Solar Quotes & equip help in Maryland

[srv]

Hi, I am newbie and need to do more research before jumping in and I have few quotes from 3 local installers and have one from Tesla, but may not go with Tesla and would like to get experts opinion:

Installer 1:
Purchase Price: $20,563
6.3kW DC 15 REC 420W panel system + Enphase IQ8M Microinverters just over 9,000kWh of projected production AC

SREC around $650/year

Installer 2:
Purchase Price: $ 21,029
System Size (STC-DC) 6.38 kW Panels:15 QCell 425w Inverter:Enphase IQ8M Monitoring: 1 System Production Monitor: Estimated Production 8,950 kWh

Purchase Price: $ 19,200
System Size (STC-DC) 6.80 kW Panels:17 Longi Triple Black Tier-1 400w Inverter:Enphase IQ8 Series Monitoring: 1 System Production Monitor: Estimated Production 9,493 kWh

SREC around $500/year

Installer 3:Purchase Price: between: $ 20k-22k
Number of panels: 16 REC 420 watt modules
System size: 6.7 kW
SolarEdge inverters.
Annual production: 9,067 kilowatt hours

Please let me know which one is the best option. Based on my limited research REC solar are little expensive compared to others and do not know which option would be the best for inverters. I believe all 3 are 25 year triple warranty(panel, performance,labor), coming to SREC's I am assuming i might get around $350/year rather than the price quoted by installer 1 & 2.

-thank you in advance and looking forward for some advise.
regards,
srv

[Rade]

We had our system installed over a year ago, and your quotes (sans battery) all seem in the ballpark. The warranties sound about right. I would look at your homes power utilization by reviewing your electric consumption over the past year and figure out the average per month. That would determine which system you should go for. If you are looking to maximize the amount of energy credits you are going to receive, your second bid appears to be optimal.

When we were researching components, we watched a plethora of YouTube videos on the various suppliers. That may be an option if the folks here don't have any experience or insight into the various manufactures.

I would research Tesla PowerWall in your region. In the Southwest, they have a pretty strong support network, but here in RI, when we were looking, the support was lacking and customer service was noted as pretty bad. The BBB should be able to provide some foundation.

Kudos to you for obtaining the varying bids!

[azdave]

I've never been a fan of Tesla but especially now due to my MIL's grid-tie system. It fails to turn on for the entire day, sometimes as many as 4-5 days a month but they refuse to come out and work on it since they predict it will still produce the guaranteed minimum annual power stated in the contract. All of the excess production she banked in the first 6 months of the contract year will now be consumed by a system that fails to turn on almost 15% of the time. She is losing production that used to help cover her excess consumption and now has to pay extra cash to the POCO to make up for what used to be collected for free during the first 6 years it's been in service. I guess it has to fail completely for them to do anything about it.

[Rade]

I've never been a fan of Tesla but especially now due to my MIL's grid-tie system. It fails to turn on for the entire day, sometimes as many as 4-5 days a month but they refuse to come out and work on it since they predict it will still produce the guaranteed minimum annual power stated in the contract. All of the excess production she banked in the first 6 months of the contract year will now be consumed by a system that fails to turn on almost 15% of the time. She is losing production that used to help cover her excess consumption and now has to pay extra cash to the POCO to make up for what used to be collected for free during the first 6 years it's been in service. I guess it has to fail completely for them to do anything about it.

That's terrible! Good to get some real-world feedback from the Southwest! The only thing that intrigued us with Tesla were the solar roofing shingles, but I am glad we did not go that route.

I'm mentioned it elsewhere - we selected Generac as our system provider. After about 9 months of "settling" new system bugs where they tuned and tweaked the inverter OS, the system seems to be quite stable and is generating some decent energy credits for us. I have even been able to use our battery backup to power the home at the height of the summer.

[Mike 134]

Here's a program that I have found to be reasonably accurate for predicting solar production.
PVWatts Calculator (nrel.gov)

I self installed a Solar Edge system 2 years ago and knock on wood no issues. (no idea if your pricing is good or bad)

Make sure you understand back and forth what the utility will pay you for excess, what hoops (and there will be some) you need to jump though to get your REC payments.

[srv]

Thank you all for your inputs. Our annual electric usage is around 10044kWh. Not looking at battery backup as we hardly lose any power and trying to keep my system cost at minimal. Anything around 6.7kW DC is putting us around 9,411 kWh/Year as the panels will be on the back side of the roof which would be approx. 210 degrees SW . As Rade suggested need to look at some youtube videos. -thanks all