By Jon Franke, Blog Editor, Aurora Solar
Potential solar power customers are becoming more savvy every day. They do their research, get multiple estimates, and make sure they compare apples-to-apples with all those estimates.
In a market like this, separating your offer from the others can be difficult. One strategy companies are turning to — and customers are increasingly asking about — is production guarantees. In this blog we’ll take a look at production guarantees, why you should offer them, the potential risk factors, and what you need to make sure you meet them.
“While the specifics of plans vary, if there’s a difference between the actual production and quoted production, the installer generally reimburses the homeowner in some way.”
Interesting, what I’ve found out over the years of use of solar PV myself 17 years and counting, there are things one finds out over the years. For instance, my first home with solar PV was a grid tied “net metering” PPA and for the three hottest months of the year, I paid from $40/month to a high of $80/month for the first few years of system ownership. Around the fifth year my now 20-year-old air conditioning systems started to leak Freon and couldn’t find where the leak was. Found an energy program that allowed me to get a rebate IF I would get a new Energy Star unit(s). After doing this any panel LID was erased and from then on, (I never had an electric bill from then on, just a carryover energy credit). Every time one replaces an appliance with Energy Star one offsets LID. IF you don’t have a solar PV system now, it would be a good time to take a granular dive into what happens if one takes out a “green bank loan”, say from Mosaic or some other green bank that is willing to combine energy efficiency programs into one mortgage loan. You could combine replacement of all major appliances with Energy Star appliances, add solar PV to your roof, more insulation and upgraded Energy Star windows and doors, rewire and upgrade the house electric panel, perhaps using smart circuit technology like SPAN or Lumin to create a home ready for battery storage and resiliency now or in the future. This is a marathon, not a sprint.