With new solar mandates like the CALGreen green building standards code coming into effect and more and more people seeing the effects of climate change linked to carbon-emission producing energy sources, the adoption rate of solar energy is increasing faster than we’ve ever seen before.
While this seems like it could be an overall positive for the industry, it also means that more potential installers want a piece of the pie. New solar companies are popping up left and right, increasing the competition level of other, more established installation companies everywhere.
Some years back, around 2012 a young man from Vivint, knocked on my door and began a spiel of how solar PV can save costs on electric bills for “decades” to come. I walked the young man back to the sidewalk, pointed to my roof and said, Yes I’ve enjoyed the benefits of solar PV for several years now. He said something like, “that’s great” and proceeded to my next door neighbors house. I understand Vivint filed for bankruptcy protection shortly after that.
With things like google earth, one can cold call individual residences if anyone still has listed phone numbers and or dedicated house phones anymore. The “soft costs” of a business is also passed along to the soft costs of the potential solar PV adopter. The more money you save them, the happier they will be with the process. As an end user, if one can cut $1,000 maybe $2,000 off of a system install and or use that savings to install a larger system, then bang for the buck will pick your installation over someone else’s bid. I have found that large solar PV firms like the former Solar City were quoting the “same” system size for $10,000 over what a local solar PV company quoted. The “construction” practice of finding at least three bids for the same system and if one can the same system components will tell you where the actual labor of installing the system is from each company.