves very slowly.
There is typically other times of the day (or weekends and holidays) when these roads are under used. An accident can realy mess things up, especially at rush hour. (Why do they call it rush hour anyway? – no one is moving very quickly – an oxymoron if there ever was one!)
It is impossible to build these roads to perfectly accomodate demand. Some highways are adding time of use tolls, HOV lanes and reversible lanes to accomodate and/or shape demand. These can help, but there are limits to what they can accomplish.
Electric utilities have their own time of day usage patterns. Demand rises as people rise in the morning, levels off as they go to work, increases again when they get home, and lowers greatly when everyone goes to bed.
Just as it would be economically and practically foolish/difficult to build enough highway capacity for the worst rush hour traffic, it is similarly economically and practically foolish/difficult for the electric company to build enough capacity to satisfy the highest demand.
Electricity plants (whatever their source) are expensive. So is electricity storage – maybe that will change but it is true today. So building enough to supply at the highest demand results in either:
generation of electricity that is wasted when no one wants it, or
building plants that sit idle much of the time.
Neither option is smart.
Instead, utilities generate enough of their own power to satisfy some reasonable amount of demand and then buy the rest of the electricity from external suppliers as needed. This is known as the spot market.
Spot prices can vary – as mentioned above, unused electricity is wasted. So when the larger market (beyond the local utility) is not demanding much electricity from external suppliers, the spot market is inexpensive.
Given all of this information, here are some ways that rooftop solar systems help utilities and their neighbors:
to the extent we are using our own electricity at times of high demand, the utility has that much less it needs to supply and therefore that much less it needs to buy on the spot market at high prices.
if we are generating more electricity than we need at times of high demand we are effectively supplying our neighbors with our surplus, as it goes back through the net-meter, reducing the amount utilties may have to buy fromthe spot market.
to some extent, these first two factors must be reducing the load on the wires from the nearest substation to our neighborhood, hopefully reducing the likliehood of transformers or other components failing.
to some extent, these first two factors are also reducing the likelihood of brownouts and blackouts, assuming they reduce the peak demand on transmission components.
in some markets the utilities can sell excess capacity to the spot market and will do so when the spot market is buying for a price higher than what they sell it their customers. So the electricity generated by rooftop solar frees up additional capacity for them to sell. This helps the utility make more money, which benefits its shareholders, but should have some impact on keeping rate hikes for customers down, either by amount or by frequency.
This line of reasoning supports something we did not do, but something utilities should encourage: installing panels on the west side of a house. One counter-argument to my reasoning above is that solar panels produce less as the sun is setting, when demand is rising. This is of course specific to certain times of the year.
If the sun is not setting until 8:30 or later, this is past the surge point, although to be fair, solar power is dropping off for me at 5 PM, though it continues at a lower rate until close to sunset.
There are two factors at play in our situation:
no west facing panels
generation 1 solar system – we have a large tree on the west side of our house that is close enough and large enough to provide the original solar power – shade, and lots of it. So as we pass 5 PM the ever lengthening shadows cover not only the west side of my house, but the southern roof where my panels are.
During times other than the peak summer days, when leaves are not on this tree and the sun sets more to the southwest, we are still providing power when people come home from work and at a minimum, we are not contributing much, if anything to the increase in demand.
In summary, install solar if you benefit economically from it. If enough people make this selfish decision, the community as a whole will benefit. All the other arguments about fossil fuel reduction, cleaner air, etc. are nice, but are not germane to helping you achieve your financial goals.
In Part 4 I explained why we selected Solar Energy World as our vendor. This post is about the fantastic job they did end to end to get this system installed and operational. I tried to document each step and I am including the dates (where I can document them) to give you some perspective on how long a project like this can take.
Solar Energy World handled all steps of the process (except where a government person, e.g. an inspector or a utility person are required as noted below). This is not true of all solar power companies. Some of them consist of mostly a sales team with all other services, including installation, are contracted out.
The major steps occurred as follows:
WeSigned the Contract – 02/08/2019
agreed on a system and a price (with understanding that it might be modified when reviewed by the experts). In our case that was 34 300 watt panels.
payed the deposit (I used a credit card for the points)
Solar Expert comes to house, measures dimensions, takes photos, prepares report -02/19/2019
In any solar installation project the salesperson does the upfront work to qualify the customer, answer questions, create a preliminary proposal which is encapsulated into the sales contract and close the deal. From that point on a team takes over to shepherd the process to completion. It is possible for example that the specific installation details may need to change based on a number of factors and the contract indicates that a review will take place, a report will be prepared and a final sign-off will be requested from us.
The first person on the scene is someone who begins the process of validating that the number of panels agreed to in the preliminary design is valid and realistic. For this to occur, this person has to take some measurements. A sample from the report that was prepared based on these measurements is shown a few paragraphs below.
In our case, the guy who came had a great sense of humor. He measured the obvious south-facing roof section over our bedrooms and used a special camera that gets a roof based perspective of the sun – it is used to identify possible shade issues and to project how much sun falls on the roof at different times each year. He climbed onto the roof and took the pictures from several places at several angles.
When he was done, I asked if he was going to measure an additional section over my garage. He said that would be $100 extra. He waited a second, then grinned big. Almost had me.
The data collected by the guy on the roof is fed into a software program that prepares a report which is used to validate or modify the proposal mentioned in the contract.
The report that came back for us suggest that 34 panels was just about the right amount to cover our electric bill. My salesman reminded me that the software they used could not tell dark shade from light shade, so the results were probably a bit pessimistic. (A few more paragraphs below you will see one of the photos from this report.)
Dark shade? Light shade? To help explain this, let me propose this thought experiment: suppose I drape a towel over a solar panel – how much electricity can it generate? If you said zero, you are still with me. That would be dark shade. No light gets through.
Now if I take that towel and move it 100 feet up and towards the sun from my house, how much electricity will the panel generate? I don’t know, and neither does the software. Clearly the sun will move through the sky and light will filter around the towel, such that some light is always hitting the panel. That is what I am calling light shade.
While it may not produce the most it could if the towel were not there, it will always produce something. So the installed system is likely to outproduce the amount predicted by the report.
There are trees at the edge of my yard (about 50-100 feet and further from the house) that are perhaps as much as 80 feet or more tall. Some are thin scraggly pines and some have seasonal leaves. So depending on how high the sun is in the sky and whether it is summer or winter, there will be some filtering of the light, but most of the light should still get through. (I am finding this to be true by the way).
The contract estimated the proposed system would produce 9.7 MWh per year but after review, the estimate was upped to 10.649 MWh. I think they are still under but time will tell. As I showed in Part 2, we used about 10.56 MWh the twelve months prior to installation, so the proposed installation appears to cover us right at 100%.
Following is one example of the perspective from one part of my roof, showing how much sun should fall throughout the year and the effect of the distant trees – the yellow area is the sunshine, the green area the shade:
View of the sky from my roof and estimated solar amount throughout the year, as affected by shading. 100% would indicate no shade.
Contract is finalized, approved – 02/23/2109
I reviewed the report and approved the final design .
Permits, other paperwork filled out
There is a lot of paperwork that must be done prior to and even after installation and the folks at Solar Energy World did a great job. I don’t show dates for these items as they occurred through the life of the project, but the first two below were needed for installation work to begin. Some Items of note:
Construction Permit
Interconnection Agreement – for our utility company
Tax paperwork (for both state payment and county tax property tax credit)
Final inspection
SREC agreement – for payment of Solar Renewable Energy Credits post installation
Installation 03/08/2019 – they tell me it was record time. A slot opened up, they had all the equipment ready, they called me Thursday March 7, and the installers were on my premises on Friday, March 8th. Normally it is a month or more from final approval before installation begins.
The installation team consisted of 4 people. Two were up on the roof installing the panels and two worked on the inverter and all the electrical connections.
The guys on the roof were tied into harnesses and ropes they had secured to the roof at the outset. Everything about this installation was done with safety in mind. Nothing was left on the ground. This was an end-to-end professional job.
Note the safety harness – no one is falling off this roof!Hooking up the electronicsThe inverter, shutoff, and connection to our meter.
Testing, validation 03/11/2019 The installation is supposed to take one day but it snowed a small amount that afternoon so they were not able to test. They returned on the 11th to do their testing, which just took a few hours.
Final Payment – 03/12/2019 – I received a notice that my installation was substantially complete and I needed to make my final payment, which I did. Once that was received, Solar Energy World contacted my county to do the inspection.
Inspection – 03/20/2019
The county inspector confirmed both the outside installation and the hookup inside my power panel in the basement.
For those of you who may be curious about how the inverter is connected to our power panel, the inspector explained to me how the 4 wires that came into this panel were connected (1 ground, 1 neutral, and 1 each to the two 100 amp feeds coming in from the utility company).
More importantly, he passed the inspection!
Utility notification – 03/20/19 Solar Energy World sent the completed paperwork to our utility company.
Meter Installation – 03/25/19 – around 7:30 am we heard a knock on the door. Our utility person was on our porch holding the new meter. Amazingly, he was able to swap out the old meter with the new net-meter without us losing power. He set the new meter at 00000.
I asked him if I could turn the solar panels on when he was done – not yet, he explained – they still had to set up the billing properly at the utility company. They had to close out the old reading for a final bill on the old meter and start us on our new billing cycle with the new net-meter. This would happen after he returned to the office. In the meantime, I am chomping at the bit – we are this close (picture me holding my finger and thumb about a quarter inch apart).
Notification to turn on – 03/26/19
The next day I received an email permitting me to activate the panels. I was busy at work and did not notice it for several hours. When I finally read the email, I rushed home, asked my wife to come with me and together we threw the cutoff switch to the on position. By this time the meter had advanced to 00012, meaning we had used 12 KWh on the new billing cycle.
It was a sunny day and even though it was about 1:45 PM, we still got about 20 KWh that first day. By the next day we had rolled the meter back into the 99999s and have never looked back. We have been producing more power than we have been consuming most days since.
In my next post I will talk about some post-installation operational challenges and will show a picture of the completed system.
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):
Real quotes on our Energy Sage page.
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:
Use EnergySage.com to get bids from approved installers in your area, and to learn more about the process.
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…
