new member from Nassau county Long Island NY

[eachu]

Hi All,
This is my first post. I bought my house in 2013 and since then been researching solar. I have finally convinced myself and my wife that solar is the way to go. So far I have contacted 2 solar companies Level Solar and SolarCity. I have a good south facing roof on a first floor dormer but not so much on the rest of the roof due to shading. I consume roughly about 13000 kwh/yr. Level solar gave me an array system size of 8.1kw with 300Watts LG Panels. They are covering poritions of the roof that will be shaded especially in fall and winter. When i asked them that I am more interested in purchasing than leasing, I suddenly stopped getting any calls from them. I guess I am not going with them. I contacted SolarCity. They were pushing me to do PPA but I refused and was more interested in purchasing. They have financing called MyPower but that sounded more like leasing than buying. NYSERDA has a good financing option which I plan on taking and I am already pre-qualified for 25k loan for 15 years on-bill financing. I plan to pre-pay the loan from the federal/state/utility rebates that will cut the cost by half. SolarCity hasn't sent me the agreement yet but they quoted me a 6.5kw array system size generating about 60% of my current consumption and the cost quoted was 30k. I had contacted a local vendor here and didn't know what panels he was going to use but he was going to install a 5kw system producing about 55% consumption and quoted me 17k with a 10 year warranty on installation.

Can you guys suggest me good companies in Long Island or should I go with SolarCity? I feel I need to read more here about technology available. i do not want to make any hasty decisions but do feel solar is the right way to do it.

[J.P.M.]

Hi All,
This is my first post. I bought my house in 2013 and since then been researching solar. I have finally convinced myself and my wife that solar is the way to go. So far I have contacted 2 solar companies Level Solar and SolarCity. I have a good south facing roof on a first floor dormer but not so much on the rest of the roof due to shading. I consume roughly about 13000 kwh/yr. Level solar gave me an array system size of 8.1kw with 300Watts LG Panels. They are covering poritions of the roof that will be shaded especially in fall and winter. When i asked them that I am more interested in purchasing than leasing, I suddenly stopped getting any calls from them. I guess I am not going with them. I contacted SolarCity. They were pushing me to do PPA but I refused and was more interested in purchasing. They have financing called MyPower but that sounded more like leasing than buying. NYSERDA has a good financing option which I plan on taking and I am already pre-qualified for 25k loan for 15 years on-bill financing. I plan to pre-pay the loan from the federal/state/utility rebates that will cut the cost by half. SolarCity hasn't sent me the agreement yet but they quoted me a 6.5kw array system size generating about 60% of my current consumption and the cost quoted was 30k. I had contacted a local vendor here and didn't know what panels he was going to use but he was going to install a 5kw system producing about 55% consumption and quoted me 17k with a 10 year warranty on installation.

Can you guys suggest me good companies in Long Island or should I go with SolarCity? I feel I need to read more here about technology available. i do not want to make any hasty decisions but do feel solar is the right way to do it.

I can't help w/ reputable installers on the Island, but I'd avoid Solar City if they are anything like the way they work around me. If you plan on purchasing ( a better way IMO only) I'm sure there are good and qualified local vendors.

[Naptown]

Where on Long Island
I grew up there

[solar pete]

Hi All,
This is my first post. I bought my house in 2013 and since then been researching solar. I have finally convinced myself and my wife that solar is the way to go. So far I have contacted 2 solar companies Level Solar and SolarCity. I have a good south facing roof on a first floor dormer but not so much on the rest of the roof due to shading. I consume roughly about 13000 kwh/yr. Level solar gave me an array system size of 8.1kw with 300Watts LG Panels. They are covering poritions of the roof that will be shaded especially in fall and winter. When i asked them that I am more interested in purchasing than leasing, I suddenly stopped getting any calls from them. I guess I am not going with them. I contacted SolarCity. They were pushing me to do PPA but I refused and was more interested in purchasing. They have financing called MyPower but that sounded more like leasing than buying. NYSERDA has a good financing option which I plan on taking and I am already pre-qualified for 25k loan for 15 years on-bill financing. I plan to pre-pay the loan from the federal/state/utility rebates that will cut the cost by half. SolarCity hasn't sent me the agreement yet but they quoted me a 6.5kw array system size generating about 60% of my current consumption and the cost quoted was 30k. I had contacted a local vendor here and didn't know what panels he was going to use but he was going to install a 5kw system producing about 55% consumption and quoted me 17k with a 10 year warranty on installation.

Can you guys suggest me good companies in Long Island or should I go with SolarCity? I feel I need to read more here about technology available. i do not want to make any hasty decisions but do feel solar is the right way to do it.

Howdy eachu and welcome to Solar Panel Talk.

You could try our site sponsors go to www.solarreviews.com and enter your zip code and you should see installers that cover your area. If you want to get a rough idea on pricing you could go to the other site www.solar-estimate.org cheers.

[acamato]

I am in Suffolk and got quotes from Long Island Power Solutions and Sunation. Hopefully will make a decision in the next week or so. Both were around $45K using LG315W and solaredge for a 42 panel system.

[eachu]

I am in Suffolk and got quotes from Long Island Power Solutions and Sunation. Hopefully will make a decision in the next week or so. Both were around $45K using LG315W and solaredge for a 42 panel system.

Sorry guys was away on business. I got quotes from Sunnation as well. I live in Plainview. I got a similar quote as well around 40k for 37 panel lg315 and solaredge inverter. But i believe that cost is going to come down once the engineer comes to check as I do have some shading on middle roof. I am expecting to pay close to 30k net. Will know by next week. I have decided to go with Sunnation and not solar city.

Question is they also have SunPower. Should I bite the slight increase in cost and go with SunPower panels. I read that those panels do well especially with shading. What's the cost difference between LG 315 and SP 330? The $/watt is higher on the SP but read that efficiency is greater as well in terms of production.

[J.P.M.]

Sorry guys was away on business. I got quotes from Sunnation as well. I live in Plainview. I got a similar quote as well around 40k for 37 panel lg315 and solaredge inverter. But i believe that cost is going to come down once the engineer comes to check as I do have some shading on middle roof. I am expecting to pay close to 30k net. Will know by next week. I have decided to go with Sunnation and not solar city.

Question is they also have SunPower. Should I bite the slight increase in cost and go with SunPower panels. I read that those panels do well especially with shading. What's the cost difference between LG 315 and SP 330? The $/watt is higher on the SP but read that efficiency is greater as well in terms of production.

The annual production for either S.P. or LG will be about the same per nameplate (D.C.) installed kW. The claimed S.P. greater efficiency is an AREA efficiency. A 5 kW S.P. system and a 5 kW LG systems or a 5 kW (plug in most any quality panel here) system in the same location, orientation and service will produce about the same annual output for probably as likely as you'll own them. S.P. will just do it in about a 20% smaller area and you'll pay a fair amount more for the bragging rights. Usually S.P. systems are the LEAST efficient in terms of cost effectiveness of any panel. Also, from my experience, S.P. doesn't do all that well, or that much better than any other panel when used with a string inverter, but that's somewhat anecdotal.

[paris401]

we used sunation for our sons home in oyster bay ...17 SP 327's... bottom line cost was around 12k (after all rebates/etc)... in and around oysterbay, there are '2' other systems I see on pvoutput... one is 9880 and the other 4990- I donot know anything else about the other systems, other then their kw... the larger system outproduces us by about 50% , altho its 78% larger, and the smaller system we outproduce by 50%(plus), even tho we are only 10% larger... whether its the SP panels, or the other panels orientation/etc/etc, I do not know... but pretty happy with the SP panels... so far...only been 7mos since install..

we are now in the process of putting up 28SP 335's in Montauk... the diff in price from the lg's (I think 300black) was less then 3k after the rebates... with a 25year bumper to bumper warr for the SP and solaredge equipment, it was a no-brainer to go SP

of course that's providing they are in bizz in 25yrs...