For a few years Karissa and I have been thinking and about solar power installations, trying to weigh pros and cons, and finances (it has big up-front cost). Well, we stopped thinking. Consider this my really big Christmas present (I started getting quotes while home for Christmas and New Year's break).
I thought I would jot down some thoughts, and share some of our experience with our solar installation, in case any of you that read Karissa's blog may be interested. So here we go.
First, I did get 2 quotes. One from Solar City and one from AtisSun. Solar City are the "big guys" and AtisSun is a local solar company in Annapolis, MD. I chose AtisSun for 2 reasons:
1) Business model - Solar City started in the solar lease model. They still seem focused on that. Zero risk to the customer, but not sure where the gain was either. AtisSun installs systems, and helped with financing, setting up SRECs, net metering, and applying for state grants. But after their 1 year warranty, it is all mine (there are very good OEM warranties as well).
2) Solar Hot Water - Solar City only does Photovoltaic Cells (PV). I think their business model is to get you to lease your roof to them, they pay a small part of your electric bill (surprisingly small if you put nothing down) and they keep the SRECs (more on these later). AtisSun installed a combined package of PV cells and a solar hot water heater. That was the deal maker for me.
What is the big deal with solar hot water? About 25% of your home electric bill (if you use electric hot water) is the hot water heater. And solar hot water is over 70% efficient (PV cells are less than 20%). So why would you install PV cells at 20% eff to heat water, when you could do it at 70%?
Next Post - Day 1
