SolarCity 20-year lease too good to be true?

[russ]

Nice try chief but it ain't gonna happen. I have posted everything that has been asked of me other than the actual lease. My bill even includes my usage. I have no idea who Hank Hill is so I don't know what that comparission is about.

I went through this thread again. I had forgotten that Russ had gotten his hands on a few peoples contracts. He even admitted that 1 of them seeded like a good deal. He never commented on the others. Perhaps because they were also good deals further making him look foolish for bashing on those of us with Solar City leases.

I have commented on several - buying is always better if a person can manage that. Yours is one of the least attractive apparently - maybe that is what it took to get the bigger system.

You have supplied minimum information - and requested copies of other leases when you refused to give your own - and you were told no as the others have asked I not spread copies around. I wouldn't believe anything you reported anyway - you seem like that type of person.

An old boss of mine liked to have a laugh someone asked about cost - he always lied about it - either high or low depending on the circumstances just to make the other guy think he got a good deal. Your name isn't Don is it?

Regards
Russ

[Garthhh]

Nice try chief but it ain't gonna happen. I have posted everything that has been asked of me other than the actual lease. My bill even includes my usage. I have no idea who Hank Hill is so I don't know what that comparission is about.

I went through this thread again. I had forgotten that Russ had gotten his hands on a few peoples contracts. He even admitted that 1 of them seeded like a good deal. He never commented on the others. Perhaps because they were also good deals further making him look foolish for bashing on those of us with Solar City leases.

asking for more information isn't bashing
the devil is in the details
your bills don't actually appear in your posts...
if the terms of the lease are equitable, they shouldn't be treated as state secrets
SCE appears to charge a meter fee

you continue to look foolish

A Hank Hill deal is when the salesman convinces you paying more than retail is a good deal

[mangoman]

asking for more information isn't bashing
the devil is in the details
your bills don't actually appear in your posts...
if the terms of the lease are equitable, they shouldn't be treated as state secrets
SCE appears to charge a meter fee

you continue to look foolish

A Hank Hill deal is when the salesman convinces you paying more than retail is a good deal

I never said you were bashing.

My May bill does appear in my post. Perhaps you should review again. And yes, SCE does charge a meter fee. You can clearly see that on my bill that I posted. FACT is though that even with that fee, my bills for each of the 2 months that my leased system from Solar City has been running, my 2 bills have been under $2. Something that someone here claimed was not possible. I posted a copy of my bill since he basically called me a liar and he he has not said "Wow, I guess I was wrong. Congrats on your sub $2 bills". Instead he accused me of only posting a "partial bill" inferring that I was still trying to hide something and out right called me a liar even after the bill was posted and most offensively he accused me of having a stupid name like "Don".

Nothing in my lease is State Secret. I just choose not to share it. Others have here and from what I have read in the review of the 1 lease that has been reviewed in this thread, my agreement is similar, if not identical.

Here are the facts:
I leased a system from Solar City. I posted all the details on system size and exactly how much I paid. I think I got a pretty good deal and I have posted how the system has benefited me in the first few months of ownership and that I am still very happy with my decision.

In response, I am told that I must work for Solar City and asked when I will get my promotion. I get told I am a liar. I get told I am only posting part of the story and not posting details about things like my system size. I get told I am getting f^$*@d by Solar City. Etc.

OK, the operators of this board do not like leasing, we get it. It seems maybe leasing companies like Solar City are starting to eat into their personal bottom line. Leasing make since to some people though, more than outright ownership. They need to see that and understand it. To me, it made more sense.

The title of this thread is "Solar City 20-year lease too good to be true?". Well for some, myself included, it is very good. Please forgive me for sharing my story in a thread where I thought my story was relevant. I have apparently ruffled a few feathers in shining a positive light on what several here think is a bad idea.

I encourage anyone that is considering buying or leasing a solar system to do all their homework and due diligence. Just like if there were buying a car, or a house etc. But do not ignore the lease option, because it is not in the financial best interest of a couple of people on this forum. If you get the lease and it makes sense to you, sign up and I hope you get the same $1.77/month energy bill that I got this month.

[Garthhh]

The title of this thread is "Solar City 20-year lease too good to be true?". Well for some, myself included, it is very good. Please forgive me for sharing my story in a thread where I thought my story was relevant. I have apparently ruffled a few feathers in shining a positive light on what several here think is a bad idea.

So why not enlighten us?, by actually telling more of the story than
I win, the end....
What & how much equipment was installed?
Are you satisfied with the quality of the work?
did you end up paying the same price you quoted in the OP?
do any of the terms of the lease concern you?
were there any add on expenses, like additional homeowners insurance?

[mikegoldnj]

asking for more information isn't bashing
the devil is in the details
your bills don't actually appear in your posts...
if the terms of the lease are equitable, they shouldn't be treated as state secrets
SCE appears to charge a meter fee

you continue to look foolish

A Hank Hill deal is when the salesman convinces you paying more than retail is a good deal

He posted his complete electric bill a few pages back.

[Garthhh]

He posted his complete electric bill a few pages back.

when I made the post the pics were broken
They are working now, no idea what caused this

[mangoman]

So why not enlighten us?, by actually telling more of the story than
I win, the end....
What & how much equipment was installed?
Are you satisfied with the quality of the work?
did you end up paying the same price you quoted in the OP?
do any of the terms of the lease concern you?
were there any add on expenses, like additional homeowners insurance?

I will answer pretty much any question that anyone has here. All they need to do is ask. So, allow me to answer yours:

What & how much equipment was installed? Well as I have mentioned before but for those too lazy to go back a few pages to find it, the system I have is a 5.04kWh system. I don't think I have mentioned specific manufacturers. So, there are 24 X 210W Kyocera KD210GX-LFBS panels. 12 are on my garage (south facing) and 12 are over the bedroom, living room and kitchen (west facing). All tie into 1 Fronius IG 5100 inverter. Also installed was a new electrical panel.

Are you satisfied with the quality of the work? Extremely. About the only thing that I was not happy with was when they came to start install, they discovered that my roof should be re-papered so they stopped. I was happy that they stopped the install but I was disappointed that this wasn't discovered during my roof assessment when they were determining if I was a good candidate for solar. Anyway, times being tough for contractors these days, I was able to get a good deal on a full roof re-papering. The roofer and Solar City worked closely together on the project. The installers were very friendly and knowledgeable and sought input from both my wife and I anytime they had questions about how we would like conduit to run or exactly where we wanted the inverter installed etc.

did you end up paying the same price you quoted in the OP? I have not been asked to pay a single penny more than the agreed price. Here again I posted my cost in another Solar City thread on this forum but here is a review:
20 year Solar City Lease
$7,180 Down
$40 X 239 Months = 9560
-$500 rebate for more than 50 homes in my community signing up

Total paid to Solar City over 20 years = $16,240
Is is a good deal compared to what others have gotten. I am sure some have gotten better and some have gotten worse. But as I have also said before, I don't stay awake at night kicking myself in the ass for spending $20,000 on a car knowing that someone walked into the same dealership the next day and got the same exact car for $18,000.

do any of the terms of the lease concern you? Not at all. If I had concerns that had not been addressed, I would not have signed up. I hope everyone reads and understands any legal documents that they sign. I read it, it made sense to me and my family that this was the way for us to go and therefore we signed up. No regrets.

were there any add on expenses, like additional homeowners insurance? Just my new roof, which also has the same 20 year warranty now as my solar system. All insurance, support and maintenance etc is covered in the cost. I did call my HO insurance just to make sure as I was a bit skeptical, and yes, everything is covered by Solar City. What if my panels are stolen? Covered. What if my roof flies off? Covered. What if a panel flies off and crashes through a neighbor's house? Covered? Yes!

Please feel free to let me know if you have additional questions.

[MarineLiner]

Could just add the time schedule of the works?

Please feel free to let me know if you have additional questions.

[mangoman]

[QUOTE=MarineLiner;24441]

[MarineLiner]

Timeline has again already been spoken

..... the timeline has again already been spoken of in another post on this forum.

Thank you.
I missed the boat. I'll catch up. Where's it ?

[mangoman]

Thank you.
I missed the boat. I'll catch up. Where's it ?

Somewhere in the 14 pages before this. Still I summed it up for you.

6.5 months from lease signing to turn on. With a month or 6 week delay for re-roofing the house thrown in. Other than the roofing delay, it took Edison a month to come out and inspect after the install was complete and it also took several weeks for the city inspectors. Remove those delays and we would have been looking at about 3-4 months from start to finish.

[Naptown]

I will answer pretty much any question that anyone has here. All they need to do is ask. So, allow me to answer yours:

What & how much equipment was installed? Well as I have mentioned before but for those too lazy to go back a few pages to find it, the system I have is a 5.04kWh system. I don't think I have mentioned specific manufacturers. So, there are 24 X 210W Kyocera KD210GX-LFBS panels. 12 are on my garage (south facing) and 12 are over the bedroom, living room and kitchen (west facing). All tie into 1 Fronius IG 5100 inverter. Also installed was a new electrical panel.

Are you satisfied with the quality of the work? Extremely. About the only thing that I was not happy with was when they came to start install, they discovered that my roof should be re-papered so they stopped. I was happy that they stopped the install but I was disappointed that this wasn't discovered during my roof assessment when they were determining if I was a good candidate for solar. Anyway, times being tough for contractors these days, I was able to get a good deal on a full roof re-papering. The roofer and Solar City worked closely together on the project. The installers were very friendly and knowledgeable and sought input from both my wife and I anytime they had questions about how we would like conduit to run or exactly where we wanted the inverter installed etc.

did you end up paying the same price you quoted in the OP? I have not been asked to pay a single penny more than the agreed price. Here again I posted my cost in another Solar City thread on this forum but here is a review:
20 year Solar City Lease
$7,180 Down
$40 X 239 Months = 9560
-$500 rebate for more than 50 homes in my community signing up

Total paid to Solar City over 20 years = $16,240
Is is a good deal compared to what others have gotten. I am sure some have gotten better and some have gotten worse. But as I have also said before, I don't stay awake at night kicking myself in the ass for spending $20,000 on a car knowing that someone walked into the same dealership the next day and got the same exact car for $18,000.

do any of the terms of the lease concern you? Not at all. If I had concerns that had not been addressed, I would not have signed up. I hope everyone reads and understands any legal documents that they sign. I read it, it made sense to me and my family that this was the way for us to go and therefore we signed up. No regrets.

were there any add on expenses, like additional homeowners insurance? Just my new roof, which also has the same 20 year warranty now as my solar system. All insurance, support and maintenance etc is covered in the cost. I did call my HO insurance just to make sure as I was a bit skeptical, and yes, everything is covered by Solar City. What if my panels are stolen? Covered. What if my roof flies off? Covered. What if a panel flies off and crashes through a neighbor's house? Covered? Yes!

Please feel free to let me know if you have additional questions.

So you feel you got a good deal good for you If you're happy that's all that counts.That deal in Maryland would not be good but I cant speak for where you are. I assume you are in California.
The thing I am questioning however is the part in red in particular the south and west facing array's are tied into a common inverter. I Generally don't do Fronius inverters but this seems very odd to me. (Production would suffer greatly on an SMA or most string inverters. How did they make this work?

[mangoman]

So you feel you got a good deal good for you If you're happy that's all that counts.That deal in Maryland would not be good but I cant speak for where you are. I assume you are in California.
The thing I am questioning however is the part in red in particular the south and west facing array's are tied into a common inverter. I Generally don't do Fronius inverters but this seems very odd to me. (Production would suffer greatly on an SMA or most string inverters. How did they make this work?

Sorry, I did not research deals in Maryland, so I do not know how it would compare but yes, I am happy. And there is no need to assume I am in California. I have stated a few times that I am in California along with posting copies of my electric bill from Southern California Edison so I would be logical to conclude that I am in fact in California and more specifically in Southern California.

So, onto the part you question. Unfortunately I do not have an answer for how they got it all to work. That is a technical question that I just don't have the expertise to answer. I wish I could answer it as I would like to know myself how it is all wired together to put out the way that it does. It doesn't seem to impact production too much though the way that it is wired up. Here is a screen shot from my monitoring application showing the output in 30 minute increments from a couple of weeks ago. Yes, this was the highest production day we have had so far. I have averaged 29.7kWh output over the 70 days that it has been running.

So here is a question for the experts out there. Assuming perfect weather conditions, if 35.5kWh on a late April day is not good output for a 5.04kWh system, what should I be seeing?

best.jpg

[Naptown]

That is good output
It was probably a day with low smog and humidity (assumption) it was a fairly cool day in the high 50's and almost 13 hours from sunrise to sunset. If you look closely at the output curve there is some difference between the morning and afternoon output curves favoring the afternoon This is caused by the west facing modules. This makes me tend to think that the two strings are tracking independently. I will need to check with Fronius about this.

[nate]

As suggested, I checked out http://www.srectrade.com/contact.php and researched SREC's. This is how people in the Northeast get their money back, but in Oregon there are other programs. Attached is the email reply from SRECTRADE. So, as suspected, Solar City wasn't keeping this a secret from me -- its just not a source to repay for solar investments in Oregon. Lease and purchase options will very from state to state in large part due to how the incentive programs differ in different locations.