San Diego Installer Stats for First Half of 2019

[NCSD]

I captured the following stats about San Diego County installers from the NEM data set for my own purposes. Hopefully others will find this type of stat interesting like I do. I only included NEM applications from the first half of 2019 that were residential rooftop installs, without loans/PPA/Pace, and not self installs. I also did not include some entries that were incomplete or appeared to be errored. I only included the 17 installers with at least 1% of market share for this group. The listed solar panel and inverters are the most common install. There were often many other solar panels installed besides the model listed.

Installer Name	Share	Solar Panels		Inverters	Cost / DC Watt: 3 to 5 KW DC			Cost / DC Watt: 5 to 10 KW DC
		Manufacturer	Model		25th	Median	75th	25th	Median	75th
Semper Solaris	10.8%	Panasonic	330 SA17	SolarEdge	3.40	3.59	3.90	3.38	3.59	3.90
Baker Electric	9.6%	LG	335 N1C	SolarEdge	3.62	3.94	4.43	3.38	3.76	4.25
REC (Sunrun)	6.1%	REC	290 TP2	Ningbo	3.98	4.17	4.47	3.93	4.31	5.09
Sullivan Solar	5.7%	Panasonic	330 SA17	SolarEdge	3.93	4.18	3.57	3.48	3.77	4.21
SolarCity (Tesla)	4.9%	SolarCity	325 SC	SolarEdge	4.27	5.12	5.12	3.98	5.12	5.12
Stellar Solar (Sunpower)	4.6%	Sunpower	360 X22	Sunpower	3.56	3.69	3.84	3.53	3.63	3.80
Sunpower	3.4%	Sunpower	335 X21	Sunpower	4.25	4.25	4.25	4.25	4.25	4.25
PetersenDean	2.2%	Silfab	320 SLA-M	SolarEdge	3.45	3.69	4.21	3.20	3.56	4.37
Solartech (Sunpower)	2.0%	Sunpower	360 X22	Sunpower	3.40	3.70	4.04	3.38	3.62	3.91
Sunline Energy	1.9%	Panasonic	330 SA17	Enphase	3.18	3.44	3.77	2.99	3.19	3.53
New Power*	1.8%	Hyundai	300 S-RG	Enphase	5.51	5.64	5.78	5.50	5.78	6.03
Milholland (Sunpower)	1.7%	Sunpower	360 X22	Sunpower	4.00	4.50	6.89	4.00	4.68	6.72
Palomar Solar	1.7%	LG	320 N1K	Enphase	3.64	3.86	4.02	3.34	3.51	3.62
Cosmic Solar (Sunpower)	1.2%	Sunpower	370 X22	Sunpower	3.49	3.76	3.99	3.25	3.50	3.77
Freedom Solar	1.2%	Hanwha	315 Q.PG5	SolarEdge	4.29	4.70	5.66	3.93	4.37	5.24
EnergyServicePartners	1.1%	Hanwha	295 Q.PG4	SolarEdge	3.60	4.34	5.23	3.65	4.50	5.00
Sunlight Solar	1.1%	Hanwha	325 Q.PG5	Enphase	3.90	4.21	4.51	3.51	4.00	4.48

*I suspect the New Power costs are especially high because the entries are mislabeled and are actually lease/PPA.

[solar pete]

Hi NCSD, thats a very interesting post, thanks for posting that, cheers.

[CharlieEscCA]

Wow. Those prices sure seem high. Either that, or I'm one of the few who knows how to negotiate.

[nwdiver]

Wow. Those prices sure seem high. Either that, or I'm one of the few who knows how to negotiate.

Are you in San Diego? There's a HUGE variance depending on region. I spoke to some installers in San Antonio that are installing for ~$2.50/w.

[CharlieEscCA]

Are you in San Diego? There's a HUGE variance depending on region. I spoke to some installers in San Antonio that are installing for ~$2.50/w.

Yes, San Diego, North County. I'm putting in an 8.68 kWDC (28 310w 60 cell panels, SolarEdge) system at 2.79/w on my new house under construction with one of the vendors on the list above.

[nwdiver]

Yes, San Diego, North County. I'm putting in an 8.68 kWDC (28 310w 60 cell panels, SolarEdge) system at 2.79/w on my new house under construction with one of the vendors on the list above.

WOW... that is a good deal. Congratulations!

[J.P.M.]

Wow. Those prices sure seem high. Either that, or I'm one of the few who knows how to negotiate.

Charlie:

See the CSI database --->>> Go Solar California website. Information includes about most every residential install since 2008 including most everything about an array except the name and address of the owner, size, orientation, equipment, vendor, dates, prices and more.

Your old install near the Animal Park as well as mine is in there. Most folks don't know the CSI exists. It is and was a great resource, particularly for info about prices and vendors.

BTW, my experience w/HOA installs is that the gross prices listed in the CSI have always matched what the contracts were written up for.

How's the place in Valley Ctr. coming along ?

Regards,

[CharlieEscCA]

How's the place in Valley Ctr. coming along ?

Slowly but surely.Drywall hung this week, Stucco scratch coat starts next week. My 10' wrought iron door self imported got installed this week -- turned out great. Still looking like a mid November move in.

Current house still on market.It's not your ordinary house, so need to be patient (hard to do) until my buyer comes along. I've got one person supposedly who wants to put in an offer but a sale of their commercial property fell out of escrow, Got to keep the faith.

[NCSD]

Wow. Those prices sure seem high. Either that, or I'm one of the few who knows how to negotiate.

I received quotes from 6 of the vendors on the list. My initial quotes generally fit well with the listed ranges, when using similar panels. However, some offered options for less expensive panels, which brought the cost/Watt down substantially, in some cases well below the listed 25th percentile. I'd expect the quotes depend on numerous factors about the specific install as well. In another thread, you mentioned Axitec panels, which had a median of $3.15/DC Watt. $2.79 would be ~30th percentile.

See the CSI database --->>> Go Solar California website. Information includes about most every residential install since 2008 including most everything about an array except the name and address of the owner, size, orientation, equipment, vendor, dates, prices and more.

The CSI database includes relatively few recent entries. For example, there are only 9 listed installs completed in 2019 for SD county. All of these 9 were large commercial installs that started the process in 2014-2015. One of these 9 is listed as a 4.8 million DC watt system in Oceanside at a cost of $17.4 million. Installs that started more recently are in the NEM database, which I used for the original post. It has similar information to the CSI database, as well as some new columns. It was my experience that when you pay the NEM interconnection fee for your solar application, you get an email showing your application number, which can be used to later find your entry in the database.

[khanh dam]

interesting I though micro inverters would be used more due to module level shut down rules. Solar Edge seems like the "winner" What does NEM mean?

[J.P.M.]

Slowly but surely.Drywall hung this week, Stucco scratch coat starts next week. My 10' wrought iron door self imported got installed this week -- turned out great. Still looking like a mid November move in.

Current house still on market.It's not your ordinary house, so need to be patient (hard to do) until my buyer comes along. I've got one person supposedly who wants to put in an offer but a sale of their commercial property fell out of escrow, Got to keep the faith.

Understood. Thank you. Good luck.

J.P.M.

[J.P.M.]

The CSI database includes relatively few recent entries. For example, there are only 9 listed installs completed in 2019 for SD county. All of these 9 were large commercial installs that started the process in 2014-2015. One of these 9 is listed as a 4.8 million DC watt system in Oceanside at a cost of $17.4 million. Installs that started more recently are in the NEM database, which I used for the original post. It has similar information to the CSI database, as well as some new columns. It was my experience that when you pay the NEM interconnection fee for your solar application, you get an email showing your application number, which can be used to later find your entry in the database.

You are correct. Apologies for my error. Been using the Go Solar CA site for so long I got the nomenclature stuck in my head. Still good information however.

[J.P.M.]

What does NEM mean?

Google "NEM + utilities". You'll get the answer.

[khanh dam]

net energy metering thanks

[J.P.M.]

net energy metering thanks

You're welcome.