Solar energy solutions for California and nationwide
We help homeowners like you own your power.
Your energy is power independence.
You’ll save money and be more energy independent from your local utility’s charges, changes, and outages.
Here’s how it works:
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We evaluate your energy needs
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We help you understand your bill
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We create an independent energy solution to lower your costs and keep the lights on
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Every home is different, so we do a custom design for your home
Now you’re on a lifetime course of energy independence!
“We are honored to help you achieve energy independence and save money.
We will create a system that is right for your needs…and your budget!”
You can have confidence that you are in good hands of technically competent energy consultants that work with trusted partners and proven technologies.
Solar FAQ
Honest answers to your questions about solar energy for your home or business
Like any home upgrade, yes and no. When estimating the cost of solar and energy storage for your home, we also estimate the cost of not having solar. It is not like you won’t use electricity if you don’t get solar. No one can say, “Gee, I spend nothing for electricity now, so why should I consider spending money for solar?” Every homeowner connected to a utility grid has a power bill.
You will pay someone for power, so the issue is who gets paid and how much must you spend to have the power you’ll need and use. If you pay cash for an energy system, you eliminate a bank or a leasing company from being paid. Only the utility gets a very small residual payments from you, because you otherwise OWN nearly all or all of your power you use- your solar produces it, the batteries store it, and you can use the power from both of those sources to power your home without needing power from the utility.
Sometimes it isn’t practical from a cost perspective to totally eliminate the utility company, so count on some payments going to the power company– but it will be much, much less than before!
We will address loans and leases in another FAQ.
Let’s say that your bill is “only” $175/month for electricity. For many people, their monthly bill is $400 to
$900/mo, and even more! But let’s see what “solar savings” looks like for someone with the lower side of an average bill. At $175/mo, that means you will spend $2,100/year, and after accounting for the average rising annual utility rates and inflation over time, in just 10 years — if your power consumption remains about the same each year– you will spend about $25,000 for power as a renter of electricity from your utility company.
The utility is your power “landlord,” and there is very little rent control to protect you. By year 15, the homeowner (you!) in this example will have spent over $35,000 to “rent” electricity. Money spent with zero tax credit and zero Return On Investment (ROI). You get to use the power, of course, and you get nothing else coming back to you from your charges.
What if a solar and battery solution cost $30,000 as a cash purchase investment? Does it now sound costly?
Maybe.
After a tax credit of 30% (allowed by current federal tax law), the net cost to the homeowner is
$21,000. Would you rather spend $21,000 for power over 15 years or more than $35,000 for the same amount of power over the same 15 years? Would you rather spend the same $21,000 over 20 and 25 years vs. the projected cost of $50,000 to $60,000 to rent power from your utility? What sounds more costly to you? What offers a better ROI?
Can you think of other ways or things for which you’d like to spend the difference of $14,000 you would have saved over 15 years with solar? What about saving $30K and $40K over 20 and 25 years. We don’t think of solar’s benefit by any given one-month calculation. We think of solar over many years. That’s when the savings become huge.
Yes. Current tax scheduled through year 2032 allows for a tax credit of 30% of the project cost for your solar and storage system. In 2033, the tax credit drops to 26%, and in 2034 it drops to 22%. This law can always change if the government chooses to change the benefit, so don’t wait years to make a choice!
Some states offer tax credits and some do not.
Some utilities offer rebates for both solar and storage, and some just for storage, and some utilities may offer no rebate or incentive. We will help you know what tax credits and rebates apply to you.
First, please consult your tax advisor, accountant, or financial planner. We are not licensed tax accountants or financial planners. However, this is our business and we do understand these things well enough to offer an explanation that will be useful.
Tax credits may be both federal and state in application. You must be a taxpayer to take a tax credit. If you have realized income each year but pay no taxes (or very little), then you’ll not be able to use the tax credit. Tax credits only offset taxes due or taxes already paid. You cannot get a “rebate” or “refund” from the federal government just because you buy solar.
A tax credit is also not a deduction that lowers your taxable income to some net taxable amount. A tax credit is a full credit against whatever amount in taxes you may owe. For example, let’s say you earn income and pay $25,000 in taxes. Your income is irrelevant. Only the taxes paid is relevant. Let’s imagine that you do this through common tax withholdings from your paycheck. When you file for your tax return, let’s say that you have not only paid $25,000 in taxes, but that you may owe $1,500 more. But this is before considering the tax credit value you would have from purchasing solar and storage. If your tax credit from the renewable energy system is $7,000, not only will you not owe $1,500 more in taxes, but you would also get a refund of $6,000 in taxes already collected from your paycheck. That’s how a tax credit can work in a federal tax example.
States will be similar and have variations of that. California offers no tax credit — sorry CA residents.
Under current law, tax credits may be taken over 5 consecutive years if you cannot exercise the full value in any given tax year.
Yes to both questions.
We can direct you to various lending partners using different forms of financing that will work best for your application and for your home. In many cases, people choose PPAs or other forms of leases to achieve a lower monthly bill with no money spent out of pocket. With a lease, you do not own the equipment and therefore you cannot take a tax credit. You cannot normally get a rebate either, because tax credits and rebates go to the financing company which owns the equipment installed at your home.
When you complete the lease term of 20 or 25 years (normal terms), you will also have a buyout condition allowing you to buy the equipment. Or, you can ask the company to take it off of your roof and use a new lease or PPA with new equipment– still saving a lot of money over the utility cost.
With a loan, even with zero $ down, you are the owner and you’ll get the tax credits and rebates that come with ownership. Loan rates may not always provide as low of a monthly payment option as a lease, but many choices exist.
We can find what works for you, and with each payment you gain more ownership of the system.
Some loans offer a flat monthly payment that never changes. Most are this way. Some loans offer one or two steps in payment changes, usually at months 6, 12, and/or 18.
Leases and PPAs can be fixed at 0% change, and options exist to choose an annual increase of 1.9%, 2.9%, 3.5% and 3.9% as common “escalators.” For most people, those annual increases are less than the utility’s annual average increase.
By choosing a rate increase option, the monthly payments normally start much lower than if a homeowner chose a 0% rate change. For example, choosing an annual rate increase of 3.5% may lead to the lease payment being about 1/2 of your utility bill. 7-8 years before that monthly payment equals the monthly payment of the 0% escalation rate.
Therefore, if you’ll live in your home for only 5-10 more years, the lease option with a 3.5% or 3.9% annual escalation increase will save you more money than the lease with 0% annual escalation, because the lease option with the annual increase starts at a lower monthly payment.
Under present law, a rental home doesn’t qualify for tax credits. Rebates may vary.
As a second home, yes, you can take the tax credit and rebate. IRS compliance may limit the percentage of the credit to an amount less than 30%, based on your actual occupancy.
Consult your tax advisor on this point.
Most of the solar panels we use are made in the USA, and some are made in Asia and some in Germany. Energy Storage Systems may have batteries made in the USA, China, Mexico, and other locations. The controllers are often made in the USA or final assembly in the USA, and others in China. The country of origin depends on the manufacturer and the type of product.
In most cases, we will provide data analysis and a proposal without seeing your home in person. If you are local to a specific consultant, then we may visit in person to verify the pricing and details of the proposed solution. In many ways, we prefer the “old school” method of being on site. However, so many resources exist now to provide an accurate estimate and proposal that it is more efficient to first make clear to the buyer what the costs and financing options are before make a personal visit. In many cases, a sales consultant may not live close enough to you to visit in person.
In most cases, we move into a contract phase without first personally visiting the home. Based on the data you provide, including utility information and photos, we are confident that the proposal will be quite accurate. The local installing partner will do a site visit within 7-10 days of contract signing. If changes need to be made, then the installing partner will detail those changes in a site report, including whether the cost of the work and materials will increase or decrease the overall cost of the project.
You will always have the option to cancel an order if you do not approve of the changes and pricing difference.