Solari Solutions

What Are Minimum Delivery Charges In California & When Do I Have To Pay Them?

bruno_stuger@hotmail.com (Frank Bierhals) — Sat, 29 Oct 2022 01:29:21 GMT

Solar companies sometimes forget to "speak" about how solar really works.

And one of the things that falls into that scope are Minimum Bill Charges .

But don't worry, I got you. This article will give go in-depth with everything you need to know about them.

Let's dive right into it.

Just one more note before we get started, the examples used in this blog post , are from energy utilities in CA, but it still applies to all other states in the same fashion.

Minimum Delivery Charges

Even with solar, they will still charge you something called either Minimum Delivery Charges or Electric Delivery Charges .

This fee is about ¢33 (cents) per day plus a tiny amount of tax and some other minimal charges. To approximate the total cost, you have to multiply that by the number of days in a month.

�� To be precise , as of October 2021, with PG&E it's ¢33 per day, with SDG&E it's also ¢33 per day and with SCE it's ¢35 per day.

Example: Let's think of SCE. There are 31 days in October. So 31 x $0.35 = $10.85. Plus tax, it will end up in the $12s.

If That's The Case, Why Go solar If I'm Going To Pay That Fee?

Let's think of a scenario here...

Imagine that you went on vacation for 3 months (lucky you), and that you didn't use a single watt of energy during that time. You'd still have to pay that fee.

It'd look like this:

Also, all this time that you've been paying your electric bill, it's always been there, included in the price. Bet you didn't know that huh!

Here is proof:

With or without solar, if your electric consumption within a month falls below the minimum amount needed to factor that into the costs, that's when you're going to get charged with this fee.

Why Do They Charge This?

Because you're still using the utilities' infrastructure (high tension power lines, street-level cables, and their meter) even if you have solar.

" Wait what, how?"

I know it sounds crazy, but for solar to work the way it works and to be able to bring in all the benefits it does, you have to use the grid through Net Metering.

As a matter of fact, you would technically use the grid in the same way a non-solar user would. That's why costs like the transportation of the electricity and grid maintenance need to be taken care of.

I know what you're thinking: "Those damn energy companies won't cut us some slack".

And I'm with you, they make me angrier than when my dog pees on the carpet. But just for this one time , I'm going to have to side with them.

Are You Crazy? Why Would You Say That?

The thing is that if we didn't use the grid to make solar work this would happen:

You would need a much bigger system to the point where solar might stop bringing in financial benefits.
You would need to get an array of 3+ batteries to store enough energy.

These 2 things would drive up the price and at that point, we'd be better off staying with the energy company. Think of it, if financing one battery is about $50 per month, how much more would we be paying then?

So if it boils down to choosing that or embracing the Minimum Delivery Fees of around $12 per month, which one would you choose?

Right? See why I said what I said?

Also, this is a fee mandated by the CPUC , who are the ones in charge of coming up with the legal framework for solar, and they are good guys. We'll talk about them in the next section.

With that said, it's only fair to pay our share of non-energy costs for the transportation of electricity and grid maintenance. At the end of the day, if we didn't use the evil guys' grid, we wouldn't be able to see such good savings with solar.

And When Do I Have To Pay It?

I'm glad you asked. Because most of the time, on top of hiding their existence, they will also avoid going into how they work.

And that could end up becoming a problem for you since you won't know what to pay when . It's not complicated or anything, but doesn't hurt to shine a light on this.

Here is why:

There will be some months where you produce more than you consume and there will be others where you'll use more than what you produced. And that's completely fine . That's how solar is supposed to work.

At the end of every 12 months after the date on which you got started, your energy consumption and production will get settled and they'll tell you if your solar covered 100% of the energy you used in the whole year or if it didn't.

☑️ That's called the True-Up Bill or Annual Settlement Bill .

For Example: if your production was less than your consumption for the whole year, at the time of your True-Up Bill, you'll be required to pay for that extra usage.

(Let's hope that will never be you, assuming you apply every tip I'm about to give you and you make sure to get a properly sized solar system like the guys from our Case Studies ).

But anyway, going back, everything gets settled every 12 months in the True-Up Bill. Anything that has to be paid, will be due at the end of those 12 months.

⚠️ Except for one thing...

Minimum Delivery Charges . Yes, the ones we've been talking about.

They are the ONLY ONES that have to be paid on a monthly basis to recoup the costs of grid usage as discussed above. And no, your solar is not able to pay off these costs. You have to pay for them with real money.

Aside from your true-up bill, you will get a monthly statement that'll show you how your solar is doing and it'll also require you to pay the $12ish in Minimum Delivery Charges that are owed for the month.

Say it with me one more time: Any extra energy usage or charges will be due at the time of my true-up bill. Except for the monthly Minimum Delivery Charges.

And by the way, one last thing, in case you do owe some money at the end of the year for using more than what you produced, the minimum delivery charges will help you reduce that amount.

Example: $12 a month for 12 months would be $144. Let's say that at the time of your true-up bill you used an extra $300 of energy. Those $144 would be taken as a credit and then you'd only have to pay $156 ($300 - $144 = $156).

That's ONLY if you used more energy than what your solar produced in a year.

Because if your system is properly designed to provide 100% of the energy you'd need throughout the year, the Minimum Delivery Charges won't account for anything. They have to be paid and that's it.

Summary!

Solar relies on the grid to work.
Since we're still using the grid even with solar, we have to pay for that.
These charges end up being around $12 to $13 per month.
It's the only other thing you have to pay on a monthly basis aside from your solar payment! ��
With the chunky monthly savings you're going to be experiencing, these guys are going to pay for themselves.

SOLAR FAQs!

bruno_stuger@hotmail.com (Frank Bierhals) — Mon, 05 Sep 2022 21:21:20 GMT

THE MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS HOMEOWNERS HAVE ABOUT SOLAR

Take a shot at them, and if you have any other that does not show up here, just text me (619) 505-9889 and I'll add it to this blog post. Enjoy!

i CAN'T GO SOLAR... It’s too expensivE ��

It’s true. We aren’t the cheapest out there...

We like being in the middle point where we deliver a better premium-quality job at a cheaper price than most ‘premium companies’.

But without being in the low-end where we just wouldn’t be able to guarantee our work for 30 years instead of 25 (with no hidden fees like others).

You get far more for your money somewhere else...

But this often means that if something with your system goes wrong, nobody will come fix it or even pick up the phone.

And you’ll be stuck with a system that doesn’t work. Like a lot of people are today even with the 'premium companies'.

Like this for example, check this out:

As you can see, going with the cheapest option, if it doesn’t give you results, is the most expensive thing you can do.

So think about this... ��

✅ If you can still pay less than what you are paying right now on a monthly basis... and without sacrificing quality , would you still say this is expensive?

✅ If it’s gonna help you save on a monthly and yearly basis, without you coming out of pocket, can that even be labeled as expensive?

If you'd like to learn more about how you can save money every month with solar without any kind of downpayment to get started, you can do so by going in here .

iT'S A HASSLE ... It takes a lot of time! ⏰

You're right... It’s always tedious to apply for something.

It's one hoop, and then another, and then another after another and so on. Every single time right?

Well, I wanted to let you know that we restructured everything , and as of today, you just need to fill out 2 digital “no-hassle” forms and you’re good to go.

You'd be done at that point. For real. You don't need to move one single finger again till those panels are on your roof.

Is there any easier than that?

Click here to get started

i AM Not too sure if this is EVEN for me... ��

Honestly...

Without actually speaking with you and assessing your situation, we don’t know if we can help you either.

And anyone who promises they can without speaking to you is either ignorant or lying through their teeth.

What we CAN promise, is that we’ll be as thorough as we can in providing the best solution for your circumstances.

But if you never speak to us, you’ll never know if this ACTUALLY was for you! And then your dreams are just going to vanish…

That or you're gonna end up falling for the lies of some smartypants salesman who's going to convince you he doesn't need to analyze anything and something like this will happen:

Yeah, there's people out there just guessing what kind of system size you'd need.

Look , we all hate getting on the phone, even though we know it’s needed sometimes. Especially since there’s always a pushy salesperson on the other side of the line, right?

Well, let me give you some peace of mind…

We promise you no one will push you into doing something you don’t want. Remember that we don’t even have salespeople and our specialists are only there to evaluate if this is good or not for you!

Heck, but if by any chance you feel like you are in a sales call, or that you’re being pushed like you would be somewhere else , you let us know and we’ll straight FIRE them!

That’s how serious we are about this.

So now that you’re sure you won’t be forced into doing anything you don’t want, go ahead and book your free orientation and see how this would benefit you.

I’m afraid it might not work as you guys say… ☹️

We all get that feeling, and It’s perfectly normal. Especially with so many bad guys out there...

Like, how do you know we’re not the same? Right?

Well, that’s exactly why we put this in place:

Complete Confidence 30 Year All-Around Warranty

We instated that hoping to address that concern which was a really common one among most homeowners. And with all reason!

It doesn’t only cover the parts and labor if something ever needs to be fixed, no, it goes beyond that ...

We said your system would produce X amount of energy but ended up producing less? You’re now also covered for that.

This will guarantee that your system performs in the exact same way as we said it would.

We go broke as a company and we're not able to fulfill it for you?
You're insured by a 3rd party!
We don't respond to your warranty claims?
The third party insurance will.
You need any kind of repair in those 30 years?
You're covered. You don't have to pay anything. It's already paid for you if you ever need it.

That's why we called it all-around warranty. Cause it literally covers it all.

It doesn't mean we won't respond to your claims if you ever need us, like in the examples you saw above...

It just means that you're never going to be in a position like that cause we already took care of that.

We thought of every single scenario possible and we took care of it before it happened.

We're proud to say you won't find that type of warranty anywhere else .

What do you think of that?

Pretty neat huh?

If you'd like us to tell you more about how our warranty works, just go in here and book a free solar strategy session.

IS SOLAR REALLY WORTH IT IN THE FIRST PLACE? ��

Well that's something that only you can answer, but let me help you do that:

Paying a fixed rate vs. an unknown amount at the end of the month, which on top of that fluctuates?
Avoiding high summer bills?
Putting an end to the energy price being raised on you year after year?
Raising the equity on your home while still saving money?

But that’s something you wouldn’t want would you? ��

For instance, take a look at this image, that's an actual example of a homeowner who decided to work with us:

Noticed how if he hadn't gone solar his bill would've kept going up and with solar it stays practically flat till he pays it off?

And at that point, his savings just go on steroids !

If you'd like to estimate how much money you could save yourself with solar, you can do so by clicking here .

HOW DOES SOLAR WORK? ��

It all depends on where you live...

An easy explanation would be this.

During the day, your panels will produce more energy than what you'll be able to use in that same moment.

So all that energy is going to go back into the grid and saved for you in the form of credits so that you can use it at night or on another day.

However... that kind of explanation (which most websites provide) is really shallow and will lead to confusion...

Cause solar is very different from one state to another, and from one energy company to another.

What I would recommend here would be to book a free orientation with a local specialist so that they can properly inform you on how it'd work for you specifically.

And yes, I said a local specialist , not a sales person, ca use most of the times they don't even know how this works in the first place. Here is proof of that:

As I said... solar's a different beast for each single person's case.

So don't fall for all the nonsense that you will find on the internet....

It's always better to speak to someone who knows the ins and outs of your locality and who will show you the laws providing proof as to why it'd work for you in the way they're saying it will.

For your luck, you can do so by booking an orientation with one of our TRUE local specialists .

See you there!

WHAT DO YOU GUYS TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION WHEN YOU DESIGN MY SYSTEM? ♻️

First and foremost... how much energy you're using in a year.

And that's where many companies would stop.

But at this workplace we like to be as meticulous as one can be. That's why we also take into consideration this:

The steepness of your roof and how that affects the panels' production.
The amount of sun each single panel will get in a day.
How your local weather will affect the amount of sun they get.
The trajectory of the sun depending on where you're at in a year.
Your energy consumption habits.
Any plans in the future you might have that might increase your energy consumption.

At the time of your free solar orientation , we will explain to you the steps we took to compensate for all of the above.

You will be trained in the art of determining on your own whether your system was properly sized or not.

IF I GO SOLAR WILL I REALLY HELP THE WORLD? ♻️

Although panel manufacturing facilities do have a carbon footprint, and anyone that says otherwise is lying to you...

The amount of CO2 you can take out of the atmosphere by having solar completely overshadows the one that was generated during their production.

Studies show that by the 3rd year of you having your panels, you already compensated for the CO2 generated during their assembly.

3 years for your house to become carbon neutral !

But that's only in its first years... cause after that, you will definitely make a difference.

How much of a difference?

This kind of difference!

How about that!?

I think that answered your question didn't it?

But the first step towards becoming the world's superman, is understanding how this would work for you.

And you can do so by going here and getting a free solar assessment.

How does the solar tax credit really work? ��

It's pretty easy...

The IRS will wire into your account 30% of the total cost of your system.

All you got to do is put it back into your financing and that's it.

Otherwise your monthly solar payment will go up after 18 months if you don't.

The real question is how to make sure you can claim it.

If you're not paying that much taxes in a year, all you would need to do would be to ask your employer to STOP withholding taxes from your paycheck and thats' it.

That'll create the wiggle room needed for the IRS to qualify you as eligible for it.

If you want to learn how this federal incentive can make your solar payment 30% cheaper than what it should be, just book a free solar tax credit orientation here and you'll be on your way.

SHOULD I GET A SOLAR BATTERY? ��

Actually, most of the times we would advise against it.

Unless you want to protect yourself from outages of course...

Just know that many solar companies will make you believe that it will backup your whole house, while it won't ...

Here's an example of what a battery CAN actually do:

It solely depends on the amount of things you choose to backup with it.

Although it's important to mention that there are some cases where we will definitely recommend a battery if one our specialists deems it appropriate.

But that's on a case by case scenario.

If you'd like to know if you should get a battery or not, you can book a free storage orientation and one of our local specialists will gladly help you with that.

IS IT TRuE THAT SOLAR WILL RAISE THE VALUE OF MY HOME? ��

Yup, but how much it goes up depends on how many panels you end up getting. Here's an example:

Just make sure to get a not so old appraiser, cause we've found that old fashioned ones don't even know about this...

And to hide the fact that they don't know, they tend to say it's not possible, although it is.

How does the live monitoring solar app look like? ��

Like this. Pretty straightforward.

From it you will be able to see how each panel is performing.

Just don't spend all the day looking at it like I do haha.

Quick Tip: You can get it for free if you book a solar orientation here .

SO I HAVE TO PAY MY ENERGY BILL AND MY SOLAR AT THE SAME TIME? ☀️

The short answer is: NO.

The long answer is: it all depends on where you live.

Solar is very different from one state to another, there are some states where you will be able to fully replace your bill while there are others where you will only be able to replace a portion of it.

In any case, it doesn't mean that you will not save money. It just means that you need to speak with one of our specialists who can orientate you as to how it would specifically work for you depending on where you live.

it sounds too good to be true... ��

Well, we can make it less good if that's what you want ��

Although I wouldn't recommend that haha.

The reality of things is that it's just as it sounds.

Don't believe me?

Book a free assessment and find out yourself!

does IT REALLY take $0 to start? LIKE REALLY? ��

Yes sir/ma’am! No small letters or conditionals. ��

It does take you $0 to start!

WHAT HAPPENS IF MY SYSTEM ever FAILS? ��

You let us know and we'll come and fix it for you.

Our work is guaranteed for 30 years.

NO conditionals or small print where you have to pay a fee or a deductible if something goes down.

No...

You're COMPLETELY covered for 30 years as opposed to 25 years or sometimes even less like with every other company.

are the panels 100% mine? ��

Yup, 100%!

NO Leases stopping you from selling your house down the road or increasing in price overtime.

NO PPAs (power purchase agreement) putting liens on your property or anything like that.

Your solar panels are yours, and only YOURS from Day 1 .

And remember, once you're done paying them you never have to pay for them ever again. ✨

WHAT about solar payments? ��

For your convenience you can have them automatically charged to your card of preference.

No late payments any more!

WHAT IF I LIVE IN AN HOA OR GATED COMMUNITY? ��

Relax, go watch a movie or your favorite news channel/show.

We'll take care of that for you.

The city permits, the HOA permits, the fire department permits, and the list goes on.

We do EVERYTHING for you ��

You don’t have to lift a single finger!

What Are Non-Bypassable Charges (NBCs) & How Can I Calculate Them?

bruno_stuger@hotmail.com (Frank Bierhals) — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 17:54:37 GMT

Don't be one of those who are surprised by NBCs at the end of the year.

Let's talk about what are them, why do you have to pay them and how can you avoid them!

Non Bypassable Charges

This is the trickiest one of all the Net Metering 2.0 policies, so pay close attention. Before Net Metering 2.0, these costs were canceled out by the excess energy you produced.

But according to the utilities, they were not able to recuperate these costs by how their economics work. And once again, people without solar were paying up for it.

The NBC's were instated so that homeowners with solar would also pay their share for low-income and energy efficiency programs that utilities have in collaboration with the state.

An NBC is a charge from ¢2 to ¢3 cents that gets added to every kWh you import from the grid. Or at least that's what almost everybody says because they don't truly know how these guys work...

These are accrued during the whole year and have to be paid at the time of your True Up Bill, which is a statement you'll get every 12 months from the date you went solar.

And by the way, they're non-bypassable. I wonder if that's where they got the name from? ��

But anyway, let's take a look at this graph. That's called a load profile. In other words, it's an average of how much energy you use in a day and during what hours:

How To Calculate Them

First of all, let's take a look at this graph. That's called a load profile . In other words, it's an average of how much energy you use in a day and during what hours:

The thing with NBC's is that they get calculated per hour and per kWh, not only per kWh . And that's why most people get it wrong or only go as far as explaining the concept but not how they work...

Every whole hour of the day, it's a race between your production and your consumption to see who wins. If at the end of any given hour, your solar production is more than your consumption, solar wins and you will NOT get any NBC's.

But if your consumption happens to be more than your production at the end of that hour, you will get an NBC added ONLY to those kWh that your solar was not able to produce.

Quick Reminder: it's every whole hour (8 am, 9am, 10 am, etc.)

So if at the end of that hour, your consumption wins the race... Then and only then, pull up your calculator and plug in this highly complex mathematical operation:

In other words, you would get an NBC added to every kWh consumed beyond your total production in that 1-hour window.

Here's the graph from above, but on steroids, to help you implant all this madness into your brain:

Are you starting to get it? The reason why 100% of the kWhs you use at night get NBCs, is because your solar is not producing anything! Everything is coming straight from the grid.

The blocks that say "Part" are because the production is barely ramping up and around 50% of the consumption will still score NBC's, at least till 7.30 am where you're breakeven because your solar's output will cover all the energy you'd use.

Well, actually, 8 am because NBCs are calculated every whole hour (8 am, 9 am, 10 am, etc.). Remember?

Now let's take a look at a prediction that will give you a pretty good idea of how many NBC's would leech to you on a normal day.

The values circled in green are: What percentage of energy was consumed during that hour out of the 100% you'd typically use throughout the day.

After running the numbers, we can estimate that roughly 63% of your energy consumption in a day will be at the mercy of NBC's.

And how would that look like in dollar numbers?

Imagine that your average energy bill was $427 before solar, just like the guy from the case study we did in Section #1...

To get a $417 bill you would have to consume 1,423 kWh at the average utilities' price of 30 cents. (1423 kWh x $0.30 = $427).
Estimating that 63% of your monthly usage with solar is subject to NBCs, that would be 875 kWh out of the 1390 kWh used. (1423 kWh x 0.63% = 896 kWh)
We said the NBCs can go from ¢2 to ¢3. Let's take the middle range at ¢2.5. If we do 896 kWh x $0.025 that would be $22.40 of NBC's accrued during that month.
The total amount of NBC's for the year would be $268.80 ($22.40 x 12 months = $268.80).

Not that bad huh? I bet you were thinking they would be a lot more!

✅ I know it's still a little something, but hey, with all the money you're going to be saving they're going to pay for themselves .

Check out these �� Californian Case Studies �� from people to went solar to see how much they're saving and how those savings pay for these kind of things.

How To Counter NBCs

The thing with NBCs, is that even if they say they're non-bypassable, you can still significantly reduce the amount that will leech onto you. How?

By shifting heavy usage to off-peak hours.
By getting a battery.

Tip #1 - Shift heavy usage to high-production hours:

Let's start with this. If you want to charge your electric vehicle or you're planning on turning on the pool pump, or any other high-usage appliance , try to do it on hours where your solar is in its prime.

Prime meaning highest production. Like from 10 am to 4 pm. That way you'll avoid NBC's since all the electricity being called for is going to be coming straight from your solar.

⚠️ All the calculations in this article and the ones for real-life projects are done to fit your current lifestyle. You are never forced to change your habits and preferred times just because you went solar.

Tip #2 - Get a battery:

NBC's only come around when at the end of every whole hour, your production is not enough to cover all the energy you used inside of that same hour. Like at night or when the sun is going down.

If you had a battery, you would technically be taking back your excess energy from it instead of from the grid, and that would drastically reduce NBC's by 40%.

7 SHOCKING Truths Nevada Solar Companies Will Do Their Best To Hide From You | #4 Will Blow Your Mind 🤯

bruno_stuger@hotmail.com (Frank Bierhals) — Tue, 14 Sep 2021 02:39:23 GMT

" This makes sense. Just sign here. " (Gets pissed off if you don't)

" Your neighbor just went solar with us. He's a smart one. "

" We are the best company in the state/city ."

That... they WILL tell you!

The good thing is you're mindful. That's why you're here. Otherwise, you would have fallen for that.

You're about to understand why people say what they say, how solar companies have contributed to that, and how you can protect yourself against the dangers of their well-hidden secrets.

Just one more thing before we start. The average read time of this article is of 18 minutes. But rest assured you won't get bored , not even one single bit. So buckle up, grab some popcorn, and read up! NO slacking! ��

You're in for a ride that will blow your mind into another dimension just like in the movie The Matrix®.

With no further ado, here are the 7 things that solar companies will not tell you even if you're already part of their ranks.

(Which by the way, happen to be the most important facts you need to be aware of before going solar in Nevada).

Coincidence?

#1 The one thing solar companies don't take into consideration (that you need to know), to make sure your system is properly sized.

Life gets in the way, even for solar panels.

Let's pretend that 3 years after getting your solar, you're ready to get that brand new electric F-150 or Tesla. You're so excited... "A good-looking car, and to top it off, it's electric!"

Well, I'm sorry to be a killjoy here, but that's actually bad news.

Now your solar won't be able to cover 100% of the electricity you'll be consuming, since your system was designed without taking that into consideration.

Properly assessing your house's needs is not enough in today's day and age.

You as a customer, and most importantly the company, need to take into consideration your future needs and plans to avoid road bumps down the line.

But hey, we as companies, are the ones supposed to know that. Not you!

When one goes and tries to buy some stuff, we expect the company we're talking to, to be aware of all these things and little details. That's why they're a business in the first place right?

So the real question here is, why would they not bring this up? Are they deliberately hiding this or are they guilty of not even knowing it?

I don't know which one is worse.

#2 The little carry-over no company wants to talk about.

Nowadays, there's something called smart meters . Back in the good ol' days, meters were only used to measure electric consumption, but these smart ones are now capable of measuring production as well.

Why?

Because that's how energy companies keep track of how much energy your solar is producing vs. how much you're using. It's the only legitimate way to know that your solar's outcome covers 100% of your energy usage.

"Where are you getting with this Frank?" That's my name by the way .

Buckle up my friend, because I'm about to answer that.

The energy monopoly won't let you go just like that. Even after going solar , they will still charge you something called the Basic Service Charge. That's a fee anywhere from 12 to 18 bucks depending on what state you live in.

Around $13 for Nevada.

Why do they do this? Because you're still using their infrastructure (high tension power lines and street-level cables) and their meter. Remember that here in the U.S.A. the electric grid is privately owned in its majority.

Even when you have a battery you'd have to pay this fee, since your system is not true off-grid . You're still connected to it with the difference that now you can store up to a couple of days worth of energy.

Solar companies will call it off-grid but now you know that's not true unless you live in an RV constantly rocking beautiful roads, or on top of a mountain with no power lines.

If that's the case, why even go solar if I'm still going to be paying that fee?

Let's think of a scenario here...

Imagine that you went on vacation for 3 months (lucky you), and that you didn't use a single watt of energy during that time. You'd still have to pay that fee.

Also, all this time that you've been paying your electric bill, it's always been there, included in the price. Bet you didn't know that huh!

You can find it here:

Solar companies will tell you that when you go solar, your energy bill drops to $0. And it does ! Since you're not paying for energy anymore! (Props to them for saying the truth at least once).

But what they don't tell you is that this fee will stay.

I've even heard them say that your solar energy will pay for it. However that's not true . This is a monthly charge that has to be paid from your pocket and that cannot be bypassed.

Here's proof:

That is how your NV Energy monthly statement would look like if you had solar by the way.

This has made homeowners think that they're still paying for energy when in reality they're not. It's only this little carry-over of that obscure past. But hey, it's not their fault! Solar companies are the ones to be blamed.

They're the ones misleading the homeowners since before the dinosaurs existed! Bet their customers wouldn't be so pissed if they didn't hide this from them, among other things like the ones we'll discuss in further sections.

This is actually only a bad thing if they didn't let you know this upfront.

Because even with this small fee, solar is going to save you more stacks of money than your hands are capable of holding; in the short, medium, and long run.

See for yourself:

And where do such savings come from?

Everybody says that solar will save you money but they never say how. Let's demystify that!

Energy is produced by burning oil, and oil is a commodity. That means its price is influenced by several external factors like stock markets, state of the global industry, inflation, and basic laws like supply & demand.

Every one of these factors plays an important role, but the last two have a huge influence on the price. The lesser oil there is, the higher its price will be.

Cities are ever-growing and the supply is only so much. As a consequence of that, we get yearly inflation ; which for Nevada is anywhere from 2% to 3% as indicated by the (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021).

But the projections are only based on past movements, they do not take into consideration game-changers like the fact that people are moving into Nevada by the day, and that's something that'll make it blow up.

Now, what do you think would happen if you were to avoid those yearly price raises?

Yup, you'll get the so-called solar savings. With the added benefit that once you pay off your system, they will only get bigger.

Solar does not depend on external factors at all. You have a fixed monthly price that never goes up on you even if we were to see the market collapse or harder peaks in inflation as forecasted.

It's a matter of certainty vs uncertainty.

Eliminating external factors that could harm your finances? OR Keep them in your house and in your life?

Leaving energy companies sitting on a couple of bucks and saving tons on the way? OR Riding the price-increases rollercoaster while filling the pockets of evil till the end of time?

Why evil? You're about to see.

#3 The Nevada net metering war and the final window of opportunity in its aftermath.

To understand this we're going to travel back in time. Welcome to Solar History 101. Let's get started.

The first homeowners that went solar, were not treated as well as the ones that do today. Back then, 2015ish, there was no legal framework that protected them from every angle possible.

There was a war waged between the state senate and the energy monopolies. Or monopoly? That's a subject for another day.

They were trying to put a stop to the solar uprising, just like in Terminator®.

Punishing the homeowners who had it, they managed to temporarily achieve that by using the legal loopholes to change the way they credited the energy houses produced.

Example: Let's say they were selling the kWh to homeowners at ¢13. Back then, for every kWh their system produced, they were credited at ¢13 as well; a 1:1 rate. But, after their changes, they were only getting credited for 50% of that in some cases. It's like you had suddenly chopped the system by taking half the panels off the roof!

All because the kid wanted their candy. What a low blow right?

The good thing is the senate took the matter into their own hands and quashed them by passing bills like AB405 that put an end to this and gave birth to a new era; that of the new net metering .

But once again, monopolies fought hard to stay with a piece of the pie . They just couldn't let their huge profits evaporate in the blink of an eye...

Although this time they could barely get around these bills, they did manage to plant an evil seed to secure their share for the future.

But before we get to that, let's zone in on something that will help you understand it...

What is net metering?

Have you ever wondered what happens to all the excess power produced by your system when you don't use all of it? That's where net metering comes into play.

During the year, there are seasons and months where you'll consume more than what your system generates, and others that work the other way around. At the end of the year, they balance each other out.

In other words, if you add the year's worth of electricity generated by your system, it will equate to 100% of what your house used during that same year. (Assuming that your system was properly designed of course, as we spoke about in Section #1).

Take a look at this. The orange bars are the solar production and the blue ones the consumption. On months with a surplus you will see your excess energy being stored as dollar credits like the ones circled in green :

Can you see how the orange months balance out the blue ones? That's net metering in action.

And who keeps track of this? The so-called smart meters aforementioned.

Think of net metering as a bank that stores your excess energy on the grid, while you're waiting for the rough months where you'll make use of it to arrive.

However it doesn't only happen within a month. It can also happen in the span of day. Think of it.

During the day your panels are producing, but during the night you are asking back for that energy that was "stored" in the grid.

"But Frank, how is this linked to what you just told me?"

The New Net Metering almost blew power companies out of the water. Their high commands and executives probably puked when they heard of it.

Remember the evil seed they planted to secure their future? They did this by coming to an agreement with the senate; which was trying to find a way to be "fair" with both homeowners and utilities.

What was this agreement? Structuring something called Tiers in the case of Nevada.

They came up with 4 Tiers. The first 3 had a cap at a max of 80 megawatts (80,000 kW). Just so you have an idea of how much that is, the average residential system in Nevada is 8kW.

This means that for every 10,000 homeowners approx, that tier would be full, they wouldn't accept anybody else, and they'd move on to filling the next one.

What happens when a Tier gets full?

This reminds me of Titanic® when passengers were trying to escape on those canoe-like boats. You & I know they were capable of housing more people than the ones that were in.

Just like those boats, tiers could easily accommodate more homeowners than what they were capped at. And don't get me started on Rose and how Jack could've fit on that piece of wood.

But anyway, getting back on topic...

Tier 1 (95% net metering): Full after 80 mW were reached. An approx 10,000 Nevadans with solar on their property.
Tier 2 (88% net metering): Same as above. Marked as full once 80 megawatts were hit.
Tier 3 (81% net metering): Same as Tier 1 & Tier 2.
Tier 4 (75% net metering): No cap as to how much homeowners or megawatts fit here since it's the final tier.

And what does X percentage for net metering mean?

You're probably thinking of the worst. And you might not be wrong at all...

Remember how net metering was supposed to be like a bank that stored your excess energy at a 1:1 rate? Well, they made it so that for every tier that became full , the next would become less and less ' net-meterish '.

And when that happens, according to the laws, we can't call it net metering. So let's comply with them and call it by its real name: net billing!

Evil seed once again.

For instance, an 88% net billing means that the excess energy you produced will not be stored for you at 100% of its value or -1 to 1-, but instead at 88% of it or -1 to 0.88-.

Example: Let's say that in March, your system generated an extra 770 kWh that you didn't use. Pretending the energy company sells their kilowatt at ¢13, that would be 100 bucks worth of energy (770kWh x $0.13 = $100). But instead of storing those $100, they would only store $88 bucks (677 kWh) because of the 88%.

This means that when summer hits you'd have $88 of cushion that will kick in for the excess energy you're going to consume. Not taking into consideration the other months where you had a surplus.

And just so you know, as of July 2020, Tier 3 became full. All of us 2021ers and the ones who come after that, will be fitted into Tier 4 (75% Net Billing).

If that's the case why would I even want this?

Wait, that's not all! Have you ever wondered what has made people so skeptical about solar? Or why do Nevadans have mixed feelings about it?

You could say it's because of these Tier structures... but it's actually because companies usually hide this from the homeowners to avoid "scaring them away".

They also try to bury the fact that Nevada's energy monopoly has capped the max size of a system to where it's only able to produce 100% of the energy you consume in a year, not more than that.

But if the energy on the months where you have an excess, is only going to be worth 75% of its real value. It would technically not cover 100% of the energy you used in the whole year. Are you following me?

Zoom in and take your time to look at this image below, it will better explain that:

I'll say it again just in case: The 75% rate only applies to excess energy that has to be stored, not to all your solar production. Don't mix these two up. This would NOT be the same as having your system produce only 75% of the energy you need.

But still... every single one of us wants our solar to produce 100% of the electricity we need, not less than that. Am I right? Give me a 'hell yeah!'

What if I told you that even with this , you'd still be better off with solar?

"You're crazy Frank! Why would you say that?"

Missing out on previous tiers and getting into Tier 4 at 75% net billing might have you thinking that you missed your shot at this.

" Looks like it was a smart choice back then, but not anymore. "

However, you could have actually not picked a better time to go solar. I know, I know... you're probably thinking I should get medicated haha, but you're about to understand why.

As a matter of fact, you have 2 things going on for you that homeowners in the previous tiers don't , and that nowadays makes them wish they had waited a little more:

#1 Better prices.

Take a look at this graph.

Image taken from our good friends at SunPro

Homeowners from the previous years were getting their solar at a 20% to 30% higher price than the ones that get it nowadays after such huge drops.

There you go, that makes up for the 25% that is missing on Tier 4 with the net billing at a 75% rate (75% + 25% = 100%). I know you're probably better at math than I am, but it doesn't hurt to throw that in.

Quick bonus: Cash will always be king, but if you're considering financing, add to that the fact that timespans and APRs are lower than before and you end up with skyrocketed savings that back then were not achievable.

Starting to feel lucky now?

#2 Better just got even better.

Panels have become more resistant to weather symptoms that might damage them like high winds, snow, and even sunlight. Yeah, the sun damages them too. Ludicrous huh?

They've also become more effective , meaning that you need fewer panels to get the job done.

Lesser units, at a better price?

Now that's a combination for savings that could finally knock out Mayweather for a 2nd time!

But my favorite one? They're prettier now. The earlier ones were uglier than a New York public toilet!

But it's not only panels, everything has improved. Panel mounts, monitoring systems, photovoltaic cells, inverters, etc. I could go on and on, but the point here is that these improvements boost your savings into full-beast mode. How so?

Because they reduce the odds of your system failing down to 15% compared to the last generations, and by double compared to the ones that came before.

But don't think that pushing it off more and more might yield better benefits. Solar prices have started to plateau due to the huge jumps in innovation we just saw and research takes time.

On the other hand (evil seed for a third time), this new AB405 bill does not explicitly describe how much time will Tier 4 be open for homeowners.

If they've done things like the ones described above... What stops them from doing it again by using that loophole to their advantage to shave the net billing even further in the near future?

The good news is that the senate DID throw in a provision that protects homeowners who jump into Tier 4 from having any changes done to the policies of that tier for at least 20 years, to prevent what happened in 2015.

The boats have yet not sailed. Jump on them now and save yourself by taking advantage of the legal protection while it's still available before these guys pull out all their cards.

And rest assured they will. Their acts have clearly stated that they don't feel comfortable with solar, but the renewable energy uprising will keep gaining more momentum with every day that passes.

There's no getting back at us, we are The Resistance.

#4 Dear homeowner, don't google a thing called " offset ". Truly yours, XYZ Solar Company.

The hidden-concept that will allow you to know for sure if your system will work or not.

Remember how solar companies hid the existence of tiers and how that caused mixed feelings for solar among Nevadans?

Believe it or not, this one thing called offset has contributed to polarizing the opinions even more. And with all reason.

After getting net metering out of the way, it's time to talk about that. It's fairly straightforward:

A house with an offset of 100%, means that it gets 100% of the electricity it calls for, from its solar.
A house with an offset of 90%, will only get 90% of the energy from solar and the other 10% will come from the power company. In other words, that 10% will have to be paid to them, at the rate they impose.

"So Frank, what does this have to do with me?"

Well, it only has to do with whether the company gave you what you need or they promised you the moon but delivered a miniature of it instead. Just that tiny bit. Due to this:

I've seen some solar companies do one of these 2 things . In the worst cases, even both.

#1 They hide this concept from their customers

They make it look like it were a hard-to-understand solar industry jargon when in reality it's as easy as it gets. All to avoid talking about it.

I've seen project spec sheets with that big bold number at less than 100. But they still promise their customers they'll get 100% of the energy they need from their solar.

How is that even possible if the offset is not at 100%? You see what I'm saying?

That's where the importance of informing yourself comes into play. Props to you because that's exactly what you're doing right now. Had the poor unsuspecting ones known this before, they would've not put themselves into that situation.

Preventing this is easy.

Just make sure that your project clearly states the offset at 100% and you'll be good. As easy as that, but in hopes of making it even clearer, here's an image of how it should look like:

#2 Altering the numbers

There is a reason why people who design the systems are the ones in charge of that and that only. But like with everything, funky people will always try to find their way around things. And offset was not the exception.

Why do they do this? To either increase the commission they get from the install or because there's a shortage of equipment and they just can't let that extra sale slide by them.

Sadly, after projects are designed, I've seen sales reps get comfortable with design tools, enough to be able to alter the design themselves to where they make the numbers work.

They think they're so smart and that they fully understand this, but in reality, the performance of the system is being damaged and it's going to cost the homeowner a couple thousand bucks.

Are these acts of bad faith or are they not even aware they're wounding their clients?

Even the big names are guilty of this! The good thing is there are already class-action lawsuits in the works for them. At the end of the day, one gets what one deserves.

I know, I know. You're probably saying "who are them?", "tell me their names". I swear I'd love to, but if I did, we'd be the ones getting sued and not them haha.

Instead of that, why don't we talk about how you can avoid these hardships.

What can I do to protect myself from this?

With the offset tip I just gave you in the image above, you're already more protected than many naive homeowners.

But with these 3 tips that I'm about to give you, you'll be 100% protected. Just like your offset! Caught the joke there?

Tip #1

Reps can tinker with designs as much as they want. What they don't know is that there's still something at sight for all of us that gives it away . When projects are altered, the offset might still show 100%, but these 2 numbers will never correlate...

Even if the offset is at 100%, watch for these two. The 1st one, from top to bottom, is how much energy your house uses per year. The 2nd one is how much of that your solar will produce.

It's as easy as making sure there's not a huge gap between them. Meaning that your solar production (2nd number) shouldn't be way below your yearly consumption (1st number).

This is the only way you can ensure that your system is going to be offsetting 100% of the energy your house needs because it was properly sized. (Yes, this is where the word comes from).

It's like being able to see into the future and knowing it'll work.

Tip #2

Interactive project sheets. Yup, that's it!

They're such beautiful things because they help bring transparency to life when it comes to your project. See for yourself:

They let you click around and plug in your own numbers to see what would happen if you modify something. They're directly linked to the original design so that NO funky business can take place.

If somebody changes something, all of the math will be recalculated and all of the numbers in the project sheet will be updated. Including offset, production, performance, etc. Now that's some transparency!

In hopes of taking that to next level, we offed our sales reps and switched them to specialists. Now the person that designs your project, and that knows the ins and outs of it, is the same you'll be talking to.

"They might not be the most brilliant in persuasion techniques, but they sure as hell are the most proficient and capable ones when it comes to designing a foolproof system and helping you understand why it would work." (De La Cruz, SOLARI® C.E.O., 2021)

Tip #3

I had to save the best for last. Somewhere in the following sections, you'll find this tip.

But don't go looking around for it just yet. I know you want to haha!

Instead of that, go with the flow because this next section is going to shed light on a situation that could take a toll on the lifespan of your system.

#5 The ugly truth of how long a solar system lasts and how to effectively protect yourself from that.

I've been able to find hard-to-understand articles on the subjects above, but as of 2021, I haven't seen one that goes deep on the importance of what I'm about to tell you.

And that's panel degradation !

When they blow their cover and they have to speak about this, I've heard companies & reps say:

" Don't worry about that, that's not true. Our panels are the best!" (Usually, they're not) .
" The system is not composed of moving parts. Only things that move can degrade. "
" They do degrade but it doesn't affect you. "

Excuse me for the words, but what a load of �� !

It's all excuses and lies to avoid going into uncharted territory, that to their eyes, makes homeowners ask more questions and that makes them scared of "losing the sale".

Well after this gets out, it might just end up costing them the sale anyway for hiding stuff. Now you know they degrade!

Decisions are yours, and only yours to make, not by some company that manipulated your thought process by sweet-talking you with all the lies revealed so far.

With that said, let's go deeper...

Why does this happen?

Just like with our faces, when wrinkles appear when we start getting old (unless you like to botox yourself), time takes its toll on the components of a solar system.

That's normal, every product wears with time except for those military-grade phone cases. Things like corrosion and the high voltages these units continuously carry, contribute to this.

How does it affect me?

" It doesn't actually affect you ". Or at least that's what others would say haha. Right? But getting serious here... it actually does, and a lot.

The average solar system will degrade at a max of 26% after 25 years. This doesn't mean that after 25 summers the system will suddenly be like " hey, let's degrade already".

No, this is a gradual process where they steadily decline year over year, and when that much time has passed, their total degradation will be lingering just below or at a max of 26% according to manufacturers' warranties.

But degradation still sounds fancy to me, let's put it in real-life terms.

What this means, is that after all those years, a solar system would only be cranking out 74% of what it was able to in the beginning. In other words, it'll only be producing 74% of the energy a house would need.

See how this could affect you and how relevant speaking about this is?

"But Frank, if this affects my system that bad, I don't think this is a good idea then."

I'm with you. It's not at all.

But the good news is that as of today, there are these secretly kept panels that defend your trenches with the same might as the Marines or the Air Force defend the U.S.A.

Yet again, companies do their best to hide their existence because they can make a bigger profit from selling outdated ones to unsuspicious homeowners (not you).

By flashing things like an offset at 100% the average homeowner would assume their system is going to work. And it would technically do. In the beginning. But what about down the line?

Why would a proper offset matter, when it's going to quickly decline after you get it installed?

And who are these stealthily guarded subjects?

The million-dollar question. I like to call them 'ninja panels' because of the secrecy with which they're kept.

You will only see solar companies bring these guys up in case of an emergency, which to them, would be an informed prospect. But enough about the bad guys, let's talk about the good guys.

What does it take to be a ninja panel? Take a look:

Withstanding time better than the average ones and most importantly , managing to keep the degradation at a max of only 8% after 25 years, compared to the other ones at 26%.

But degradation is not the only thing they crush . Such leaps in technology had to yield other benefits.

Remember when we spoke about Tier 4, that the odds of panels nowadays breaking, corroding, or plainly failing, had dropped by a whopping 85%? Well, that's only with these guys.

Let's spice it up a bit.

Having a solar system with a max degradation down to 8% doesn't mean you'll have a system producing only 92% after 25 years, at least not here at SOLARI®. Here is why:

From the moment your project is getting designed, we do our best to get it to 108% offset to pre-compensate for that before it even happens. That way, by the end of those 25 years, it's like you had just gone solar since you'd be starting at an offset of 100%.

"But wait Frank, didn't you say that Nevada's favorite energy company, limits the max size of a system to where it's only able to produce 100% of the energy I need, not more? If that's the case, wouldn't a 108% offset be forbidden? "

You're totally right my friend! But for your luck, that extra 8% is achieved by optimizing your energy usage.

They might put a cap on how much solar you can install, but they can't prevent us from reducing your consumption AFTER the system size is maxed out!

How? By improving how your house consumes energy!

Scorecard:

Energy company = 0 pts.

You = 1 pt ✓

And here comes the crazy part...

Let's pretend that XYZ solar company didn't properly inform you on this from the get-go. Solar would still be worth it with the amount of money it will save you.

Heck, even with non-ninja panels that degrade at 26%, solar would be more than worth it. Radical claim? Yeah!

But don't take my word for it, see for yourself. I will show you a comparison table of the savings -with ninjas and without them- of one of our customers.

And yeah, in case you were wondering how the story ends, he ended up getting the ninja ones! Drag the arrow left and right to see the comparison:

How crazy is that? Seeing is believing.

That doesn't mean we vouch for the bad practices of other companies, but it just goes to show that even with �� solar you can save a chunky little something.

If bottom-of-the-food-chain panels already give you the higher ground, what kind of savings do you think you can expect with the good ones?

#6 Small but key components that beat the big ones to their game and the perks of using them.

Bigger is not always better.

Well, women would actually be the only ones who can testify to that haha. I just hope it's the answer I expect to hear... But in the solar world, to our luck, there's no debating that. Bigger is NOT better.

Every time I walk the streets, I see a lot of houses with what I consider to be my Top 2 Enemy in the whole solar industry. Top 1 are companies with all the bad practices that I already mentioned and the ones that I have yet to.

I would even say that more than walking, it feels like patrolling because all I do is watch out for what kind of systems people have installed. And I really feel for the ones who have to deal with this dude that I'm going to talk about.

I've heard countless horror stories where he's the protagonist.

The thing is they just can't withstand time. They tend to break down in the first years after installation. And who are we talking about here? String inverters.

For instance, check this extract from our website to better understand why they are to be feared:

Once again, solar companies tend to go for these because they're cheaper to use...

But at what cost?

Think about this...

Since your whole system behaves like one big solar panel. What do you think would happen if a small component were to fail?

You got it right! Your whole system would fail!

And if it were you in that situation, you'd have to pay for both your solar and the bunch of energy you'd be temporarily drenching from the grid while you get it fixed!

During that time, it would almost be like if you didn't have solar at all . But more expensive this time since there would be 2 different bills to cover.

Bet you didn't sign up for that!

That sounds creepy. Are there better options?

Like with everything, most of the time there is. And inverters are not the exception.

Nowadays we have something called Microinverters . Just like with the ninja panels, it amazes me how many companies do their best to keep these bad boys out from the roofs for their benefit.

They're like the Ant-Man®...

They indirectly contribute to increasing your savings for these 2 reasons:

#1 They are tough boys.

Something that breaks often and easily, will only result in you going back to your old energy bill.

The good news is that even if it were the oldest of microinverter generations, they would last more and withstand harsher conditions than their malevolent brothers.

But that's not the best part, this next one is...

#2 They act as a repellant.

Remember Tip #3 earlier in the article? The one we decided to save for last? Well, this is it since they help you keep your offset alive even when things go south.

If a component or unit of your system ever fails, they will protect you from getting back that hideous energy bill.

While you're waiting for the company to fix the issue, these guys will keep the energy drawn from the grid at a minimum.

You'd be looking at a 20 bucks energy bill for that month, as opposed to a full-blown one like with string inverters.

So now that there's no one keeping this from you, what would you choose?

The clear-cut road where you have something that lasts and that will help you avoid double-billing in case a problem arises?

Flipping the coin with something that will probably fail, like it has countless times before, and that will definitely not help you avoid considerable charges from the energy company in case of failure?

#7 The -make it or break it- combo comprised of the 2 most overlooked things and how not having them could break your system.

To end this on a high note, let's solve this mystery situation . Imagine this...

Everything's great. You're more than happy with your solar.

With the information you read in this article, you made sure you got your offset at the percentage you were supposed to, ninja panels, microinverters, etc.

You applied every single tip I gave you setting you up for success.

But suddenly, one day, everything comes crashing down. Your system is still producing what it's supposed to, you can see it on your phone app, but the energy company thinks otherwise. The monthly statement reflects almost no production whatsoever.

The only reason why you found out about this, is that you suddenly got hit by an energy bill when you were not even supposed to get one or expecting one.

QUESTION: What would be the probable cause for this?

That is a situation that many people face for overlooking the importance of that combo.

At first glance, it seems like it might not do much for you but it does. And companies use this to their advantage to keep the truth hidden and once again, artificially inflate their profits.

That -make it or break it- combo is comprised of this: a critter guard along with a live-monitoring app.

Why those two?

When you get your solar installed, there's a tiny space left between your panels and your roof due to the racking.

And that's like a 5-star hotel for pigeons, rats, and other godforsaken creatures. I mean, it only makes sense to them; it's cozy, it provides the perfect shelter, and it's not easily accessible.

Think of it: if you were a pigeon, there's no way you wouldn't get into illegal street fights with other pigeons over who gets to stay the night or earns the right to nest at such privileged location.

The thing is they've fooled us into believing that they survive on food. But actually, they don't! They get their vitality from pecking and destroying things. (Trust me on this one haha).

And your panels are not the exception to the rule.

The worst part is that the odds of your system failing because of this are way more than the ones that come from things like using string inverters or even non-ninja panels.

But don't panic, it's as easy as putting a critter guard that stops them from entering.

What about that second thing of the combo?

HINT: I already gave it away.

Ask yourself this...

How do you think you'd be able to know if something's off with your system? Or if something needs to be repaired?

This is where live monitoring comes into play. It will help you keep track of how your solar is doing and notice if there is something not working properly so that it can be promptly fixed.

Otherwise, the only way you would know if something is down would be by getting a beefy bill on account of the energy you didn't produce.

And by the time you get it, next month has already started...

See what I was saying?

On one hand, you have wrathful creatures chewing on your investment, and on the other, there's nothing that lets you know if one of them was actually successful in their endeavor.

Can you see now why this is a -make or break- situation?

Well, that's only if you decide not to protect yourself. But I don't think that'd be the case here.

The only reason why the masses expose their solar system to itchy jaws is because companies don't normally speak about the importance of this with the consumers.

Remember: Live monitoring + Critter guard is the way.

I think we can also agree that 'suddenly getting an oversized energy bill because your system was down for the last month', is not the best option to find out something was not properly working when there is a phone app that can help you prevent that.

Why make your life harder when you could make it smoother than -Santana's song "Smooth"- with what I just told you?

Now that there's no one dosing the "right amount" of information to you, do not let mistakes like passing on this water down your beautiful solar savings.

After all, you went solar to save money, not to lose it.

This was Dj Frank on the mix

SUMMARY

Our journey has come to an end, but before we say our goodbyes, let's make a quick recap of what we learned:

The 1 thing solar companies don't take into consideration, that you need to know to make sure your system was properly sized.
The little carry-over no company wants to talk about.
The Nevada Net-Metering war and the final window of opportunity in its aftermath.
The hidden-concept that will allow you to know for sure if your system will work or not.
The ugly truth of how long a solar system lasts and how to effectively protect yourself from that.
Small but key components, that beat the big ones to their game, and the perks of using them.
The 2 most overlooked things when going solar and how not having them could break your system.

In case you missed one or over-read a couple, I'd recommend going back and taking a shot at them to get the full experience .

If you already made your way through all , there's nothing left to say but congratulations!

CONCLUSION

It's been a wild ride huh? Did you expect to learn this kind of stuff? I bet that before you got started, you thought it was all going to be fuzzy information.

I don't blame you, it's hard to find all the info you need in one place. And even more to find it in a clear-cut and understandable layout. I did my best to make this article the complete opposite of that.

I hope that my movie references along with the real-life pictures and examples helped you better understand all of this.

The path has been laid out

You now have at your disposal everything that was kept from you.

This will be your safety protocol since it'll allow you to go solar knowing exactly what to expect.

Now it's just a matter of putting this powerful information to good use by choosing The Bright Side© over The Dark Side©.

Couldn't end this without dropping one last movie reference. Caught it?

6 SHOCKING Truths California Solar Companies Will Do Their Best To Hide From You | #2 Will Blow Your Mind

bruno_stuger@hotmail.com (Frank Bierhals) — Wed, 01 Sep 2021 17:00:32 GMT

" This makes sense. Just sign here. " (Gets pissed off if you don't)

" Your neighbor just went solar with us. He's a smart one. "

" We are the best company in the state/city ."

That... they WILL tell you!

The good thing is you're mindful. That's why you're here. Otherwise, you would have fallen for that.

Just one more thing before we start. The average read time of this article is of 28 minutes. But rest assured you won't get bored , not even one single bit. So buckle up, grab some popcorn, and read up! NO slacking! ��

In case you don't have that much time... If there's one thing you need to take from all this, that would be Section #2 , from top to bottom.

If you do have time to go through all of it, I encourage you to do it because you're in for a ride that will blow your mind into another dimension just like in The Matrix®.

With no further ado, here are the 6 things that solar companies will not tell you even if you're already part of their ranks.

(Which by the way, happen to be the most important facts you need to be aware of, before going solar in California).

Coincidence? I don't think so.

#1 The one thing solar companies don't take into consideration (that you need to know), to make sure your system is properly sized.

Life gets in the way, even for solar panels.

Let's pretend that 3 years after getting your solar, you're ready to get that brand new electric F-150 or Tesla. You're so excited... "A good-looking car, and to top it off, it's electric!"

Well, I'm sorry to be a killjoy here, but that's actually bad news.

Now your solar won't be able to cover 100% of the electricity you'll be consuming, since your system was designed without taking that into consideration.

Properly assessing your house's needs is not enough in today's day and age.

You as a customer, and most importantly the company, need to take measures to account for your future plans to avoid road bumps down the line.

But hey, we as companies, are the ones supposed to know that. Not you!

When one goes and tries to buy some stuff, we expect the company we're talking to, to be aware of all these things and little details. That's why they're a business in the first place right?

So the real question here is, why would they not bring this up? Are they deliberately hiding this or are they guilty of not even knowing it?

Things like building a pool, getting an electric vehicle, or remodeling your house, drastically increase your electricity usage.

And if that happens after you went solar, you're going to get a big portion of your energy bill back.

But the worst part would be that by the time that happens, the legal framework for solar might have already changed (as you're about to see) and the controlled environment for solar savings to keep happening, will get thrown off.

Let's take for example this guy:

His average energy bill was $427, and with financing, he was going to pay a monthly fixed price of $253 for his solar. That would have yielded $58,602 in savings in the span of 25 years.

A system comprised of 34 panels was going to do the trick for him. In the beginning...

But he was going to make some expansions on his house real soon and was also going to buy an electric vehicle.

The average electric car consumes 80 kWh per week. That's around $25 of weekly electricity, times 4 weeks that's $100 per month.

Add to that $42 per month to account for the house expansion, and that would end up being an extra $142 that he would have to pay, yet again, to the energy company.

$253 of his solar and $142 to be paid to the energy company would be a total of $395.

Still better compared to the $427 he was paying without any of those two things.

But his savings wouldn't be $58,602 anymore, they would drastically go down.

To factor that in, his project was redone and ended up having 46 panels. His monthly payment with financing came out to be $291 and his savings $89,600. Even better than the $395 he was going to get.

It's always better to be safe than sorry.

You could also look at it from a -¢ per kWh- perspective. Going solar is like if your energy company suddenly lowered the kWh from ¢29 to ¢19 and were like: " Hey y'all! Enjoy our new prices! "

But the best part is that his project didn't only account for his plans, things like NBC's and TOU Rates were also taken into consideration. Don't know what is that? Keep reading because it's about to get spicy.

And where do such savings come from?

Everybody says that solar will save you money but they never say how. Let's demystify that!

If you live in California, solar is way cheaper than staying with an electric company as you might have seen in the images above. This is because our electric rates are among the highest ones in the USA.

But solar being cheaper right off the bat is only 1 of the 2 ingredients needed to create such savings.

Here is the second one:

Every one of these factors plays an important role, but the last two have a huge influence on the price. The lesser oil there is, the higher its price will be.

Cities are ever-growing and the supply is only so much. As a consequence of that, we get yearly inflation ; which for California is at 3% on average, as indicated by the (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021).

Now, what do you think would happen if you were to avoid those yearly price raises?

Yup, you'll get the so-called solar savings.

Oh, and forgot to mention, to make it even more dramatic, down here is an image of the same guy from above, but with a top-notch battery included in the quote. Still cheaper than standard electricity!

This is all a matter of certainty vs uncertainty.

Eliminating external factors that could harm your finances? OR Keeping them in your house and your life?

Paying less right off the bat and saving tons on the way? OR Riding the price-increases rollercoaster while filling the pockets of evil till the end of time?

Why evil? You're about to see.

#2 The California net metering war and the final window of opportunity in its aftermath.

To understand this we're going to travel back in time. Welcome to Solar History 101 .

Back in 1995, it all started when senate bill SB 656 was passed. Although it had things like a cap on the system size and vague laws, it did lay the groundwork for what would become a nationwide movement.

Since then, many states have followed suit by implementing similar policies, but as of today, some of those have also backtracked . And sadly, California is about to become one of them.

Why?

From the moment this started, there has been an ongoing war between the solar advocates (inside & outside the government) and the energy monopolies. Or monopoly? That's a subject for another day.

They've been doing everything they can to put a stop to the solar uprising, just like in Terminator®.

And it just so happens that Arnold Schwarzenegger was the one who kickstarted that uprising in 2009 when he signed senate bill AB 920 and gave birth to a new era; that of the Net Metering.

The legal framework in it made California one of the best states for solar. It stated that every kWh produced by a renewable source would have to be credited at the current market value or 100% of its value.

Example: Let's pretend that back then, any given utility was selling the kWh at ¢15. That means that every kWh produced by solar would get credited at ¢15 as well. A 1:1 rate.

And why would you need to get "credited"? What does a 1:1 rate do?

To answer that, let's zone in on something that will help you better understand it before we keep moving forward...

Net Metering explained like never before

Have you ever wondered how do you get your energy at night when the sun is not feeding your solar panels? That's where net metering comes into play.

During the day, there are hours where your panels will produce more than what you can use in that precise moment and hours where they just won't produce. Take a look at this graph:

Image taken from our friends at NorcalSolar.or g

As you can see, the sun starts coming up and with it your production, then around noon peak production is achieved, and from there it starts to ramp back down.

The thing is, at hours of peak production, you're probably only going to be using around 40% of the energy available at that moment, and that excess has to go somewhere...

Well, it goes into the grid .

�� Think of net metering as a bank that stores your excess energy on the grid, while you're waiting for the hours without sunlight to arrive.

But what if we were to look at it from a week's perspective or even a whole year instead of a 1-day window?

The same thing would happen.

During the year there are seasons and months where you'll consume more than what your system generates (typically summer), and others that work the other way around.

At the end of the year, they balance each other out.

Take a look at this 1-year graph. The light-blue line is the solar production and the blue bars are the consumption for that month:

Can you see how the year's worth of electricity generated by your system, equates to 100% of what your house would use during that same year? (Assuming that your system was properly designed of course, as we spoke about in Section #1).

But Frank, how is this linked to what you just told me?

Now that you know the excess energy goes into the grid, you might already smell where I'm going with this...

What do you think would happen if it didn't get credited at 100% or a 1:1 rate? Let's think of an arbitrary value here, and say that instead it got credited at 75% of its value or -1 to 0.75-, like in Nevada.

Example: Imagine that in March, your system generated an extra 500 kWh that you didn't use. If the energy company sells the kilowatt at ¢30, that would be 150 bucks worth of energy (500kWh x $0.30 = $150).

But instead of storing those $150, they would only store 75% of that which would be 112 bucks ($150 x 0.75% = $112).

Can you see why Schwarzenegger deserved an Oscar for his performance when he secured a 1:1 rate for homeowners with solar in 2009?

Going back to Solar History 101...

Utilities were officially Terminated with the Net Metering Bill. Their high commands and executives probably puked when they heard of it.

It is no secret that they don't like what solar can bring onto them. Even during the 90s, when the groundwork was barely set, they made sure to manifest that discomfort.

But this time it was worse. Thanks to that framework, solar started growing uncontrollably . And that poked the bear.

States started looking up to California. Everyone was happy. Except for them of course. And they were not going to let their huge profits evaporate in the blink of an eye...

They knew Net Metering was designed to be revisited once the total solar installations for each utility (PG&E, SCE, and SDG&E) reached 5% of the total peak electricity demand.

So it was only a matter of waiting for that to happen...

Fast forward, in 2016, their opportunity came and they made their move by arguing that solar owners were still using their precious, and most importantly, privately-owned grid for their benefit, and to them, that was unfair.

They said that people with solar were not paying their fair share for things like grid maintenance and electricity delivery and that due to that, they were forced to raise the prices for people without it. Because somebody had to pay for it.

But wait... Were we not already paying for that grid usage with the Minimum Delivery Charges ? (I'm also going to explain those below in case you don't feel like reading another whole blog post.) ��

Absolutely yes!

But the good guys at the CPUC looked into this and found that it was partially true. After validating these claims, they issued a new version for the Net Metering that addressed that, and they called it Net Metering 2.0 .

(CPUC is short for California Public Utilities Commission. They're the ones in charge of overseeing 20 or so proposals from different entities and coming up with a final Net Metering framework that works for all parties.)

Net Metering 2.0

Ok, so it's 2016 and Net Metering 2.0 is up and running. Utilities were heard and more importantly, they were pleased.

5 policies were implemented to tackle the "free" grid usage and the shifting of costs towards non-solar households.

In short, now you have to pay more to account for that, you'll see why:

#1 Interconnection Fee

This is a one-time fee that has to be paid after your system passed the city inspection so it can be turned on.

PG&E: $145

SDG&E: $132

SCE: $75

This was not that bad of a change since it's only a one-time thing. Plus the majority of solar companies pay this for their customers so it's nothing you have to worry about.

#2 Minimum Delivery Charges

This had already been instated but remained for version 2.0.

These Minimum Delivery Charges are supposed to cover the minimum costs of electricity delivery and its 24-hours availability.

It's a fee of about ¢33 per day plus a tiny amount of tax . To approximate the monthly cost you have to multiply that by the number of days in a month.

To be more precise , as of 2021, these fees are:

PG&E: ¢33 cents per day.

SDG&E: ¢33 cents per day.

SCE: ¢35 cents per day.

Example: Let's think of SCE. There are 31 days in October. So 31 x $0.35 = $10.85. Plus tax, it will end up in the $12s.

�� This is the ONLY thing that has to be paid on a monthly basis aside from your solar payment.

#3 NSCR(s)

NSCR's stand for Net Surplus Compensation Rates.

You know how you're able to carry over the excess energy you produce from hour to hour, day to day, week to week, and month to month?

Well, if at the end of a 12 months period you have excess energy, you will still be able to carry it over for the next year. However, it's going to be at a much lower rate than its original value.

This was instated because utilities were saying that it was like if they were buying that excess energy at a much higher price compared to the one they get it at. And once again, they were making non-solar users pay for the difference.

And how much less is it going to be worth?

The average kWh with SCE, SDG&E, or PG&E costs ¢30. But the NSCRs are valued at wholesale electricity prices, which would be from ¢2 to ¢4. That's why they're so low.

Example: Let's say that after 12 months you have 300 kWh you didn't use. If the kWh is worth $0.30, that would be $90 of energy credits (300 kWh x $0.30 = $90).

Now, if we take the middle range of the NSCRs at ¢3, out of those $90, you would only get to carry over $9 for the next year (300 kWh x $0.03 = $9).

�� But remember, this is ONLY applied to the excess energy at the end of every 12 months from the date your system was turned on, also called the PTO Date (Permission To Operate).

#4 TOU Rate Plans

TOU stands for, "Time Of Use".

Under Net Metering 2.0 , when you go solar you will automatically get switched over to a TOU Rate Plan instead of the classic Tier Plan you're probably used to. That's if you were not already enrolled in one.

The only difference with the standard Tier Plans, would be that instead of having a fixed price per kWh, its price will change according to the time of the day.

It'd be something like this:

This might have you thinking: "How does it affect me if I go solar?

Well, the problem here is that the energy also gets credited according to the time in which it was generated, and by the time Peak Hours hit and you start asking back for the excess energy you already produced during the day, it's going to cost a little more...

Example: If you generated 10 kWh from 8:00 am to 3:59 pm, they'd be worth $3 (10 kWh x $0.30 = $3). Now let's say you used them all up during peak hours.

If we did 10 kWh x $0.47 -which would be the cost per kWh during peak time- that would be $4.7 bucks of energy. It's like you had technically used $1.70 more in energy.

If this was not factored into the design of your system that's money that you're going to have to pay to the utility.

✅ However, this is NOT that big of a change and can be countered by simply increasing the system size needed.

�� Remember the guy paying $291 with solar, as opposed to $427 without it? His system was designed taking TOU Rates into consideration. It's like if they were not even there. Once again, there's the importance of a properly sized system.

#5 Non-Bypassable Charges

Before Net Metering 2.0, these costs were canceled out by the excess energy you produced. But according to the utilities, they were not able to recuperate these costs by how their economics work.

The NBC's were instated so that homeowners with solar would also pay their share for low-income and energy efficiency programs that utilities have in collaboration with the state.

An NBC is a charge from ¢2 to ¢3 cents that gets added to every kWh you import from the grid. Or at least that's what almost everybody says because they don't truly know how these guys work...

And by the way, they're non-bypassable... -I wonder if that's where they got the name from? �� -

The thing with NBC's is that they get calculated per hour and per kWh, not only per kWh . And that's where most people get it wrong...

So let's take a look at How To Calculate NBCs :

Image taken from our friends at NorcalSolar.or g

After running some numbers, we can estimate that 63% of your usage in kWh will get an NBC. But let me explain:

NBC's will ONLY come around when at the end of any given whole hour in a day (8am, 9am, 10am, etc), your production was less than your consumption. That means you will get one NBC for every kWh consumed beyond your total production in that 1-hour window.

So if you are ever in doubt, pull up your calculator and plug in this highly complex mathematical operation ONLY during hours where your consumption was more than your production:

And how would that look like in dollar numbers?

Imagine that your average energy bill was $427 before solar, just like the guy from the case study we did in Section #1...

To get a $427 bill you would have to consume 1,423 kWh at the average utilities' price of 30 cents. (1423 kWh x $0.30 = $427).
Estimating that 63% of your monthly usage with solar is subject to NBCs, that would be 896 kWh out of the 1423 kWh used. (1423 kWh x 0.63% = 896 kWh)
We said the NBCs can go from ¢2 to ¢3. Let's take the middle range at ¢2.5. If we do 896 kWh x $0.025 that would be $22.40 of NBC's accrued during that month.
The total amount of NBC's for the year would be $268.80 ($22.40 x 12 months = $268.80). Oh, and forgot to mention, these accumulate throughout the year and have to be paid every 12 months.

Not that bad huh? I bet you were thinking they would be a lot more!

I know it's still a little something, but hey, if you're already paying $291 with solar instead of $427, that's way better even with NBC's around.

Quick Recap and Highlights of Net Metering 2.0 ✓

A grandfather clause in the Senate Bill protects you from having any changes done to these NEM 2.0 agreements for 20 years from the date you went solar:

1:1 Rate: The excess energy gets credited at the same rate your utility charges you, in other words, at 100% of its value.
Minimum Delivery Fees: of about 33 cents per day to recoup the costs of grid usage. This is the ONLY thing that has to be paid monthly. Comes out to be around $12 per month.
Interconnection Fee: One-time fee to be paid before your system is turned on. (Normally paid by your solar company of choice).
NSCR's: If after 12 months from the day your system was turned on, you have excess energy. You will get 2 to 4 cents for every kWh that's going to carry over for the next 12-month cycle.
TOU Rate Plan: when you go solar they will switch you from a Tiered Plan to a TOU one. It's almost the same, but the price each kWh gets credited at, varies depending on if it's peak time (4 pm - 9 pm) or off-peak time. Any extra charges derived from this will be paid at the time of your True-Up Bill . That's ONLY if your system was not designed to account for this.
NBC's: If at the end of every whole hour in a day, you used more energy than what your solar produced in that same 1-hour window, every kWh beyond your production will get an NBC of ¢2 to ¢3 attached to it. You can expect to get NBC's on 63% of your usage. Just above this is how to calculate them. These are to be paid at the time of the True-Up Bill.

✅ The Minimum Delivery Charges and the NBC's will pay for themselves with the savings from the first 3 to 4 months of the year.

Net Metering 2.0 Doomsday

The zombie apocalypse is nothing compared to what's coming... Net Metering 3.0.

So if you've been thinking about going solar, right now it's do-or-die .

Here is why:

When version 2.0 was put up back in 2016, the CPUC decided that it was going to be revisited by 2019 to evaluate what needed to be adjusted and if solar needed fewer incentives to keep flourishing.

A golden opportunity for utilities yet again.

But wait... 2019 is more than gone! Does that mean it's over? Did I learn all this stuff for nothing?

No. To our luck, PG&E went bankrupt that year and COVID came shortly after. Therefore, they had to postpone the date on which the framework for version 3.0 would be revealed and that bought us some time.

It was supposed to be rolled out during 2019, but due to that, the final decision was pushed out to January 2022.

There has been a lot of speculation on whether January 2022 is going to be the deadline for those who want to make it into NEM 2.0, or if they are going to give a period of grace for a couple of months after they announce what NEM 3.0 is going to look like.

Word in the streets is that it might be January, based on all the recent pressure from the utilities, the union of electricians that work for them, and even some powerful allies like assembly member Lorena Gonzalez.

Who by the way, along with others, spearheaded the failed assembly bill AB 1139 with countermeasures even more radical than the ones seen in the proposals for NEM 3.0.

All to arm-twist the CPUC into coming up with a final decision as soon as possible, in her own words.

A peek into the Net Metering 3.0 Abyss

Remember how the CPUC addressed everything that was putting stress on the grid and the shoulders of non-solar households?

Well, now utilities are saying that it was not enough and that they are still increasing the prices for those without solar. Even with all those procedures from NEM 2.0 in place.

Curiously enough, if they were really worried about people paying more, they would leave solar alone, but instead , their acts show that in reality, what worries them, is their profits.

Bold claim? Yes! Here is why I say that:

There are several studies like this one , from the CPUC themselves, stating that protecting the lines from wildfires in CA is one of the factors that are driving electricity prices up the most.

But they keep building them. Why? Because distribution & transmission is where 3/4 of the profits are at. See for yourself:

They buy the electricity at around 3 cents, remember? The rest comes from that. Simple math... increase your power lines and you shall increase your profit.

And what about this other study from a grid-planning company? With sophisticated modeling, they found that the cheapest way to grow and maintain the grid is actually through DER's (distributed energy resources) like rooftop solar.

How cheaper? 473 Billion cheaper.

And to top it off, I kid you not, even CAISO (a grid operator from CA) publicly issued a press release saying that rooftop solar changed local loads and that thanks to that, they backed out of a $2.6 Billion Investment in transmission lines.

Seeing is believing:

But even with all that out there, their claims always only mention their solar-induced problems, NEVER the ones that solar has solved for them and the avoided costs they get to enjoy thanks to us.

With that said, they're still asking for more of what they already have. And the proposals they have submitted to the CPUC as for what they expect from Net Metering 3.0 are far from pretty.

They go like this:

Minimum Delivery Fees

Remember we talked about these and that they came out to be around $12 per month?

They want to increase them. SCE is now asking for $56, PG&E is asking for $86 and SDG&E is asking for $91.

Because 12ish was not enough to keep the grid in good conditions, even with the present NEM 2.0 measures that supposedly account for that.

Net Metering less net-meterish

They are trying to cut the value of the excess energy by 75%! That would mean that the 1:1 rate we've been talking about would be 1 to 0.25. If the kWh costs ¢30, you would only be getting 7.5 cents for each kWh.

The most vital aspect of solar, taken from us. Wow!

Monthly Netting

Ok, we already have the excess energy being credited at 25% of its real value, but it gets worse.

If at the end of the month you have excess energy, which would be at least 6 months out of 12, they will not let you carry it over for the next month. It would just go to the trash.

The thing is that energy doesn't go to the trash, it goes into their grids and they make use of it! Why would something that's coming out of your house and of your pocket, have to be given to them for free?

⚠️ The Final Window of Opportunity ⚠️

If that didn't blow you away, I don't know what will. But I wouldn't expect less from these guys, there's too much in play for them to just leave solar to its own.

The worst thing in all this is that the net metering agreements are designed to be revisited every few years. So from here, it can only go down.

And that's supposing that the attacks won't keep coming. But rest assured they will, because their profits come from extending the grid, even if that means raising their prices for everybody.

And the more terrain they gain, the worse it's going to get, just like we've already seen with other states.

Don't let this one pass you by.

Now is when. The boats have yet not sailed. Jump on them now and save yourself by taking advantage of the legal protection while it's still available before these guys pull out all their cards.

(If you're reading this before December 10th 2021, you can still make it into Net Metering 2.0. Remember that it takes some time to get your project approved and installed).

#3 Dear homeowner, don't google something called "offset". Truly yours, -XYZ Solar Company-.

The hidden-concept that will allow you to know for sure if your system will work or not.

Believe it or not, this one thing called offset has contributed to polarizing the opinions about solar like nothing else. And with all reason, since many solar companies use it to their advantage to sell undersized systems . You'll see why.

After getting net metering out of the way, it's time to talk about that. It's fairly straightforward:

A house with an offset of 100%, means that it gets 100% of the electricity it calls for, from its solar.
A house with an offset of 90%, will only get 90% of the energy from solar and the other 10% will come from the power company. In other words, that 10% will have to be paid to them, at the rate they impose.

"So Frank, what does this have to do with me?"

Well, it only has to do with whether the company gave you what you need or they promised you the moon but delivered a miniature of it instead. Just that tiny bit. Due to this:

I've seen some solar companies do one of these 2 things . In the worst cases, even both.

#1 They hide this concept from their customers

They make it look like it were a hard-to-understand solar industry jargon when in reality it's as easy as it gets. All to avoid talking about it.

I've seen project spec sheets with that big bold number at less than 100. But they still promise their customers they'll get 100% of the energy they need from their solar.

How is that even possible if the offset is not at 100%? You see what I'm saying?

Preventing this is easy.

Just make sure that your project clearly states the offset at 100% and you'll be good. As easy as that, but in hopes of making it even clearer, here's an image of how it should look like:

#2 Altering the numbers

Why do they do this? To either increase the commission they get from the install or because there's a shortage of equipment and they just can't let that extra sale slide by them.

Sadly, after projects are designed, I've seen sales reps get comfortable with design tools, enough to be able to alter the design themselves to where they make the numbers work.

They think they're so smart and that they fully understand this, but in reality, the performance of the system is being damaged and it's going to cost the homeowner a couple thousand bucks.

Are these acts of bad faith or are they not even aware they're wounding their clients?

Even the big names are guilty of this! The good thing is there are already class-action lawsuits in the works for them. At the end of the day, one gets what one deserves.

I know, I know. You're probably saying "who are them?", "tell me their names". I swear I'd love to, but if I did, we'd be the ones getting sued and not them haha.

Instead of that, why don't we talk about how you can avoid these hardships.

What can I do to protect myself from this?

With the offset tip I just gave you in the image above, you're already more protected than many naive homeowners.

But with these 3 tips that I'm about to give you, you'll be 100% protected. Just like your offset! Caught the joke there?

Tip #1

Even if the offset is at 100%, watch for these two. The 1st one, from top to bottom, is how much energy your house uses per year. The 2nd one is how much of that your solar will produce.

It's as easy as making sure there's not a huge gap between them. Meaning that your solar production (2nd number) shouldn't be way below your yearly consumption (1st number).

This is the only way you can ensure that your system is going to be offsetting 100% of the energy your house needs because it was properly sized. (Yes, this is where the word comes from).

It's like being able to see into the future and knowing it'll work.

Tip #2

Interactive project sheets. Yup, that's it!

They're such beautiful things because they help bring transparency to life when it comes to your project. See for yourself:

They let you click around and plug in your own numbers to see what would happen if you modify something. They're directly linked to the original design so that NO funky business can take place.

Tip #3

I had to save the best for last. Somewhere in the following sections, you'll find this tip.

But don't go looking around for it just yet. I know you want to haha!

Instead of that, go with the flow because this next section is going to shed light on a situation that could take a toll on the lifespan of your system.

#4 The ugly truth of how long a solar system lasts and how to effectively protect yourself from that.

I've been able to find hard-to-understand articles on the subjects above, but as of 2021, I haven't seen one that goes deep on the importance of what I'm about to tell you.

And that's panel degradation !

When they blow their cover and they have to speak about this, I've heard companies & reps say:

" Don't worry about that, that's not true. Our panels are the best!" (Usually, they're not) .
" The system is not composed of moving parts. Only things that move can degrade. "
" They do degrade but it doesn't affect you. "

Excuse me for the words, but what a load of �� !

It's all excuses and lies to avoid going into uncharted territory, that to their eyes, makes homeowners ask more questions and that makes them scared of "losing the sale".

Well after this gets out, it might just end up costing them the sale anyway for hiding stuff. Now you know they degrade!

Decisions are yours, and only yours to make, not by some company that manipulated your thought process by sweet-talking you with all the lies revealed so far.

With that said, let's go deeper...

Why does this happen?

Just like with our faces, when wrinkles appear when we start getting old (unless you like to botox yourself), time takes its toll on the components of a solar system.

That's normal, every product wears with time except for those military-grade phone cases. Things like corrosion and the high voltages these units continuously carry, contribute to this.

How does it affect me?

" It doesn't actually affect you ". Or at least that's what others would say haha. Right? But getting serious here... it actually does, and a lot.

The average solar system will degrade at a max of 26% after 25 years. This doesn't mean that after 25 summers the system will suddenly be like " hey, let's degrade already".

But degradation still sounds fancy to me, let's put it in real-life terms.

See how this could affect you and how relevant speaking about this is?

"But Frank, if this affects my system that bad, I don't think this is a good idea then."

I'm with you. It's not at all.

But the good news is that as of today, there are these secretly kept panels that defend your trenches with the same might as the Marines or the Air Force defend the U.S.A.

Yet again, companies do their best to hide their existence because they can make a bigger profit from selling outdated ones to unsuspicious homeowners (not you).

By flashing things like an offset at 100% the average homeowner would assume their system is going to work. And it would technically do. In the beginning. But what about down the line?

Why would a proper offset matter, when it's going to quickly decline after you get it installed?

And who are these stealthily guarded subjects?

The million-dollar question. I like to call them 'ninja panels' because of the secrecy with which they're kept.

You will only see solar companies bring these guys up in case of an emergency, which to them, would be an informed prospect. But enough about the bad guys, let's talk about the good guys.

What does it take to be a ninja panel? Take a look:

Withstanding time better than the average ones and most importantly , managing to keep the degradation at a max of only 8% after 25 years, compared to the other ones at 26%.

But degradation is not the only thing they crush . Such leaps in technology had to yield other benefits.

Remember when we spoke about Tier 4, that the odds of panels nowadays breaking, corroding, or plainly failing, had dropped by a whopping 85%? Well, that's only with these guys.

Let's spice it up a bit.

Having a solar system with a max degradation down to 8% doesn't mean you'll have a system producing only 92% after 25 years, at least not here at SOLARI®. Here is why:

And here comes the crazy part...

Let's pretend that XYZ solar company didn't properly inform you on this from the get-go. Solar would still be worth it with the amount of money it will save you.

Heck, even with non-ninja panels that degrade at 26%, solar would be more than worth it. Radical claim? Yeah!

But don't take my word for it, see for yourself. I will show you a comparison table of the savings -with ninjas and without them- of one of our customers.

And yeah, in case you were wondering how the story ends, he ended up getting the ninja ones! Drag the arrow left and right to see the comparison:

How crazy is that? Seeing is believing.

That doesn't mean we vouch for the bad practices of other companies, but it just goes to show that even with �� solar you can save a chunky little something.

If bottom-of-the-food-chain panels already give you the higher ground, what kind of savings do you think you can expect with the good ones?

#5 Small but key components, that beat the big ones to their game and the perks of using them.

Bigger is not always better.

I've heard countless horror stories where he's the protagonist.

The thing is they just can't withstand time. They tend to break down in the first years after installation. And who are we talking about here? String inverters.

For instance, check this extract from our website to better understand why they are to be feared:

Once again, solar companies tend to go for these because they're cheaper to use...

But at what cost?

Think about this...

Since your whole system behaves like one big solar panel. What do you think would happen if a small component were to fail?

You got it right! Your whole system would fail!

And if it were you in that situation, you'd have to pay for both your solar and the bunch of energy you'd be temporarily drenching from the grid while you get it fixed!

During that time, it would almost be like if you didn't have solar at all . But more expensive this time since there would be 2 different bills to cover.

Bet you didn't sign up for that!

That sounds creepy. Are there better options?

Like with everything, most of the time there is. And inverters are not the exception.

Nowadays we have something called Microinverters . Just like with the ninja panels, it amazes me how many companies do their best to keep these bad boys out from the roofs for their benefit.

They're like the Ant-Man®...

They indirectly contribute to increasing your savings for these 2 reasons:

#1 They are tough boys.

Something that breaks often and easily, will only result in you going back to your old energy bill.

The good news is that even if it were the oldest of microinverter generations, they would last more and withstand harsher conditions than their malevolent brothers.

But that's not the best part, this next one is...

#2 They act as a repellant.

Remember Tip #3 earlier in the article? The one we decided to save for last? Well, this is it since they help you keep your offset alive even when things go south.

If a component or unit of your system ever fails, they will protect you from getting back that hideous energy bill.

While you're waiting for the company to fix the issue, these guys will keep the energy drawn from the grid at a minimum.

You'd be looking at a 20 bucks energy bill for that month, as opposed to a full-blown one like with string inverters.

So now that there's no one keeping this from you, what would you choose?

The clear-cut road where you have something that lasts and that will help you avoid double-billing in case a problem arises?

#6 The -make it or break it- combo comprised of the 2 most overlooked things and how not having them could break your system.

To end this on a high note, let's solve this mystery situation . Imagine this...

Everything's great. You're more than happy with your solar.

With the information you read in this article, you made sure you got your offset at the percentage you were supposed to, ninja panels, microinverters, etc.

You applied every single tip I gave you setting you up for success.

The only reason why you found out about this, is that you suddenly got hit by an energy bill when you were not even supposed to get one or expecting one.

QUESTION: What would be the probable cause for this?

That is a situation that many people face for overlooking the importance of that combo.

At first glance, it seems like it might not do much for you but it does. And companies use this to their advantage to keep the truth hidden and once again, artificially inflate their profits.

That -make it or break it- combo is comprised of this: a critter guard along with a live-monitoring app.

Why those two?

When you get your solar installed, there's a tiny space left between your panels and your roof due to the racking.

And that's like a 5-star hotel for pigeons, rats, and other godforsaken creatures. I mean, it only makes sense to them; it's cozy, it provides the perfect shelter, and it's not easily accessible.

The thing is they've fooled us into believing that they survive on food. But actually, they don't! They get their vitality from pecking and destroying things. (Trust me on this one haha).

And your panels are not the exception to the rule.

The worst part is that the odds of your system failing because of this are way more than the ones that come from things like using string inverters or even non-ninja panels.

But don't panic, it's as easy as putting a critter guard that stops them from entering.

What about that second thing of the combo?

HINT: I already gave it away.

Ask yourself this...

How do you think you'd be able to know if something's off with your system? Or if something needs to be repaired?

This is where live monitoring comes into play. It will help you keep track of how your solar is doing and notice if there is something not working properly so that it can be promptly fixed.

Otherwise, the only way you would know if something is down would be by getting a beefy bill on account of the energy you didn't produce.

And by the time you get it, next month has already started...

See what I was saying?

On one hand, you have wrathful creatures chewing on your investment, and on the other, there's nothing that lets you know if one of them was actually successful in their endeavor.

Can you see now why this is a -make or break- situation?

Well, that's only if you decide not to protect yourself. But I don't think that'd be the case here.

The only reason why the masses expose their solar system to itchy jaws is because companies don't normally speak about the importance of this with the consumers.

Remember: Live monitoring + Critter guard is the way.

Why make your life harder when you could make it smoother than -Santana's song "Smooth"- with what I just told you?

Now that there's no one dosing the "right amount" of information to you, do not let mistakes like passing on this water down your beautiful solar savings.

After all, you went solar to save money, not to lose it.

This was Dj Frank on the mix

SUMMARY

Our journey has come to an end, but before we say our goodbyes, let's make a quick recap of what we learned:

The 1 thing solar companies don't take into consideration, that you need to know to make sure your system was properly sized.
The little carry-over no company wants to talk about and the secrets to the infamous -true up bill-.
The California Net-Metering war and the final window of opportunity in its aftermath.
The hidden-concept that will allow you to know for sure if your system will work or not.
The ugly truth of how long a solar system lasts and how to effectively protect yourself from that.
Small but key components, that beat the big ones to their game, and the perks of using them.
The 2 most overlooked things when going solar and how not having them could break your system.

In case you missed one or over-read a couple, I'd recommend going back and taking a shot at them to get the full experience .

If you already made your way through all , there's nothing left to say but congratulations!

CONCLUSION

It's been a wild ride huh? Did you expect to learn this kind of stuff? I bet that before you got started, you thought it was all going to be fuzzy information.

I hope that my movie references along with the real-life pictures and examples helped you better understand all of this.

The path has been laid out

You now have at your disposal everything that was kept from you.

This will be your safety protocol since it'll allow you to go solar knowing exactly what to expect.

Now it's just a matter of putting this powerful information to good use by choosing The Bright Side© over The Dark Side©.

Couldn't end this without dropping one last movie reference. Caught it?

California's Net Metering 2.0 & The Last Window Of Opportunity For Going Solar

bruno_stuger@hotmail.com (Frank Bierhals) — Tue, 17 Aug 2021 12:33:00 GMT

You know when you go into an article on the internet and it gives you some information, but you still feel like something is missing?

Well, this is NOT one of those. This is solar in California like never explained before. We'll talk about 3 things:

#1. The California net metering war & the final window of opportunity.

#2. Net metering 2.0: The key to understanding how solar really works in CA.

#3. Net metering 3.0: Doomsday for solar in California is arriving on 2022.

NO fluffy information, NO abstract concepts and NO shallow explanations.

Enjoy.

Welcome to Solar History 101...

Since then, many states have followed suit by implementing similar policies, but as of today, some of those have also backtracked . And sadly, California is about to become one of them.

Why?

From the moment this started, there has been an ongoing war between the solar advocates (inside & outside the government) and the energy monopolies. Or monopoly? That's a subject for another day.

They've been doing everything they can to put a stop to the solar uprising, just like in Terminator®.

And it just so happens that Arnold Schwarzenegger was the one who kickstarted that uprising in 2009 when he signed senate bill AB 920 and gave birth to a new era; that of the Net Metering.

Example: Let's pretend that back then, any given utility was selling the kWh at ¢15. That means that every kWh produced by solar would get credited at ¢15 as well. A 1:1 rate.

And why would you need to get "credited"? What does a 1:1 rate do?

To answer that, let's zone in on something that will help you better understand it before we keep moving forward...

Net Metering explained like never before...

Have you ever wondered how do you get your energy at night when the sun is not feeding your solar panels? That's where net metering comes into play.

During the day, there are hours where your panels will produce more than what you can use in that precise moment and hours where they just won't produce. Take a look at this graph:

Image taken from our friends at NorcalSolar.or g

As you can see, the sun starts coming up and with it your production, then around noon peak production is achieved, and from there it starts to ramp back down.

The thing is, at hours of peak production, you're probably only going to be using around 40% of the energy available at that moment, and that excess has to go somewhere...

Well, it goes into the grid .

�� Think of net metering as a bank that stores your excess energy on the grid, while you're waiting for the hours without sunlight to arrive.

But what if we were to look at it from a week's perspective or even a whole year instead of a 1-day window?

The same thing would happen.

During the year there are seasons and months where you'll consume more than what your system generates (typically summer), and others that work the other way around.

At the end of the year, they balance each other out.

Take a look at this 1-year graph. The light-blue line is the solar production and the blue bars are the consumption for that month:

How is this linked to what I told you?

Now that you know the excess energy goes into the grid, you might already smell where I'm going with this...

But instead of storing those $150, they would only store 75% of that which would be 112 bucks ($150 x 0.75% = $112).

Can you see why Schwarzenegger deserved an Oscar for his performance when he secured a 1:1 rate for homeowners with solar in 2009?

Going back to Solar History 101...

Utilities were officially Terminated with the Net Metering Bill. Their high commands and executives probably puked when they heard of it.

It is no secret that they don't like what solar can bring onto them. Even during the 90s, when the groundwork was barely set, they made sure to manifest that discomfort.

But this time it was worse. Thanks to that framework, solar started growing uncontrollably . And that poked the bear.

States started looking up to California. Everyone was happy. Except for them of course. And they were not going to let their huge profits evaporate in the blink of an eye...

They knew Net Metering was designed to be revisited once the total solar installations for each utility (PG&E, SCE, and SDG&E) reached 5% of the total peak electricity demand.

So it was only a matter of waiting for that to happen...

Absolutely yes!

NET METERING 2.0 & The 5 Policies You Need To Know

�� This one's the key to understanding how solar really works in California.

Ok, so it's 2016 and Net Metering 2.0 is up and running. Utilities were heard and more importantly, they were pleased.

5 policies were implemented to tackle the "free" grid usage and the shifting of costs towards non-solar households.

In short, now you have to pay more to account for that, you'll see why:

#1 Interconnection Fee

This is a one-time fee that has to be paid after your system passed the city inspection so it can be turned on.

PG&E: $145

SDG&E: $132

SCE: $75

This was not that bad of a change since it's only a one-time thing. Plus the majority of solar companies pay this for their customers so it's nothing you have to worry about.

#2 Minimum Delivery Charges

This had already been instated for previous versions of the Net Metering but was kept for Version 2.0.

These Minimum Delivery Charges are supposed to cover the minimum costs of electricity delivery and its 24-hours availability.

It's a fee of about ¢33 per day plus a tiny amount of tax . To approximate the monthly cost you have to multiply that by the number of days in a month.

To be more precise , as of 2021, these fees are:

PG&E: ¢33 cents per day.

SDG&E: ¢33 cents per day.

SCE: ¢35 cents per day.

Example: Let's think of SCE. There are 31 days in October. So 31 x $0.35 = $10.85. Plus tax, it will end up in the $12s.

�� This is the ONLY thing that has to be paid on a monthly basis aside from your solar payment.

#3 NSCR(s)

NSCR's stand for Net Surplus Compensation Rates.

You know how you're able to carry over the excess energy you produce from hour to hour, day to day, week to week, and month to month?

Well, if at the end of a 12 months period you have excess energy, you will still be able to carry it over for the next year. However, it's going to be at a much lower rate than its original value.

And how much less is it going to be worth?

The average kWh with SCE, SDG&E, or PG&E costs ¢30. But the NSCRs are valued at wholesale electricity prices, which would be from ¢2 to ¢4. That's why they're so low.

Example: Let's say that after 12 months you have 300 kWh you didn't use. If the kWh is worth $0.30, that would be $90 of energy credits (300 kWh x $0.30 = $90).

Now, if we take the middle range of the NSCRs at ¢3, out of those $90, you would only get to carry over $9 for the next year (300 kWh x $0.03 = $9).

�� But remember, this is ONLY applied to the excess energy at the end of every 12 months from the date your system was turned on, also called the PTO Date (Permission To Operate).

#4 TOU Rate Plans

TOU stands for, "Time Of Use".

The only difference with the standard Tier Plans, would be that instead of having a fixed price per kWh, its price will change according to the time of the day.

It'd be something like this:

This might have you thinking: "How does it affect me if I go solar?

Example: If you generated 10 kWh from 8:00 am to 3:59 pm, they'd be worth $3 (10 kWh x $0.30 = $3). Now let's say you used them all up during peak hours.

If we did 10 kWh x $0.47 -which would be the cost per kWh during peak time- that would be $4.7 bucks of energy. It's like you had technically used $1.70 more in energy.

If this was not factored into the design of your system that's money that you're going to have to pay to the utility.

✅ However, this is NOT that big of a change and can be countered by slightly increasing the system size needed. How much is slightly? 9% on average.

#5 Non-Bypassable Charges

Before Net Metering 2.0, these costs were canceled out by the excess energy you produced. But according to the utilities, they were not able to recuperate these costs by how their economics work.

The NBC's were instated so that homeowners with solar would also pay their share for low-income and energy efficiency programs that utilities have in collaboration with the state.

An NBC is a charge from ¢2 to ¢3 cents that gets added to every kWh you import from the grid. Or at least that's what almost everybody says because they don't truly know how these guys work...

So let's take a look at How To Calculate NBCs :

Image taken from our friends at NorcalSolar.or g

After running some numbers, we can estimate that 63% of your usage in kWh will get an NBC. But let me explain:

So if you are ever in doubt, pull up your calculator and plug in this highly complex mathematical operation ONLY during hours where your consumption was more than your production:

And how would that look like in dollar numbers?

Imagine that your average energy bill was $407 before solar, just like one of the guys from our Californian Case Studies ...

To get a $407 bill you would have to consume 1,453 kWh at the average utilities' price of 28 cents. (1453 kWh x $0.28 = $407).
Estimating that 63% of your monthly usage with solar is subject to NBCs, that would be 915 kWh out of the 1453 kWh used. (1453 kWh x 0.63% = 915 kWh)
We said the NBCs can go from ¢2 to ¢3. Let's take the middle range at ¢2.5. If we do 915 kWh x $0.025 that would be $22.40 of NBC's accrued during that month.
The total amount of NBC's for the year would be $268.80 ($22.88 x 12 months = $274.61). These accumulate throughout the year and have to be paid every 12 months.

Not that bad huh? I bet you were thinking they would be a lot more!

I know it's still a little something, but hey, if you're already paying $291 with solar (like this guy) instead of $407, that's way better even with NBC's around!

Quick Recap and Highlights of Net Metering 2.0 ✓

A grandfather clause in the Senate Bill protects you from having any changes done to these NEM 2.0 agreements for 20 years from the date you went solar:

1:1 Rate: The excess energy gets credited at the same rate your utility charges you, in other words, at 100% of its value.
Minimum Delivery Fees: of about 33 cents per day to recoup the costs of grid usage. This is the ONLY thing that has to be paid monthly. Comes out to be around $12 per month.
Interconnection Fee: One-time fee to be paid before your system is turned on. (Normally paid by your solar company of choice).
NSCR's: If after 12 months from the day your system was turned on, you have excess energy. You will get 2 to 4 cents for every kWh that's going to carry over for the next 12-month cycle.
TOU Rate Plan: when you go solar they will switch you from a Tiered Plan to a TOU one. It's almost the same, but the price each kWh gets credited at, varies depending on if it's peak time (4 pm - 9 pm) or off-peak time. Any extra charges derived from this will be paid at the time of your True-Up Bill . That's ONLY if your system was not designed to account for this.
NBC's: If at the end of every whole hour in a day, you used more energy than what your solar produced in that same 1-hour window, every kWh beyond your production will get an NBC of ¢2 to ¢3 attached to it. You can expect to get NBC's on 63% of your usage. Just above this is how to calculate them. These are to be paid at the time of the True-Up Bill.

✅ The Minimum Delivery Charges and the NBC's will pay for themselves with the savings from the first 3 to 4 months of the year.

NET METERING 2.0 DOOMSDAY ��

The zombie apocalypse is nothing compared to what's coming... Net Metering 3.0.

So if you've been thinking about going solar, right now it's do-or-die .

Here is why:

When version 2.0 was put up back in 2016, the CPUC decided that it was going to be revisited by 2019 to evaluate what needed to be adjusted and if solar needed fewer incentives to keep flourishing.

A golden opportunity for utilities yet again.

But wait... 2019 is more than gone! Does that mean it's over? Did I learn all this stuff for nothing?

It was supposed to be rolled out during 2019, but due to that, the final decision was pushed out to January 2022.

Who by the way, along with others, spearheaded the failed assembly bill AB 1139 with countermeasures even more radical than the ones seen in the proposals for NEM 3.0.

All to arm-twist the CPUC into coming up with a final decision as soon as possible, in her own words.

A peek into the Net Metering 3.0 Abyss ��

Remember how the CPUC addressed everything that was putting stress on the grid and the shoulders of non-solar households?

Well, now utilities are saying that it was not enough and that they are still increasing the prices for those without solar. Even with all those procedures from NEM 2.0 in place.

Curiously enough, if they were really worried about people paying more, they would leave solar alone, but instead , their acts show that in reality, what worries them, is their profits.

Bold claim? Yes! Here is why I say that:

There are several studies like this one , from the CPUC themselves, stating that protecting the lines from wildfires in CA is one of the factors that are driving electricity prices up the most.

But they keep building them. Why? Because distribution & transmission is where 3/4 of the profits are at. See for yourself:

They buy the electricity at around 3 cents, remember? The rest comes from that. Simple math... increase your power lines and you shall increase your profit.

How cheaper? 473 Billion cheaper.

Seeing is believing:

But even with all that out there, their claims always only mention their solar-induced problems, NEVER the ones that solar has solved for them and the avoided costs they get to enjoy thanks to us.

With that said, they're still asking for more of what they already have. And the proposals they have submitted to the CPUC as for what they expect from Net Metering 3.0 are far from pretty.

They go like this:

Minimum Delivery Fees

Remember we talked about these and that they came out to be around $12 per month?

They want to increase them. SCE is now asking for $56, PG&E is asking for $86 and SDG&E is asking for $91.

Because 12ish was not enough to keep the grid in good conditions, even with the present NEM 2.0 measures that supposedly account for that.

Net Metering less net-meterish

The most vital aspect of solar, taken from us. Wow!

Monthly Netting

Ok, we already have the excess energy being credited at 25% of its real value, but it gets worse.

If at the end of the month you have excess energy (which would be at least 6 months out of the 12 in a year), they will not let you carry it over for the next month. It would just go to the trash.

⚠️ The LAST Window of Opportunity ⚠️

If that didn't blow you away, I don't know what will. But I wouldn't expect less from these guys, there's too much in play for them to just leave solar to its own.

The worst thing in all this is that the net metering agreements are designed to be revisited every few years. So from here, it can only go down.

And that's supposing that the attacks won't keep coming. But rest assured they will, because their profits come from extending the grid, even if that means raising their prices for everybody.

And the more terrain they gain, the worse it's going to get, just like we've already seen with other states.

Don't let this one pass you by.

Now is when. The boats have yet not sailed. Jump on them now and save yourself by taking advantage of the legal protection while it's still available before these guys pull out all their cards. And rest assured they will.

(If you're reading this before the end of January 2022, you can still make it into Net Metering 2.0. Remember that it takes some time to get your project city-approved and installed, so the sooner the better).

Don't wait for solar to go down the drain.

Let's get working on your project and beat the January deadline! ��

What Are TOU Rates & How Do They Affect My Solar?

bruno_stuger@hotmail.com (Frank Bierhals) — Thu, 12 Aug 2021 02:08:37 GMT

Ok, so TOU Rates...

Everybody talks about what they are, but nobody talks about how they could affect you after going solar.

If that's what you're here for, you couldn't have arrived at a better time. Let's do this!

First of all, Tiered Plans

As of today, you're probably enrolled in a Tiered Rate Plan. Depending on what utility you're with and what part of the area in which they provide service you are located, they will assign you something called a Baseline.

You could think of it as the maximum amount of energy (in kWh) which they consider you should be using in a month according to where you live.

These baselines change 2 times per year. There's one for the summer months (June through September) and another one for the rest of them.

For example, take a look at this map. That's the region of California that SCE is in charge of providing service to:

Example: If you live in San Bernardino, that would be Region 14. During summer the maximum allocation per day is 18.7 kWh. If you multiply that times 30 days, you'll get the baseline allocation for the month = 561 kWh.

If you happen to use more than that amount, this will happen:

They will start charging you at a higher rate according to what Tier you fall into. They determine this by how far above your consumption falls from your baseline.

That's tiered rate plans in a nutshell.

Going back to TOU Rate Plans...

Nowadays, when yo go solar, you automatically get switched over to a TOU Rate Plan instead of the classic tier plan I just showed you. That's if you were not already enrolled in one.

Baseline allocations still apply with a TOU Rate Plan, meaning that Tiers work the same way here.

The only difference would be that instead of having a fixed price per kWh, its price will change according to the time of the day.

That's what TOU stands for, "Time Of Use".

Take a look:

This might have you thinking: "How does it affect me if I go solar?

Picture this...

Let's say that today, from 8:00 am to 3:59 pm, your system generated an extra 10 kWh you haven't used. And it just so happens that Peak Hours in a TOU Rate Plan are from 4 pm to 9 pm as you just saw.

6 pm hits and the sun starts going down. Your solar production will ramp down due to the fading sunlight.

That means that your panels won't be able to produce all the energy your house would call for at that precise moment. But hey, you had an extra 10 kWh ready to go right?

Yes and no! The problem here is that energy also gets credited according to the time of day in which it was generated.

Example: Those 10 kWh generated from 8:00 am to 3:59 pm are worth $3 (10 kWh x $0.30 = $3). For the sake of this example, let's say you used them all up during peak hours.

If we did 10 kWh x $0.47 -which would be the cost per kWh during peak time- that would be $4.7 bucks of energy. It's like you had technically used $1.70 more in energy.

Of course, in a real-life scenario you wouldn't use them all up exactly during those hours, but it just goes to show the repercussions that changing to a TOU Rate schedule has for solar.

How to counter TOU Rates ?

It's relatively easy, check this out...

Let's pretend that you would only need 30 panels to reach an Offset of 100% . For most solar companies and homeowners, that should do the trick. However, your system would not be accounting for TOU Rates.

At least not yet.

So what do you have to do?

Get more panels than the ones originally needed.

The extra energy that will come from that, will counter the price difference during peak hours.

But it's not like you could just say, " hey give me double the system size ", as if it were a double shot of espresso.

No, several things come into play when making an accurate design and at the end of the day, that falls into the jurisdiction of solar companies and their designers.

However, since you & I know that most of them will hide things from you in order to "get the sale", here is something that will help...

How much bigger should my system be ?

Let's turn you into a solar system designer for a minute here...

See the image below?

In the solar world we call that a Load Profile .

In the real world in which you and I live in, that's called -how much electricity you're using at any given time of the day according to your habits-.

For example: there's people that will consume more energy at night because they were at work all day, while there are others who work from home so their highest usage could probably be in the morning or during midday.

And just like those, there's a hundred different load profiles out there. But the one from above, is the average one, so let's use that.

Now, to calculate how much bigger should your system be, let's split that graph into chunks of 1 hour to see how much energy of the total used in a day, was consumed during TOU hours.

Image taken from our friends at NorcalSolar.org

TOU Rates are from 4 pm to 9 pm, remember? So let's take the percentages circled in green , which would be the electric usage that corresponds to those hours, and add them all up.

Result: the average american house would consume 25.2% of their daily total during TOU hours.

Ok, now that we know that, let's do some math again. I'll divide it into steps so you can follow.

One more thing before we start, I'm going to use 30 cents as off-peak price and 47 cents as peak-time price for my calculations. That would be SCE's pricing during summer.

�� However if your utility is SDG&E or PG&E, just pick the corresponding values from the images below and follow the steps.

Quick Clarification

⚠️ Remember that if you don't handpick one of the TOU Rate Plans your utility has available, the default one will be the -4 pm to 9 pm- showed in the images above.

If you want to learn more about the different plans available & their pricing straight from the source, here are the links to the utilities' websites where I got the images from:

With that said, let's get back to our calculations...

Step #1 : Figure out your consumption in kWh during TOU times.

To do that, multiply your average monthly usage by 0.252.

Example: let's say you consume 500 kWh on average per month. 25.2% of that will be during TOU Rate Hours, which in kWh would be 126. (500 kWh x 0.252 % = 126 kWh ).

Step #2 : Calculate the price of that chunk of consumption.

Multiply the result you got from above by the price per kWh during off-peak time and then do the same for the price during peak time.

Example: those 126 kWh were probably produced during off-peak times . That means they were credited at ¢30. In dollars that would be $37.8 (126 kWh x $0.30 = $37.8 ).

However, since we claimed that energy back from the grid during peak time , it now costs ¢47. So it would be a total $59.22 (126 kWh x $0.47 = $59.22 ).

That's a difference of $21.42 ($59.22 - $37.8 = $21.42). Now it's just a matter of turning that into a percentage.

Step #3 : Turn that into a percentage.

Turn that difference in dollars, into a percentage using the peak-time dollar value as a reference.

In this case we would have to figure out what percentage would $21.42 be out of $59.22? To do that divide the lower value by the big one.

Why $59.22? Because that's the real value of the energy during TOU times.

Example: $21.42 ➗ $59.22 = .3617 which in % would be 36.17% .

O nIn this case it would be 36%.

e more step and we're done.

Step #4 : Turn that into a percentage.

Now we need to know what's the 36.17% of 25%.

Why 25%? Because that's the average percentage of monthly energy usage for a house, according to load profiles. Remember?

Example: 25 x 0.3617 = 9%

✅ That would be the average amount of extra energy needed to counter TOU Rates: 9%.

And last but not least...

A bigger system size is a MUST if you want to combat TOU rates.

However, remember that you won't always need an extra 9%. Some houses will require a little less and some others more.

That will depend your type of load profile and other factors like how much sunlight your roof gets, during what hours, where it's facing, how much energy you consume, among others...

As you can see, it's quite a little something to do it all by yourself.

But what you CAN do is this:

Now that you know this, make sure that when you get your project done, they explain to you the measures they're taking to prevent this from getting back at you. And how & why they'd work. ��

What Is "Offset" & The Importance of It When Sizing a Solar System

bruno_stuger@hotmail.com (Frank Bierhals) — Tue, 22 Jun 2021 18:04:54 GMT

What is Solar Offset?

After getting net metering out of the way, it's time to talk about that. It's fairly straightforward:

A house with an offset of 100%, means that it gets 100% of the electricity it calls for, from its solar.
A house with an offset of 90%, will only get 90% of the energy from solar and the other 10% will come from the power company. In other words, that 10% will have to be paid to them, at the rate they impose.

Why does it matter?

Well, it allows you to know if the company gave you what you needed or they promised you the moon but delivered a miniature of it instead.

I've seen some solar companies do one of these 2 things . In the worst cases, even both.

#1 They hide this concept from their customers

They make it look like it were a hard-to-understand solar industry jargon when in reality it's as easy as it gets. All to avoid talking about it.

I've seen project spec sheets with that big bold number at less than 100. But they still promise their customers they'll get 100% of the energy they need from their solar.

How is that even possible if the offset is not at 100%? You see what I'm saying?

Preventing this is easy.

Just make sure that your project clearly states the offset at 100% and you'll be good. As easy as that, but in hopes of making it even clearer, here's an image of how it should look like:

#2 Altering the numbers

Why do they do this? To either increase the commission they get from the install or because there's a shortage of equipment and they just can't let that extra sale slide by them.

Sadly, after projects are designed, I've seen sales reps get comfortable with design tools, enough to be able to alter the design themselves to where they make the numbers work.

They think they're so smart and that they fully understand this, but in reality, the performance of the system is being damaged and it's going to cost the homeowner a couple thousand bucks.

Are these acts of bad faith or are they not even aware they're wounding their clients?

Even the big names are guilty of this! The good thing is there are already class-action lawsuits in the works for them. At the end of the day, one gets what one deserves.

I know, I know. You're probably saying "who are them?", "tell me their names". I swear I'd love to, but if I did, we'd be the ones getting sued and not them haha.

Instead of that, why don't we talk about how you can avoid these hardships.

How Can I Protect Myself From That?

With the offset tip I just gave you in the image above, you're already more protected than many naive homeowners.

But with these 2 tips that I'm about to give you, you'll be 100% protected. Just like your offset! Caught the joke there?

Tip #1

Even if the offset is at 100%, watch for these two. The 1st one, from top to bottom, is how much energy your house uses per year. The 2nd one is how much of that your solar will produce.

It's as easy as making sure there's not a huge gap between them. Meaning that your solar production (2nd number) shouldn't be way below your yearly consumption (1st number).

This is the only way you can ensure that your system is going to be offsetting 100% of the energy your house needs because it was properly sized. (Yes, this is where the word comes from).

It's like being able to see into the future and knowing it'll work.

Tip #2

Interactive project sheets. Yup, that's it!

They're such beautiful things because they help bring transparency to life when it comes to your project. See for yourself:

They let you click around and plug in your own numbers to see what would happen if you modify something. They're directly linked to the original design so that NO funky business can take place.

How Long Will My Solar Panels Last & What Does It Mean For Me?

bruno_stuger@hotmail.com (Frank Bierhals) — Sun, 09 May 2021 15:13:17 GMT

I've been able to find hard-to-understand articles on the subjects above, but as of 2021, I haven't seen one that goes deep on the importance of what I'm about to tell you.

And that's panel degradation !

The Ugly Truth of How Long a Solar System Lasts

When they blow their cover and they have to speak about this, I've heard companies & reps say:

" Don't worry about that, that's not true. Our panels are the best!" (Usually, they're not) .
" The system is not composed of moving parts. Only things that move can degrade. "
" They do degrade but it doesn't affect you. "

Excuse me for the words, but what a load of �� !

It's all excuses and lies to avoid going into uncharted territory, that to their eyes, makes homeowners ask more questions and that makes them scared of "losing the sale".

Well after this gets out, it might just end up costing them the sale anyway for hiding stuff. Now you know they degrade!

Decisions are yours, and only yours to make, not by some company that manipulated your thought process by sweet-talking you with all the lies revealed so far.

With that said, let's go deeper...

Why Does This Happen?

Just like with our faces, when wrinkles appear when we start getting old (unless you like to botox yourself), time takes its toll on the components of a solar system.

That's normal, every product wears with time except for those military-grade phone cases. Things like corrosion and the high voltages these units continuously carry, contribute to this.

And how does it affect me?

" It doesn't actually affect you ". Or at least that's what others would say haha. Right? But getting serious here... it actually does, and a lot.

The average solar system will degrade at a max of 26% after 25 years. This doesn't mean that after 25 summers the system will suddenly be like " hey, let's degrade already".

But degradation still sounds fancy to me, let's put it in real-life terms.

See how this could affect you and how relevant speaking about this is?

I Don't Think This is a Good Idea... They Degrade You Know?

I'm with you. It's not at all.

But the good news is that as of today, there are these secretly kept panels that defend your trenches with the same might as the Marines or the Air Force defend the U.S.A.

Yet again, companies do their best to hide their existence because they can make a bigger profit from selling outdated ones to unsuspicious homeowners (not you).

By flashing things like an offset at 100% the average homeowner would assume their system is going to work. And it would technically do. In the beginning. But what about down the line?

Why would a proper offset matter, when it's going to quickly decline after you get it installed?

And who are these stealthily guarded subjects?

The million-dollar question. I like to call them 'ninja panels' because of the secrecy with which they're kept.

You will only see solar companies bring these guys up in case of an emergency, which to them, would be an informed prospect. But enough about the bad guys, let's talk about the good guys.

What does it take to be a ninja panel? Take a look:

Withstanding time better than the average ones and most importantly , managing to keep the degradation at a max of only 8% after 25 years, compared to the other ones at 26%.

But degradation is not the only thing they crush . Such leaps in technology had to yield other benefits.

Let's spice it up a bit:

Having a solar system with a max degradation down to 8% doesn't mean you'll have a system producing only 92% after 25 years, at least not here at SOLARI®. Here is why:

And Here Comes The Crazy Part...

Let's pretend that XYZ solar company didn't properly inform you on this from the get-go. Solar would still be worth it with the amount of money it will save you.

Heck, even with non-ninja panels that degrade at 26%, solar would be more than worth it. Radical claim? Yeah!

But don't take my word for it, see for yourself. I will show you a comparison table of the savings -with ninjas and without them- of one of our customers.

And yeah, in case you were wondering how the story ends, he ended up getting the ninja ones! Drag the arrow left and right to see the comparison:

How crazy is that? Seeing is believing.

That doesn't mean we vouch for the bad practices of other companies, but it just goes to show that even with �� solar you can save a chunky little something.

If bottom-of-the-food-chain panels already give you the higher ground, what kind of savings do you think you can expect with the good ones?