5 years ago they didn’t affect insurance, but that may have changed.
Not without a battery system and some other requirements. Usually a power sensing automatic transfer switch.
Loach lives not all that far from me, I was giving him semi-local advice.
I bought my house in 2020 with leased solar panels (SunRun, $169/mo). They aren’t a scam and I appreciate the convenience in that they handle all of the maintenance. I had an inverter go out and they replaced it and credited me for the electricity that it did not generate during the down time. I’m not sure whether the credit was the same rate I was paying PG&E, though. I could have asked them to break it down for me, but I didn’t bother. Their customer service has been pretty good.
So I wouldn’t say leased panels are necessarily a scam, though they may not be the most cost effective way to get solar power. When I decided to add a Powerwall battery (I’m not a Tesla fan, but I didn’t have a choice) I compared the purchase price to SunRun’s lease terms and decided it made more sense for me to buy it outright and claim the tax credit.
You have to dodge the fast-talking sales pitches, though, from the less reputable outfits. A client at the site where I do taxes (middle aged single parent) let a solar company talk her into leasing what they said was $40,000 worth of panels. They took the tax credits too. Unless you live like a Kardashian, there is no way you need $40,000 worth of panels. Even at PG&E rates, I can’t imagine them paying for themselves in her lifetime.
What is definitely a scam though, are those companies whose ads I’ve been seeing that go something like “The big electric utilities hate this deal! Get solar panels installed FREE and never pay a utility bill again!” What these guys do is pop a set of panels on your roof and then sell you the power they generate at appallingly high rates and with no recourse if they go out of business.
How much you will save depends on the electric rates in your area and your weather. It’s a no-brainer here in Central California if you have PG&E.
So you paid them $169/mo for the equipment, or does that also include all the electricity you used?
Thanks, and you’re welcome!
Keep in mind though that this is just my personal opinion, definitely not the final word on solar. If people have had positive experiences with leasing, etc., it’s of course worth considering those perspectives too.
$169/mo is the equipment lease. Any electricity generated offsets my PG&E bill. I usually don’t pay PG&E more than $50, and my true-up with them was always in my favor until I started charging my electric car. So I was paying about $220/mo for electricity. People without solar who get power from PG&E & have houses roughly the same size report paying ca. $800/mo on Nextdoor, where PG&E rates are an endless rancorous topic.
I’m not saying leasing is a good idea, just that it isn’t necessarily a scam. Unfortunately purchasing the panels is a considerable cash investment which may be unaffordable for younger homeowners. The removal of the tax credits for solar equipment and the ever-threatened tariffs aren’t going to improve matters.
Don’t have a house fire!
The fire service doesn’t like them. The standard playbook is to cut a hole in the roof to vent the hot gasses/smoke out. The opening is not made right at the peak as there is probably a joist underneath, but a couple square foot opening just below the roof, say 3’x3’ or 3’x4’. That cut is not going to happen if they need to go thru live electrical.
Don’t have a house fire is sound advice. But the rest is silly.
Panels rarely cover the entire roof, in my case the entire north facing side was panel free and a decent amount of the south facing side was clear.
I’ll be following this.
We just bought a new ‘used’ house (5 years old). And we are going full PV solar. Should cover all of are electric needs.
We are doing Net metering. Not interNET. But net usage. That takes a special electric meter. When we are making more power than we need, we sell it to the power company. We push power out. Then at night, we will buy power.
No battery involved in this set up. But we could get them in the future. My understanding is that gets quite expensive though.
This system should take care of all of our electrical needs, basically bringing our bill to zero.
And I do want to do good for the planet. No electric cars yet, but the writing is on the wall. This system is gonna charge them as well.
We don’t have the system yet, but I’m very optimistic about it. It’s exciting to me. Every panel in the new system will have its own built in inverter, each panel will be able to be monitored. If one panel goes down, it does not take the entire system down.
I’m sorry this does not directly address the OP about buying an existing system, but there is some cool stuff out there.
I don’t know what it is like in different countries, but after the recent power outage in Spain I read that the batteries are switched off when there is a power outage, so you can’t use them. The batteries keep their charge, you don’t lose it, but you can’t access it. The reason, as I read it, is that if the battery puts the grid into tension it would be dangerous for the crew repairing the problem and there would be problems synchronising the 50 Hz in your home with the 50 Hz in the grid, as those must be in synch, but can’t when there is no power on the grid. Only when the grid is back up can the batteries synchronize with it and release the power they store.
You probably can see by the way I express myself that I am not an expert at all. But I remember that you cannot be completely independent from the grid if you are not completely independent from it, that is: with no connection at all whatsoever. I did not dig into it as it is not my problem at the moment, but now I am curious whether this is so or not.
You gave me exactly what I wanted which was finding out what questions to ask.
The power company would be trusting the lives of their repair workers to your remembering to flip that switch, and to your being there to do so. They’re not going to do that. They’re not going to connect the grid in the first place to any system that doesn’t have automatic protections.
It’s not silly. If the house is situated that the front of it has the panels, then the firefighters would want to go up the back side. Add some time to get back there. Maybe there’s a fence they need to get the ladder over, add more time. Maybe it’s three stories in the rear due to a walk out basement (NW NJ is hilly), which means a bigger, heavier ladder; extra weight going a longer distance needs an extra body to get back there, coupled with longer to get it up & longer to climb up, & more energy expended carrying your tools up. Adding a couple of minutes to the process can take it from just a room & contents to a floor or whole house fire.
I’ve seen some houses where there’s lots of panels covering almost the entire roof & I’ve driven by houses where I’m thinking why did they bother as there’s maybe 50% covered.
Because panels are expensive and they only needed a certain amount to cover their needs.
And the panels have to be oriented to the south & not be shaded by trees or other buildings or they won’t be effective
Exactly. I have some empty roof space that would have been ideal placement, but to get approved for the best net metering program, I could only build a system that covered no more than 110% of my average usage.
An $800 electric bill gives you lots of room to make a solar lease financially advantageous. At highest, including charging the car, mine is \frac{1}{4} that.
I’ve had a few of the door-knockers (certainly the lowest of the low solar installers) run numbers for me, and at absolute best with the most generous assumptions, the solar lease might break even.
The sales pitches that don’t work are things like the panels become mine at the end of the lease. So after 15-20 years, I own a bunch of outdated solar technology? Why is that good?
Or, my electricity is free. If I’m going to pay $150-200/month to someone, why do I care if it goes to Xcel for electricity or AAASolar for panel rental? A variation on this is that “it won’t cost me anything.” Which is a more lying version of the same pitch. It’s not free, it’s just money I’d be paying anyway, so it’s like it’s free.
Hmm… $800/mo is a LOT of money for electricity… that’s like “home weed grow” kind of money… the US average should be $100-$200/mo. Either they live in a huge mansion and have five indoor hot tubs all on while being cooled by a giant A/C… or I think there’s something really wrong with that math 
I’m inclined to believe you, because you’re an accountant, aren’t you? You helped me with taxes a while ago?
But… that seems really off 
There are a few public datasets available for average electricity usage and pricing by zip code, etc. (unless Trump/Musk killed them), if you want to double-check your neighbor’s numbers… that’s just really, really high. I’ve never paid more than $150/mo in any state I’ve lived in, up to 3 bedrooms in smaller houses, even with electric HVAC running all summer and winter.
For your own house, $220/mo (total) seems a far more realistic number, but I can’t really tell whether that’s a good deal without knowing your specifics (not that you asked). It might be a good situation, or maybe just close to break-even, like @echoreply mentioned. I suppose whether it’s worth it depends on what your goals/values were for the project (i.e. trying to maximize ROI, or offset your own environmental impacts with minimal fuss). We can run some more detailed math if you’d like, but I would assume you already did…?
The “scam” part is not that they won’t actually install the solar for you, but that it is usually not financially advantageous compared to either buying your own system outright or getting a bank loan to finance an installation, and usually not environmentally advantageous compared to other forms of offsets. But I suppose it could be more labor-saving and offer more peace of mind… you just pay the monthly cost and don’t have to worry about any of the rest of it. Equipment failures should be relatively rare (within the expected lifespan), but they do happen, and it can be a PITA to deal with them through an installer, reseller, and one or more manufacturers. A lease with a service contract would at least prevent that hassle.
(Edit: Though there also ARE outright scams, as in a few particularly bad companies that will take your money and then stall for months before installing anything, and/or not do anything if your system underperforms, and/or fudge their numbers on purpose and hope you don’t look too closely, and/or never actually successfully navigate permitting and turn on the system… there are nightmare stories like those too. But I just generally meant the “not a great deal” situations.)
Before we got solar, our bills for the high months (peak heat and peak AC) were over $1000. We have only one hot tub. Our lowest for the year was around $300.
For how big a house, where, and how old? That’s not impossible, just high above the national averages (which, granted, can vary a lot from household to household).
To me, that sort of situation calls more for a home energy audit before solar. It usually makes more sense to figure out why the bill is so high to begin with, like whether there is something wrong with the HVAC, or maybe it’s really old, or the house is terribly insulated, or whatever. In many situations, you can get better comfort for less money than just buying a giant, oversized solar system — for example by using zoned mini-splits, or upgrading attic & wall insulation, or replacing windows, generally increasing R-values, etc.
It really depends on the specifics, though. If you have a huge house with many bedrooms and central air & heat from an old HVAC, in an area with very prices, and not particularly efficient windows & insulation… yeah, they can all add up. I wouldn’t necessary just add more solar in such a situation, but of course, it’s not my house 
Many states & localities offer free or partially subsidized home energy audits that can help homeowners & sellers/buyers determine what upgrades make sense. Some utilities, like PG&E, also loan out free tools like infrared imagers and draft checkers so you can do your own measurements.
Solar is one good option, but not the only one, and shouldn’t necessarily be the first step either. Insulation and HVAC upgrades are usually more cost-effective.
In most parts of California, utility rates are very high. In the winter when I used the electric heat (along with a hot tub and charging the EV) my bill was $580 for a three bedroom house. It would be crazy if I used AC in the summer.
Yeah, and the rates have like doubled or tripled over the last decade The wildfires were not kind to PG&E’s bottom line and they really jacked up the prices in response…
Still, it depends a lot on the specifics. Electric heating can be cheaper with mini split heat pumps than central resistive heating, for example. But newer homes built to recent building codes may already be quite energy efficient with not much room for improvement, and solar might be the only major thing to add. Time of use is a big deal too, and sometimes just adding time shifting batteries (even without solar) can help with that. It all just depends on the specifics… there’s no one size fits all approach to this, which is why the energy auditors can help.