Choosing a solar system for your home or business and receiving a cash rebate and tax credit can be a rewarding and relatively simple process. The key to success lies in choosing an established, reputable equipment supplier and installer who can assist you in the process.

IS MY SITE APPROPRIATE FOR SOLAR ?

The first step in the process is determining whether or not your site is appropriate for solar. You will need an area that is large enough to accommodate the selected solar array that faces South or slightly Southwest. This area must be un-shaded during the hours of 9 A.M. and 3 P.M.

Keep in mind that the Sun crosses the sky from East to West so pointing the solar array in a South direction allows you to capture sunlight as the Sun arcs across the sky.

Solar panels can be mounted on many different surfaces such as your home's roof, on the ground, on a patio cover or other structure and even on poles. The most critical considerations when choosing the installation locations are direction and tilt and of course shading.

HOW DO I SIZE MY SYSTEM ?

The next step in choosing an appropriate system for your home or business is sizing the system. The size of a solar electric system has very little to do with the size of your home or the dollar amount of your electric bill. The size of a solar system is determined almost entirely by how many kilowatt hours you consume on average per month. The easiest way to determine your average kilowatt hours hour usage is to call your utility company and simply ask the representative what your average monthly kilowatt hours hour usage was for last year. Once you have this information then it's a simple matter to choose a solar system that will eliminate what ever portion of your usage that you wish to eliminate.

For example if your average monthly kilowatt hours hour usage is 1,000 kilowatt hours or kWh and you would like to eliminate half of your usage then you would want to choose a solar system that produces 500 kilowatt hours per month.

Shopping Tip: When comparing solar systems always ask a dealer how many hours of sunshine that he has used to calculate his system's energy production. In Southern California the maximum peak Sun hours is about 5.5 to 6 hours. We use 5 hours to rate our systems. Beware of dealer that use more than 6 hours.= as this would inflate the actual energy production capabilities of most fixed mount solar arrays.

When examining our systems you will note a menu titled Quick Facts in red in the upper left hand corner of each system that we sell. Click on link number 4 to find out how much power each system will produce.

Once we have chosen an appropriately sized system for you, we will determine whether or not the system will fit in the area that you have available, how the panels should be most efficiently laid out and whether or not your site is oriented in the proper direction. Once these factors have been determined we will then provide your with a system quotation.

Shopping Tip: Most dealers prefer not to discuss pricing over the phone and instead insist on sending a salesperson to your home to discuss products and pricing. This is a common practice in many high dollar industries and especially true when dealers are Charging far more than their competitors for their products or services.

The truth is that determining the right solar system for your home is not rocket science and with the advent of satellite imagery, string sizing calculators, solar insolation maps, and just simple math, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever why a salesperson would need to come to your home.

Everything including a price quote can be discussed in a few minutes over the phone, all without the need for a high pressure salesperson. The only time someone would need to come to your home to perform an evaluation is after you have been provided with an acceptable price quote and you’ve made your decision to proceed.

HOW MUCH WILL MY SYSTEM COST TO INSTALL ?

Next we will send a licensed, bonded and insured installer (not a sales person) out to inspect your site and provide you with an installation quotation. Once you are satisfied with the quality, performance and price of the products that we are offering you and you are confident that you are being offered a competitive installation bid then contracts are signed, a 10% deposit is collected and we will begin processing your rebate paperwork.

 HOW DO I COLLECT MY REBATE CHECK ?

Once the utility company has approved your rebate reservation, we will then finalize the purchase of your product and the product is shipped to your site. The installer will arrive once the product has been delivered and will complete the installation of your system. The installation is paid for once the installer has completed the installation and the installation is inspected by the local municipality and the utility. The final rebate paperwork is submitted to the utility company and the rebate check is mailed to you.

 HOW DOES THE FEDERAL TAX CREDIT WORK ?

The Federal tax credit is a dollar for dollar credit against what you have paid or owe in Federal taxes for the year in which you installed your solar system. For example if you paid $4,000.00 in Federal taxes and 30% of your solar system's cost after rebates or other incentives is $3,200.00 then you would qualify for a $3,200.00 refund. If you owed  $3,200.00 in Federal taxes and your solar tax credit came to $3,200.00 then you would essentially owe nothing in Federal taxes. Note: Please see your tax preparer for details concerning the Federal tax credit.

HOW DOES A SOLAR SYSTEM WORK ?

As illustrated in the following video, solar panels produce DC (direct current) when exposed to sunlight. This DC power is fed to an inverter which changes direct current into AC (alternating current) which can be used by your home and the utility grid.

The AC power that the system produces is first consumed by your home's lights and appliances and any excess is fed to your service panel and onto the utility grid causing your electric meter to slow down or spin backwards. Any monthly excess production is credited toward your next month's electric bill. You are never disconnected from the electric grid so when the Sun goes down and you are not producing any power, you will simply take your power from the grid as you normally would. Your electric bill is reduced or eliminated because you don't pay for the power that you're producing with your solar system. In essence you become your own power company.

The beauty of a modern grid intertie solar system is that it does not require batteries or any other storage medium. In a sense the utility grid becomes your system's battery.

HOW LONG IS A SOLAR SYSTEM WARRANTED FOR AND HOW LONG CAN A SOLAR SYSTEM LAST ?

Most of While some brands only offer a 20 or less warranty. The solar panels that are used in our solar systems come with a 25 year factory limited warranty. The inverters in our systems come with a 10 year factory limited warranty. Solar panels have a typical life expectancy of around 40 to 50 years. There are no moving parts other than a cooling fan in some of our inverters and our systems are virtually maintenance free with exception of an occasional rinsing off the solar panels should dirt or bird dropping accumulate.

Shopping Tip: After more than a decade in the solar industry we've seen many solar panel manufacturers come and go, leaving consumers with failed products and no warrantees. There are plenty of inexperienced dealers out there that are selling non-name brand solar panels that have been manufactured by small overseas companies that are struggling due to the current economic crisis. Many of these companies will probably not survive the next few years.

You might save anywhere from 10 to 12 percent by buying cheap, non-name solar panels but when you consider that solar panels typically make up about 90 percent of a systems cost, if the manufacturer goes out of business then that 10 to 12 percent savings will mean absolutely nothing if you're left without a warranty. 

In our opinion no matter who you buy your system from, always stick with name brand, publicly traded, or U.S. Manufactured,  tier one solar panel manufacturers. If the dealer cannot provide you with, the solar panel manufacturer's stock symbol that you can look up on Yahoo Finance or one of the other financial sites or a U.S. address where the entire solar panel is made (not just the solar cells) then steer clear. Doing anything else in the current financial climate and you might just be throwing your money away.