Thoughts on Solar

Just about a year ago, we really started thinking seriously about what drone technology might add to our solar installation company. The folks over at Scanifly – with their ability to take drone images and convert it into a 3-D model of a potential solar site, without needing to climb onto a roof, was really appealing. And that got us thinking of other ways a drone might be helpful - as with finished project photography, or inspecting existing systems. All of that seemed possible, but certainly there were obstacles in the path.

Well now, a year later, those obstacles have been surmounted, and Run on Sun has officially enter the Drone Era!  Here’s how we did it…

Research

We started by doing some homework.  Lots of it.  Watching videos to see what it would take to make this happen.  The list was fairly long: what drone to purchase (there are a lot of drones out there!), how do you learn to fly one (safely!), what does it take to do this legally?  And on and on.

Choosing a drone…

Drones come in all shapes and sizes - to say nothing of costs.  Last year LG sent out a professional crew to photograph one of our installations (you can see one of those photos here), and they used a $20,000 drone for the task.  Clearly that was going to be too rich for our blood!  A number of years ago, my good buddy Josh - who is always on the bleeding edge of fun tools - had let us use his drone for shooting some video of our reservoir project. Josh did all the real flying, but I did get to take the controls and found it pretty straightforward to fly.  So we had some exposure to some of the different drones out there.

Our Mavic Air, FAA # FA3NMEK4RF - aka Oscar!

In looking around, it seemed like DJI was the market leader in the types of drones that we might consider.  Ultimately, we settled on the DJI Mavic Air (in Flame Red, thank you very much!), and we purchased the “More Fly Combo” which included two extra batteries, spare props, prop guards and a carrying case.  We also shelled out for a hardshell carrying case, a landing pad, and some neutral density filters.  Total outlay was just over $1,000, and for that we bring you our Mavic Air (nicknamed Oscar by Victoria who insists that it is the only robot she loves), FAA #FA3NMEK4RF. Which brings us to the next point - flying legally!

Making it Legal

Choosing a drone was fairly easy.  Figuring out how to fly it legally, that was more challenging.  Way back in the day, I was a private pilot, but I found that I either had the time, but no money, or the money, but no time.  And living in the greater LA area meant dealing with the most complicated airspace in the country, if not the world!  So I quit flying when my daughter was born and haven’t flown since.

But, that did give me a leg up in learning how to fly legally, since I was generally familiar with the rules and regulations from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).  One of the first things you learn is that any drone that weighs more than 0.55 pounds must be registered.  Our Mavic Air weighs in at just over 15 ounces, so registration was a must.  Turns out that is super easy, and can be done online for a nominal fee.  We had our local label maker create registration labels so our Mavic Air is legal everytime it flies!

Of course, getting me licensed was another matter!  I found a number of great resources online, including this great video created by Tony Northrup! Tony’s video is an hour and forty-three minutes long and I watched it multiple times.  He is clear, funny, and amazingly helpful.  I also found an online study guide (currently unavailable as they update it) here.

The test consists of 60 multiple choice questions and you need a 70% to pass.  While a significant number of the questions are really just common sense - like is the FAA going to ever suggest that having a drink of alcohol will improve your visual acuity??? - there are a number of questions that require you to parse a weather report that looks like this: KIAD 180005Z 19008KT 10SM TS SCT060CB BKN090 BKN200 31/21 A3002 RMK AO2 TSB04 FRQ LTGICCCCG SW TS SW MOV NE T03060211 (seriously!), or puzzle through a sectional chart that is one of the densest data presentations ever invented. (Don’t believe me?  You can download it here, but be patient, it will take a while!)

Suffice it to say, I took my test prep seriously, and the result was rewarding: 100%! 

Now all I needed was to start flying!

Flying for (fun) and Profit!

So now that I was a fully licensed drone pilot, it was time to start putting those skills to use.  Here are some recent drone shots and a description of their application.  (In each case, clicking on the image will give you a full-scale picture.

		Finished Project Photography One of the really cool uses for the drone is to give homeowners a view of their new system that you just cannot get any other way! This image shows a just completed tilt-up system on a flat - and very bright white roof!
		Residential Site Evaluation Photography Another great reason to use the drone is to take imagery that our friends at Scanifly can turn into a 3-D model - all without actually going on the roof!  This is a 25 degree pitch garage roof - not really something you want to walk on if you don’t have to!  Guess what, thanks to the drone, everyone stayed on the ground and we got a great model to use for our proposal!
		Inspection Photography The other day, one of our clients reported that a neighbor’s tree had fallen on his carport, where our solar system was installed five years ago.  When we came out, the array was completely buried under the tree.  We advised the client to get the tree removed and we would return to survey the array for damage. Once again, we were able to examine the array closely for signs of damage, without ever breaking out a ladder!
		Commercial Site Evaluation Photography One of our most anticipated uses if for modeling larger commercial roofs.  Using Scanifly, we can get shading readings for any area on the roof, letting us have very accurate production models, thereby allowing us to provide our commercial and non-profit clients with better proposals than ever before.  And when you try to distinguish yourself by the quality of the information that you can provide, this is a great leap forward!

We really think that the drone brings us a new level of safety and competence.  So when you call us for that site evaluation, don’t be surprised if we never break out the ladder, but instead let Oscar - the newest member of the Run on Sun team - do the hard work for us!

I suspect that most of my NABCEP-Certified colleagues have had this happen - you are on your way to a jobsite when you pass a solar installation that is so painfully bad, that it stops you in your tracks and you just have to go and take a closer look at what happens when Shortcut Solar has botched another job. Follow me into a realm where you never want to find yourself, the horrifying reality of Shortcut Solar at work!

I brake for Shortcut Solar!

Wow, there’s a lot going on there and none of it good.  The panels on the left are facing a variety of trees.  The panels on the right have a significant pitch-up to the south, with a lot of exposure to the wind out of the north.  The cable management there appears to be: let it just hang down.  That middle section is supposed to have 18″ of clearance at the hip given the panels on the adjacent face, but they are actually overlapping the hip!  And how exactly are these attached to the roof?  A closer investigation was in order!

How not to do cable management!

Seriously? Looks like old Shortcut was in a real hurry the day they did this job!  There is a rail there on the high end - surely you could have found some way to use that to get those cables in order - but clearly that wasn’t a priority!

But it was this last image that really got me going.  Checkout this attachment scheme:

I apologize that the image isn’t too clear, but let’s try and break down what is going on here.  At the base in the foreground you can see what appears to be a 3″ or so piece of unistrut that has been cut to length and painted black.  There is no flashing of any sort visible here.  Instead, the strut has apparently been bolted directly onto the roof.  Perhaps those clever fellows from Shortcut Solar drilled pilot holes and squirted in some sealant?  Or maybe not - I mean why go to all that extra effort?

So that’s your attachment, now for the standoff - I know, how about a threaded piece of 3/8″ steel?  You can attach it at the bottom with a channel nut, and then just drill a hole in your aluminum rail and secure it with a nut above and below!  What could possibly go wrong?

Well let’s start with the wind.  When the Santa Ana winds blow out of the North, they will rock those panels, and that long, skinny bolt will flex with the wind.  It is steel and the rail is aluminum, which means that the steel, over time, will chew into the aluminum.  Enough flex over enough time, and that attachment scheme is going to fail - potentially in a catastrophic manner.

(Wanna see what happens when steel defeats aluminum on a roof in the wind?  Check this out!)

 It should come as no surprise that there is a better way to do this!  Here’s our preferred approach:

The picture on the right shows one of the strongest possible combination of solar attachment components you could ask for.  The rail and L-foot comes from Everest.  The 3-inch standoff is from Unirac and the flashing is from Oatey.

Under the flashing is a rounded-rectangular base plate that accepts two, 5/16″ x 3 1/2″ lag bolts.  Two lag bolts gives you twice the strength, and hedges against hitting just the side of a rafter, or a possibly rotted/weak spot.  The 3-inch standoff screws down onto the base, and the Oatey flashing goes over it all, insuring that it will not leak.  The L-foot is bolted to the standoff and is in turn bolted into the rail - which was engineered to accept this configuration.  All components are torqued to the manufacturer’s specification, and marked to indicate that the torquing was performed.

Does it take longer to do things that way?  To be sure.  Does that mean it costs more to do it this way?  Of course.  But ask yourself, which of these approaches would you want on your roof?

We take pride in doing things the right way for our clients so that they can sleep well at night, no matter how hard the wind blows!

And we will continue to brake for Shortcut Solar and call out his subpar work whenever we see it so that you, a solar homeowner, will know what to look out for when you choose a solar installer!

UPDATE - We got a message back from Enphase about a viable approach to the whole-house connection issue discussed below.  

The end of March found me in San Diego attending the annual NABCEP Continuing Education Conference.  As part of being NABCEP certified, I am required to recertify every three years, and my third recertification occurs this year.  The Conference is a convenient way to earn the credit hours needed as part of the recertification process. 

While much of that is bone dry (such as a full day talking about the most recent changes to the National Electrical Code, made tolerable only by the wit of the presenter, Ryan Mayfield), or surprisingly cool (such as our discovery of Scanifly), nothing was more anticipated than our chance to attend a talk presented by Enphase titled, “Design and Specification of Grid-Agnostic Enphase Ensemble™ based Systems."  (Enphase describes the Ensemble system as being “grid-agnostic” because it is intended to switch seamlessly between grid connected and grid isolated operation.) Here is our take…

The room for this talk, as was the case with a number of talks, was way too small for the number of interested participants.  I arrived early and was rewarded with a seat.  Late arrivals were SRO.  The talk was presented by Peter Lum, with an assist from Field Applications Engineer, Nathan Charles. 

Key Takeaways

For folks looking for just the highlights, here are some (in no particular order):

1. Initial rollout of the IQ8 in the U.S. will be as part of the Encharge energy storage system
2. Encharge will come in two basic flavors, a 3.3 kWh, 1.28 kW unit, and a 10 kWh, 3.8 kW - both with a peak surge output of 150% rated power for one second
3. The 3.3 kWh unit will be 24″ high, 13″ wide, and 12″ deep, weighing 88 lbs, mountable either on the floor or the wall, and it can be mounted outdoors
4. Cells are LFP, cooling is passive, and comms are - surprise - Zigbee
5. The 3.3 kWh unit has four IQ8 microinverters inside, that are field replaceable should one fail
6. The battery cells are not tied to any one microinverter; if a microinverter fails the storage capacity is unaffected, but peak output power is diminished
7. Warranty will be for 4,000 cycles (100% DoD) or 10 years, whichever comes first
8. For a microgrid to form, there must be roughly the same amount of IQ8 power as there is IQ6 or IQ7 power in the system
9. Not compatible with M-series microinverters, “at launch”
10. No word yet on pricing, anticipated deliveries to begin Q4

A Little More Depth

So those are some highlights, let’s talk about some details. The smarts inside the IQ8 is an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) with some 5 million gates. As a result, the IQ8 is able to update its control vectors every 20 ns.  Thus, the individual IQ8 provides the primary control over the microgrid, and there is no master/slave relationship.  However, the IQ6 and IQ7 do not have that level of independent control functionality, and so they rely on secondary control, via the Envoy, to stay in sync with the microgrid.

As with its other IQ cousins, the IQ8 is a bi-directional inverter, meaning the same device that can be in an array, converting DC to AC, can be in the battery, converting AC to DC to charge the cells.

Keying off the 2017 NEC (which California will adopt come January), we were introduced to a new acronym: MID - which stands for Microgrid Interconnect Device, and is defined as, “A device that allows a microgrid system to separate from and reconnect to a primary power source.” (705.2)  The Enphase MID is referred to as Enpower, and it essentially has three components: an automatic transfer switch, a neutral forming transformer (recall that the IQ series just uses the two hots, L1 and L2, so the NFT is necessary to power 120 volt loads when off grid), and a control device.  Comms are - you guessed it - Zigbee.

Use Cases

There are two primary use cases for the new Encharge component, Energy Optimization, and Storage with Backup.  Let’s look at each one in turn.

Energy Optimization

Energy optimization, or more to the point, Time-of-Use arbitrage, involves storing energy during the peak production portion of the day (instead of exporting it to the grid) and using it later in the day for local consumption.  This becomes important as utilities - think SCE - switch to TOU rates where energy in the middle of the day is significantly cheaper than energy during the peak TOU period (more and more, something like 4-9 p.m.). 

Our friends over at Energy Toolbase just blogged about, “A Historic Moment for Residential Energy Storage Economics: California’s new Time-of-Use Rates,” noting that for the first time it was possible to model a more economically advantageous system adding storage, than just solar alone.  Which means that the Energy Optimization use case may pencil out on its own - though that is hard to say for sure until we have some actual pricing!

Enphase provided the following illustration (sorry for the lousy images, taken from the side with my phone!). You can click on the image to see a larger version.  

 

On the far left is the Encharge 3.3 kWh storage system showing the four IQ8’s.  To the right is an array built on an equal number of IQ7 microinverters - but note well, this is not a microgrid configuration.  Why?   Because it doesn’t have a MID, and per the 2017 NEC, you can’t have a grid-agnostic microgrid without a MID. 

In the middle is the latest version of the IQ combiner box.  (We just installed one of these and frankly, I’m not a big fan.  The wiring for consumption CTs requires you to cross reference an unmarked connection block to the lid for the wiring diagram.  This is going to be error prone, IMHO.  Also the Envoy has been reduced to just a circuit board w/out its own case.  Ok, it’s in a NEMA 4 box so the case is probably not needed, but if you are trying to operate it with the deadfront off (say during testing), you need to watch where you put your fingers!  A false economy here, I’d say.)  

Note the green boxes which denote updated software both in the cloud and in the Envoy.  Also, the Envoy picks up a Zigbee device (to communicate with Encharge) to be attached to one of the two USB ports on the Envoy.  (As we noted before, Zigbee is built into Encharge, though not called out on this slide.

This is super easy to set up as the Encharge just lands on one of the breakers in the IQ combiner.  And while it may - assuming our friends at ET are correct - pencil out, it isn’t what all the buzz has been about, so let’s turn to that use case, shall we?

Storage with Backup

Ever since I made my pilgrimage to Petaluma last summer, the amazing microgrid has been the feature that everyone is eager to see.  The good news is, we are closer!  The bad news is, this isn’t going to be as easy as we had hoped.  So here is the key diagram from last week:

There is really only one change from the prior diagram and that is in the upper right hand corner, where the Enphase MID - dubbed the Enpower 200G, has been added.  The switch is rated at 200 A (that is the significance of the 200, G stands for grid), and in theory could be an all home setup.  In a grid outage, the Enpower ATF switches and the microgrid forms - automagically.  Depending on the actual array and storage configuration deployed, will determine how much of the house loads could actually be powered here. 

There is one fly in the ointment in this illustration.  In many parts of the country, the utility meter is mounted outdoors and the distribution panel - the Main Load Center in the slide - is located indoors.  In such a scenario, the Enpower MID could be wired in between those two components with minimal disruption or cost.

Alas, in California, at least in Southern California, that is not how we do things.  99.9% of the services that I have ever looked at consisted of a combination meter and load center “all-in-one".  The rub here is that there is no easy way to physically interconnect the Enpower device between the meter and the load center.  When pressed on that issue, Enphase - accurately, if not helpfully - pointed out that we would have the same problem with any such storage solution and the combo meter/load centers.  True enough, but we have been talking about this product for a long time now, and you would like to think that they would have a clean solution in mind as to how to make this work by now.

UPDATE: I spoke with Enphase Field Applications Engineer Nick Dadikozian about the following possible solution.  Assuming that the utility and the AHJ go along, you could add a separate meter socket and wire the line side to the service, with the load side of the socket connecting to the line side of the Enpower MID, and the load side of the MID to the load side of the meter socket in the combo panel, or if no way to do that, wire to the line side of the combo meter socket and install appropriately rated jumpers in lieu of the relocated meter. 

Of course, another approach is to have a critical loads subpanel, with a breaker on the main panel and the Enpower in between.  That, I suspect, will be the approach most commonly taken.

So there you have it – all that I could absorb from our relatively short session, and some follow-on conversations with Peter over the next couple of days.  (My thanks to him for his patience in dealing with my myriad questions.)

Eager to hear your thoughts on how you will be using this system.

After a narrow miss last year, Run on Sun has rejoined the ranks of Solar Power World’s Top Solar Contractors list for 2018.  This is our fifth appearance on the list in the last six years.  Talk about punching above your weight!

The Top Solar Contractors list was developed by Solar Power World to recognize the work completed by solar contractors across the United States. Produced annually, the Top Solar Contractors list celebrates the achievements of U.S. solar developers, subcontractors and installers within the utility, commercial and residential markets, and ranks contractors by kilowatts installed in the previous year. The 2018 list was released on July 24.

“Solar Power World is very excited about the 2018 class of Top Solar Contractors,” said Kelly Pickerel, editor in chief of Solar Power World. "Our 2017 list showed impressive installation numbers after 2016’s huge rush to meet ITC requirements, and many companies were hesitant to show unavoidable installation dips after last year’s high. We’re happy to feature a strong group of thriving U.S. solar installers on the 2018 Top Solar Contractors list. These companies truly are at the top of their markets.”

Two things stand out in my mind as I look back on these past six years.  First is the incredible dedication, passion, and plain hard work that has been provided by the Run on Sun team.  We may be small, but together we are mighty!

The second, and ultimately more important (to say nothing about humbling), thing is the trust that our clients have placed with us. Every kilowatt installed represents a client’s belief that we will fulfill our promises to them.  Every referral demonstrates that we have met that challenge.  I know that the RoS crew is working hard every day (even in this heat!) to meet our commitments, and to help our clients move forward with a clean, solar-powered future.

Now bring on the Gala!

Editor’s Note: This is the third installment in our three-part series:
My Electric Bill is So High! Will Solar Help?  
You can read Part One, How High is High, here, and
Part Two, How Do I Find Someone to Trust, here.

With apologies to the Lovin’ Spoonful, eventually you have to make up your mind between those competing bids you’ve received, but how?  Let’s walk through the proposal evaluation process and see if everything that you need to see has been included!

What’s in the Proposal?

Solar proposals come in all shapes and sizes.  Some are very short – just a listing of what will be provided, a price, and a place to sign.  On the other end of the spectrum are proposals that are twenty pages long, most of it boilerplate about what is solar and how does it work, and what a great company this is.  But strip away the boilerplate and are they really giving you much information that is specific to your situation?

What were the inputs?

The old saying, GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out, applies to solar proposals too.  In this case, the inputs are your past energy usage, and a detailed site evaluation that looked at your service panel and your roof.  Omit any of those inputs, and the output is likely to be of dubious value, or worse, it will mask the true cost of installing solar at your home, leaving you exposed to costly change orders down the road when the contractor “discovers” something that should have been addressed at the proposal stage!

Your energy usage for the past year is the key input – without it you’re flying blind.  If you are in SCE territory, your potential installer should be asking for access to your  interval data.  For most residential clients, that is hourly usage measurements over the entire year, and that is important to accurately model your savings under now mandatory, time-of-use rates.  Where interval data is not available, monthly, or worse, bi-monthly billing records can be used, but they will not provide the granularity needed to see how the proposed PV system will actually operate to offset your daily loads.

Assuming that interval data is available – we ask our clients provide it through a secure service called UtilityAPI – it is the installer’s responsibility to properly analyze it to know how large a system you need.  As we mentioned in Part One, we use Energy Toolbase for our data analysis as it is the most authoritative tool on the market.  The chart above shows the average seasonal usage for one particular client as processed by Energy Toolbase from the raw interval data.  This shows the average hourly usage over spring and summer, with a very dramatic peak on summer weekends around 5:30 p.m.  Recall from Part One about “low-hanging fruit” – what you are seeing here is an excessive A/C demand that, if it can be addressed, would greatly reduce the size of the PV system needed for this client.

Ideally, this analysis takes place before the site evaluation so that the installer is able to advise the potential client about actions to be taken to reduce their overall usage, and thereby end up with the most cost-effective solution tailored to their needs.

Detailed equipment line items

One of the things that we see on competitors’ proposals that never ceases to amaze us is the total lack of detail regarding the actual equipment that is going to be installed!  It is as if the homeowner is expected to pay thousands of dollars for a generic solar power system – but you wouldn’t spend thousands on a generic car, would you?  Moreover, how can you assess the value proposition of a generic system?  A company that proposes a generic system intends to install on your home whatever is on sale that week.  Maybe you get lucky, more likely you don’t, but in either case, you simply don’t know, and that is no way to make a major investment.

Your proposal should have line items for all of the major components of your system: the solar panels, microinverters, racking, and installation costs.  And those items should be specific, down to the model being selected and the per unit cost.  Only that level of detail allows you to see what you are getting and for how much.

Utility savings analysis

Determining how much your proposed PV system will save you in Year 1 is the key to the entire analysis of the proposal, and it is a two-step process.  First, your historical usage data is analyzed against your current billing rate to determine what your energy costs will be over the next year.  There are a couple of assumptions built into that assessment, namely that both your usage and your billing rate will stay the same.  If you have been in your home for awhile, your usage last year is probably a pretty good predictor of your usage next year.  On the other hand, if you moved in rather recently, or made a major purchase like a new EV, that will skew your usage going forward.  Similarly, last year’s bills were predicated on the exact details of your billing rate structure in effect at that time – and those are subject to change without notice.  So look at what the proposal projects for your bill next year without solar, and see how that compares with last year.

The second part is the more important piece - assessing how  your bill will change now that you have added PV.  Here’s where things get complicated, and a tool like Energy Toolbase becomes essential.  The proposal should show a model of your past usage overlayed by the production of the PV system.

As you can see in the graph above (click for a larger version), the darker blue is the historical usage (we are looking at two days in July), the green is the modeled production from the proposed PV system, and the pale blue is the net energy demand.  At the peak on the right, the PV system is producing 5.22 kW at a time when the historical demand was 11.95, meaning that the net demand from the utility is 6.73 kw – and that is the basis for what the client will be billed.  You can also see that there are periods in the morning when the system is producing more power that the client historically used, resulting in power being exported out to the grid – for which the client is compensated due to net metering.

This is the analysis that must underlie your savings analysis – anything else is simply guess work.

Cash flow analysis – payback over time

Part of any cash flow analysis is the cost of the transaction.  If you are making a cash purchase you know exactly what your transaction costs will be.  But if you are financing through the solar company, or heavens forbid leasing, those transaction costs may well be obscured, it not hidden altogether.  Make certain that you have all the information you need to determine exactly what that deal is going to cost you.

For the sake of discussion, we will assume that this is a cash purchase.  What other assumptions go into a proper cash flow analysis? To start, how long is the period of the analysis?  Ten years?  Twenty years?  Thirty years?  Beware of an analysis that simply says how much money you will have saved in the end, without calling out the period in question!  In our view, ten years is too short, and 30 years is too long.  But whatever the number is, make sure you are aware of it as you compare “total savings!”

Another key assumption is how much will utility rates go up over the lifetime of the analysis?  It used to be common to see rate escalators of 6-7% per annum, but there was no real data-driven basis for that number.  (In fact, long ago we used 6.7% based on a website that claimed that the California Energy Commission had published that figure.  But when we went digging for the source, we discovered it didn’t exist - there was just this circular linking of sites each claiming to have gotten this from the CEC!) 

Over time we have consistently reduced the value that we use for our models, so that now we are using 3%, which we think is reasonably conservative.  But this is really a matter of just throwing darts at a board, and no one really knows what that number will be. Keep in mind that for comparison purposes, you should be able to see what value was used, and the higher the number, the rosier the prediction!

PV systems degrade over time, and that output diminishment should be accounted for in the analysis.  Modern solar panels degrade less than 1% per annum (the LG panels that we use are around 0.5%), but in any event, make sure that is incorporated in the model.

Finally, the value of money in your hand today is, generally, worth more than money you will have at some point in the future.  How much more valuable is a function of the discount rate applied to those future savings.  If the model ignores that, your future savings are likely artificially high.  Again, no one knows what the right number is, but a proper model will account for it and allow you to know what you are comparing.

What’s in the Contract?

Strictly speaking not a part of the proposal, it is not a bad idea to ask to look at the contract before you pick a contractor.  Many solar contracts are very long, written in tiny fonts, with lots of legalese – all designed to make you throw up your hands and simply ask, where do I sign?  But slow down, friend, the devil may be lurking in those details!  Indeed, we have had clients who were ready to sign with another company until they looked at what was in the contract!

Ideally the contract should be written in plain English, it should clearly set forth what will happen, when, and how, and it should be even-handed.

An Important Caveat

Finally, it is important to call out what even the most carefully considered proposal cannot address - future uncertainty; in particular, what will utilities try to do, and what will the CPUC let them do!

Things outside of our control - CPUC & Utilities

If you follow this blog you will know that the solar industry is under constant assault from efforts by utilities – particularly the investor-owned utilities like SCE – to reduce if not altogether eliminate the economic value of adding solar.  Whether it is by lobbying for changes to the net metering rules (which just this past year imposed additional fees, charges, and mandated time-of-use rates), or designing utility rates that make solar production less valuable, there is a constant struggle behind the scenes to undermine the solar investment of thousands of California homeowners.  (And this is not at all limited to California – attacks on net metering and efforts to impose pernicious rate structures are a nationwide phenomenon.)

Things we can control - SolarCitiSuns & CALSSA

Fortunately there are a couple of entities out there that are working hard to preserve the value of going solar.  If you are a California homeowner with a solar power system, there is an organization specifically for you.  California SolarCitiSuns is perhaps a corny name, but its mission is crucial: to organize the political power of California’s thousands of citizens with solar on their homes or businesses, or anyone who wants to be part of advocating for a clean, renewable future.  If you have solar on your home or business, click here to join!   The investment that you are protecting is yours!

 And finally, solar companies, are you a member of the California Solar & Storage Association?  We are, and you should be.  Click here to join CALSSA today! 

Beyond that, rank and file solar workers – installers, designers, finance people, anyone whose livelihood depends on the solar industry – there is an action group that you can join, even if your company is not a CALSSA member!  Joining means that you will get alerts when a crucial vote is upcoming in Sacramento or San Francisco, and give you the opportunity to reach out and show your support for the industry that provides your livelihood.  It’s easy and important. Every solar worker in California – click on this link to join the CALSSA Action Network – the job you save will be your own!

So there you have it - everything you need to know about going solar – look forward to hearing from you soon!