Site Audit today!

Well, today SolarCity sent out Aaron to do the site audit/inspection.  He arrived a bit early at 8:30am and went to work.

He climbed around on the roof taking pictures and detailed measurements.  Then he checked out the main electrical panel to check to make sure everything would support the PV system. When he was done outside, he came inside and took a look in the attic, again taking measurements and pictures.

When he was done, he put together an overview for me to take a look at.  He let me know that I could install up to 28 panels (2 strings of 11, 1 string of 6) and I could call my sales rep if I wanted to see what that would entail.  He showed me the location of the inverter, along with where the conduit would probably be run. I signed the screen saying he explained everything to me.

Seeing how I could get 6 extra panels, I was curious as to what it would change my lease to. I shot Mike and email to find out.  It's significantly more expensive and while it would be nice to be able to use the additional power, I suspect that if we carefully plan our utilization during the day, we should be ok with the smaller system (which we're getting at a very nice discount).

While Mike and I were talking, I asked if he had the rate information for peak/non-peak for SCE as I wasn't able to find it.  I'm still trying to determine if TOU (time-of-use) metering is the way to go, or if I should stick to the tiered system.

He let me know that the peak/non-peak rates are different based on season (something I didn't know), he also gave me the rates:

SCE

Summer Peak $ 0.36/kWh

Summer Off Peak $ 0.19/kWh

Winter Peak $ 0.21/kWh

Winter Off Peak $ 0.18/kWh

For folks in San Diego, he also provided me with their rates as well:

SDG&E

Summer Peak $ 0.26404/kWh

Summer Semi-Peak $ 0.16788/kWh

Summer Off-Peak $ 0.14927/kWh

Winter Semi-Peak $ 0.16115/kWh

Winter Off-Peak $ 0.15126/kWh

Now the benefit of having the solar system is that during those peak times of summer days (when my panels will be generating the most electricity) SCE will pay me the full retail rate of $ .36/kWh when I sell them back power.  Then, in the evenings and nights when power is less expensive (and my panels aren't generating any power) I can buy that back from them at the $.19/kWh rate.

Good stuff.  More later.

New news...

It's been a while since I was able to last post.  I signed the documents and shortly thereafter received a welcome email explaining the next few things that are going to happen.  First on the list was a site inspection.  

A couple days later I had a call from someone in the customer service group at SolarCity.  They wanted to schedule a time which they could come out to do the inspection.   They're going to be here on Wednesday at 9am.  They said that it should take around 3 hours. They're going to climb up on the roof and take detailed measurements, inspect the attic, and more.  I can't wait to see what's going to happen.

The nice folks in customer service said that once that was completed, that detailed information is sent to the engineering group who put together the engineering diagrams.  They said that it can take up to 3 weeks for that to happen.

I'll update you more once the site inspection is done.  Until then, take care.

-paul

Some quick updates..

So, it's been a few days to post, but a lot has happened. My brother-in-law had a quote last Thursday, amazingly they quoted him the same sized system (22 Panel 4.4kw). The issue was it his quote was more than $30/month less than mine. I immediately emailed my sales person to see what could be done.

Needless to say, SolarCity came through and matched the system prices since the system sizes were exactly the same, and the homes are very similar (concrete tile roofs, 2 story, etc).

I'm pleased as punch that they were able to do this, I'm supposed to meet with Mike today to sign the lease.

More updates later.

More food for thought..

I'm working on a couple of other posts, but figured that this was pretty timely information. Interesting read:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ratehike2-2008jul02,0,801347.story

Perfect!

Ok, Mike came through and got me the right numbers, lease of $115/month, SCE bill should be around $35/month with similar utilization to last year.  This is what I was looking for.  Going to put some graphs together to share.

SolarCity continued...

So a few days went by and I didn't hear back from Mike, I shot him a mail and he told me that he's been real busy and that he was going to work the numbers and get back to me. I had a voicemail from him a little while later letting me know that he improved things a bit and that he wanted to talk a little so he could let me know the details.

I couldn't chat right then, so I shot him an email asking a few questions, he got back to me with a proposal which was similar to what I already had, but it was using my 2006 utilization (as I had requested 11k KWh), it was going to work out to be around $100/month for the lease, and $75/month for SCE. I asked him what it would end up being if he put in my 2007 utilization (8900 KWh). I didn't hear anyting back from him for a day. The next day (yesterday) I had a call from him asking what I thought of the proposal and having him remind me that the promotional period will be ending soon (this is the first time he seemed a little salesmanie), I said I'm open to it, but that I wanted to see what my exposure would be with the newer utilization with the lower usage (as I mentioned in my email). I said I had replied to his email, but he hadn't seen it.

He said he would take a look at it and give me a call back. I told him that I would be happy to resend anything if necessary and to just let me know.

I just had a call back a few minutes ago where he asked me about when I sent him the message with my utilization numbers. I gave him the date and time and he found it. He's going to work the numbers and get back to me.

For some reason, he sized down the number of panels in my system from 22 to 16 and basically kept my utilization at the lower point. I explained to him that I'm looking for the SCE bill with a 22 panel system running at ~9000KWh. I think he finally got it.

I know the lease should be $109/month for that system, I figure that the lease is based on the size of the system, not my utilization. He's trying to figure this whole thing out now. More details later.

Next Steps with SolarCity

So, a few days went by since I attended their seminar, I was a bit surprised that no one had contacted me, I was definitely interested in their free home evaluation.

I went to the website and filled out their contact-me webform, it was a Saturday morning, a couple hours went by, and I didn't hear anything back, so I gave their 800 number a call. Spoke to a nice guy named Martin who asked some questions and looked up my house in Google Earth (or maps, or something) and took a look at my exposure and roof, and said that he would set me up with a salesman named Mike. We setup an appointment for Mike to come out and go over a home survey.

Mike called the day before the appointment to ask a few questions, and confirm my address and where I was located. We chatted for quite a while about what I was looking for and what they offered. I told him I'd see him the next day.

Mike arrived ontime the next day and set about doing a visual inspection of my house. He said that they don't like to have the folks go up on second story roofs to inspect, but luckily the neighbor behind me has the same model house so I let him peek out our windows to get an idea of what our roof looks like. He took a few digital pictures, and took some measurements.

We then plugged the data from SCE into the SolarCity application that was on his laptop, I asked him if we could put in the power we consumed in 2006 rather than 2007 since I figured we'd use a little more if we could get it cheaper. He figured by the measurements and what's on my roof he'd be able to have 2 strings of 11 panels installed (22 total). He plugged everything in and based on my utilization the tool said I would save $7 the first year.

At this point I was a little disappointed that there wouldn't be a bigger savings, but I understand if nothing else, I'd be doing my part to cut down on things for no real cost. Mike said he would play with the numbers by changing things around a bit (less panels, different panels, etc) and let me know he would get back to me.

All in all, Mike was at my house for about 2 hours. He never pressured me into something, and was knowlegable about the product and the technology. I anxiously awaited more information.

The SolarCity Investigation

Ok, I admit it, I'm a bit of a freak, I already let you folks know that I'm a geek, but when something catches my interest, I always belive it's best if I can learn everything I can about it, so I can speak with some authority and understand the process completely. I had to know more about SolarCity and their approach to selling/servicing their product.

I did a lot of research on their website, read all that I could, looked up the stuff which wasn't well defined on their site in other places (thank God for Wikipedia and Google). I figured I was pretty well versed by the time I was done with my research. I saw that they were going to have a community event at the local senior center in about a week, so I registered and anxiously awaited the event.

Some background information on SolarCity:

• Company was originally two local solar installers working out of the Bay Area. The founder of PayPal and Tesla Motors (Elon Musk) bought those and consolidated them into the new company SolarCity
• They have an agreement with Morgan Stanley to purchase and install these solar panels and utilze the corporate rebates to make things more affordable to the average user. This allows them to offer a current promotion of a zero down 15 year lease.
• They have an online portal where you can view solar power as it's generated, and view historical generation.

As I pulled into the parking lot, I got a nice view of their little green Toyota Prius, with the SolarCity logo emblazened on the hood. The people from SolarCity were friendly and the presentation was informative (even had some new information which I didn't see on their website). The question and answer session was lively and lots of folks had questions and comments.

I filled out the slip to have someone contact me, and went on my way.

A little background..

First of all, I have to give it to SCE, they've got a great feature of their website where you can register, log-in, and get your last 5 years of historical data, month by month.

I did this, and found that over the past 5 years, I've spent almost $11,000 on electricity for my ~2000 square foot home in Mission Viejo. That was quite the shocker. Over the past 5 years, I've managed to do a decent job with conservation, even with an expanding family.

I've gone from a annual high of almost 14,000 KWh in 2003 to 8,900 KWh last year. I did this by a combination of the following things:

• Switching as many lights as possible to CFL (especially the canned lights throughtout the house).
• Turning up the thermostat (80 when we're not home) 75-78 when we're home.
• Getting rid of desktop computers. I was shocked when I used my Kill-A-Watt device to learn that a powerful desktop computer can chew up so much power consistantly. Switching to a couple laptops made a huge difference.
• Installation of a whole house fan. This has been a lifesaver on milder days. In the evenings when the temperature dips down, we can open our windows and turn these fans on to suck-in all the cool moist air. They're less effective in the summer when it stays warmer at night, but we've been able to do a good job of moderating the use of A/C during the cooler nights.

So, even with all this work my electric bill has decreased, but not as much as I would have liked. Also, in the summer, I still get large ($300-$500) electric bills.

I started to do some research into a few different solutions. Since our whole house fans are working so well, I was poking around on their website and found that they offer a 'swamp-cooler' type device, it sounded interesting, so I figured that I would chat with my brother-in-law about it.

He said that while the idea is sound, execution is difficult if there's any humidity in the air, sometimes we don't have much humidity, but often it is a bit humid. A little while later, he sent me a brochure about Solar City and a new program they're offering called Solar Lease.

Welcome and a quick overview...

I'm a Southern California resident who is pondering going the solar route. Since I'm an early adopter and a technology geek at heart, I've done lots of research. In my journey to collect as much information as possible about Solar, I've learned that there are some serious gaps in the information which is easily available. I figured I'd share my experiences with you. Hope you can get some good information from this, and enjoy my ramblings.