Centro Solar panels and company?

[gheewala114]

They use "whatever" panel because they have a solar lease contract that is heavily in their favor. So if a few panels go out, they just don't worry about it. I remember sitting down for lunch with an area manager of a particular nationwide solar leasing outfit and the conversation moved to damaged panels from hail, golf balls and such. For some things we both agreed that an insurance rider was appropriate.

I asked what their response to damaged panels was and his response was "unless the system is getting close to going under the power production numbers over its life, we really don't give a crap."

Knowing how meager the power production numbers are, if you outproduce it in the first few years, the company really doesn't have to do much at all until they are in danger of having to actually compensate the homeowner.


So in short, they use POS panels because the contract protects them from having to worry about a few malfunctioning panels, because the often meager power production guarantee is the only one you get.

Krenn - I recently received a quote for a 10.5kw system with enphase microinverters. This is a prepaid PPA quote so it has cumulative 20 year power production guarantee which is approx 300,000 kwh or approx 15,000kwh annually ( this is simplifying the equation and does not take into account panel degredation) According to what I'm seeing and my playing around with PV watts - I am in Milpitas, CA, I tried to input the data for my system as accurately as possible. (roof mounted 1/2 West, and 1/2 east facing system with 20 degree slope, with no shading issues)

Doing this, I saw I needed to change my Derate factor to 0.9 for achieve the production numbers "garaunteed" by the leasing company.
My question is - Am I missing something? It does NOT seem like they low-balled the production numbers, even though I expect them to. Unless my math is wrong?

[HX_Guy]

I found the same on a SunPower lease recently...the guaranteed production numbers really weren't that low. Someone on here said they they set the lower threshold so low that you'd never produce under but it was actually quite high and better than PV Watts if I remember correctly.

[KRenn]

Krenn - I recently received a quote for a 10.5kw system with enphase microinverters. This is a prepaid PPA quote so it has cumulative 20 year power production guarantee which is approx 300,000 kwh or approx 15,000kwh annually ( this is simplifying the equation and does not take into account panel degredation) According to what I'm seeing and my playing around with PV watts - I am in Milpitas, CA, I tried to input the data for my system as accurately as possible. (roof mounted 1/2 West, and 1/2 east facing system with 20 degree slope, with no shading issues)

Doing this, I saw I needed to change my Derate factor to 0.9 for achieve the production numbers "garaunteed" by the leasing company.
My question is - Am I missing something? It does NOT seem like they low-balled the production numbers, even though I expect them to. Unless my math is wrong?

If they are willing to put that in the actual contract, by all means go for it. However unless it is a SunPower lease, I'm thinking that a salesperson had a fat finger and incorrectly entered some piece of data.


I just ran that quote through another leasing system, same size system, panel location, orientation, and came up with around 13,600 per year average guaranteed, with 50% of the panels at 250 and the other 50% at 105 degrees.

[KRenn]

I found the same on a SunPower lease recently...the guaranteed production numbers really weren't that low. Someone on here said they they set the lower threshold so low that you'd never produce under but it was actually quite high and better than PV Watts if I remember correctly.

SunPower plays by a whole different set of rules. They manufacture their own modules so I'm sure they have substantially better insight into how much the actual production will be. Considering that every single part of their systems is packaged together, with inverters branded and customized for their purposes, they don't seem to leave much to chance.

[KRenn]

After pulling up an actual SunPower quote from Nevada, the numbers seem to make a little more sense in context.






9.81 Kilowatt system, all panels oriented west, 15,987 kilowatt hours guaranteed in the first year.

[J.P.M.]

After pulling up an actual SunPower quote from Nevada, the numbers seem to make a little more sense in context.






9.81 Kilowatt system, all panels oriented west, 15,987 kilowatt hours guaranteed in the first year.

The quoted "estimated" production is different than what the lease will show both in form and substance. read the fine print: re, the lease and think like the seller. All the production guarantees I've seen are a sales tool, not a promise.

[J.P.M.]

Krenn - I recently received a quote for a 10.5kw system with enphase microinverters. This is a prepaid PPA quote so it has cumulative 20 year power production guarantee which is approx 300,000 kwh or approx 15,000kwh annually ( this is simplifying the equation and does not take into account panel degredation) According to what I'm seeing and my playing around with PV watts - I am in Milpitas, CA, I tried to input the data for my system as accurately as possible. (roof mounted 1/2 West, and 1/2 east facing system with 20 degree slope, with no shading issues)

Doing this, I saw I needed to change my Derate factor to 0.9 for achieve the production numbers "garaunteed" by the leasing company.
My question is - Am I missing something? It does NOT seem like they low-balled the production numbers, even though I expect them to. Unless my math is wrong?

I'd check my input. 15,000 kWhrs./yr. on a 10.5kW system, even 50/50 E/W doesn't seem like it would take a .90 derate to achieve unless Milpitas is a lot cloudier than I imagine it.

[gheewala114]

I'd check my input. 15,000 kWhrs./yr. on a 10.5kW system, even 50/50 E/W doesn't seem like it would take a .90 derate to achieve unless Milpitas is a lot cloudier than I imagine it.

I did double check it since like I said, I was surprised myself. I even cross-referenced with SAM

check out this system on PVWatts:

http://pvoutput.org/aggregate.jsp?id=6658&sid=20485&v=0&t=y

Its 5.2kw which is about half of my 10.5kw quoted system. His panels are south-west in orientation all in one roof plane. His technology is very similar to mine (LG panels and enphase microinverters). His panel position is better than my 50/50 east west split. He produced 8963kw in 2013 (Jan - Dec 2013). For my "less efficent" orientation if I subtract 10% and then multiple by 2 (since his system is half the size) the total 16133 kwh/year. So now take into consider that my quoted panel generation of 15000 is a 20 year average. If you take degredation into account the panels will produce more when new and less in 20 years. That is why on my lease the first year estimated kwh generation is 15675. This is about a 2.9% difference from a real would solar system located about 10 miles from me.

[HX_Guy]

The quoted "estimated" production is different than what the lease will show both in form and substance. read the fine print: re, the lease and think like the seller. All the production guarantees I've seen are a sales tool, not a promise.

I've mentioned it before either in this thread or the other but the SunPower lease I got the paperwork from matches the quote pretty closely and I'm not really seeing it as just a sales took but an actual guarantee. The quote said 23,154 kWh in the first year while the lease says 21,996 - 24,312 so the low end, which is the number that matters, is within 5%. According to PVWatts, the system (12.8kW) should only be producing 19,408kWh per year using a derate factor of 0.84.

[J.P.M.]

I did double check it since like I said, I was surprised myself. I even cross-referenced with SAM

check out this system on PVWatts:

http://pvoutput.org/aggregate.jsp?id=6658&sid=20485&v=0&t=y

Its 5.2kw which is about half of my 10.5kw quoted system. His panels are south-west in orientation all in one roof plane. His technology is very similar to mine (LG panels and enphase microinverters). His panel position is better than my 50/50 east west split. He produced 8963kw in 2013 (Jan - Dec 2013). For my "less efficent" orientation if I subtract 10% and then multiple by 2 (since his system is half the size) the total 16133 kwh/year. So now take into consider that my quoted panel generation of 15000 is a 20 year average. If you take degredation into account the panels will produce more when new and less in 20 years. That is why on my lease the first year estimated kwh generation is 15675. This is about a 2.9% difference from a real would solar system located about 10 miles from me.

Thank you. More in the morning. Do you mean PVOutput by the way, not PVWatts ?

[gheewala114]

Thank you. More in the morning. Do you mean PVOutput by the way, not PVWatts ?

Yes, i meant pvoutput. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts as I am close to signing on the dotted line

[J.P.M.]

Yes, i meant pvoutput. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts as I am close to signing on the dotted line

It'll be a bit longer.

What's the hurry ?

P.S. : Sorry I came up short. Life got in the way some. Mea Culpa. Since I promised to stay out of HX's threads, I'll PM you.

[HX_Guy]

Well...I pulled the trigger on the Centro Solar 12kW installl! Wish me luck lol.

I actually talked to 4 of their customers, two of them that had installs in 2011 and 2 of them this year. One was actually in the middle of having his installed, just started the process first week of May and already had the inverter and panels installed, was waiting on some inspections stuff now. Everyone was happy though, they said there were some small delays, like a week or so because inspections and stuff like that, but nothing crazy.

We'll see how it goes, he said designs will be done and submitted to the city and electric company by end of next week. Didn't pay anything up front, first payment installment will be due after plans are submitted for approval.

[HX_Guy]

Most panels, at least for small to medium installers are sold via wholesaler. The companies that work directly with installers are the exception and not the norm. If your installer goes out of business, it will be up to you to handle the negotiation and the back and forth with the manufacturer. If you claim you have a problem with a particular module, you need to ship it to the manufacturer, if they test it and concur, they will refund the shipping price and ship a new module back to you.


How you get it off your roof and how you get the new one back up there is up to you, but that is assuming that they agree, if not, they'll send you the panel back and bill you for the shipping to boot.

Going back to this...this particular panel maker is actually HQ'ed right here in Scottsdale, AZ so I assume if something goes wrong, I could take the panel and drive it to their location. I have a call in to them to find out exactly how that would work.

Of course if they shut down their operations, then I'm SOL.

[silversaver]

Well...I pulled the trigger on the Centro Solar 12kW installl! Wish me luck lol.

I actually talked to 4 of their customers, two of them that had installs in 2011 and 2 of them this year. One was actually in the middle of having his installed, just started the process first week of May and already had the inverter and panels installed, was waiting on some inspections stuff now. Everyone was happy though, they said there were some small delays, like a week or so because inspections and stuff like that, but nothing crazy.

We'll see how it goes, he said designs will be done and submitted to the city and electric company by end of next week. Didn't pay anything up front, first payment installment will be due after plans are submitted for approval.

Wish you luck!!! I think you needed it. I hope you can save tons of money and no issue with your solar.

I hope we don't see you coming back starting a new thread about how to take action against a bad installer.....