Honest Solar

Here were my notes:

Problem

Where putting solar panels on your house makes sense - the financing options and technical details prevent people from installing them

​Background

We increasingly hear that we need green energy and that green energy is the future. Upfront I will say - no energy production is truly green, and solar in particular is pretty filthy.
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At scale (like a solar farm) several problems occur:

• panels need cleaning & maintenance
• the system is designed in a way that increases fire risk
• the system is weather dependent so base load requirements become messy
• The system need a higher ROI due to land use/costs
• panels last half their lifetime and there is no way to recycle them
• further to above - panels themselves are full of toxic materials - we can’t just landfill them

​The Future

What you should and we do know is that the status quo cannot has a finite life. We need to do 4 things simultaneously:

1. Reduce and ultimately stop using coal to produce energy
   • it’s finite
   • it’s filthy
   • yes it powers everything and is truly amazing but it has a finite life
2. At least double energy production
   • you want to electrify everything - yeah we need more energy
3. Make energy much cheaper
   • Cheap abundant energy is what powers societal evolution and innovation
   • Cheap abundant energy is a critical component to social mobility
   • Cheap abundant energy will give us the resources to tackle the major challenges facing humans
4. Decentralize
   • The past 3 years should have shown us very clearly that we need to decentralize energy, food, manufacturing and much more

​Personal Problem Story

Energy prices are going up. The summer in Colorado brings 2 things - peak energy pricing 3x that of the off peak and hot hot days. We need to run the AC a lot.

This has lead me to look into putting solar panels on my house several times.

Every time I engage my neighbors they say they:

• they looked
• it is too expensive
• it won’t pay back fast enough
• it won’t add the equivalent value to the house
• solar companies are crooks

But here’s the truth - no 2 neighbors are equal. Our roofs are shaped differently, angled differently and face different directions.

My house/roof:

• faces south
• angles at 20 degrees
• has a flat plane
• has zero obstructions (trees or other houses)
• receives an average of 8.5 hours of sunlight a day
• is 3 years old

This means my house is prime real estate for solar energy. 1 in 6 houses in my neighborhood share these characteristics. Across the South West states - +100,000 homes are like mine.

Lots of research and calculation (including losses)leads me conclude that with a 6.98kW system on my roof will create 11,785 kWh of energy annually (ignoring 1% yoy degradation of panels).
With peak/off-peak pricing this comes out as $1,670 of energy a year.

Okay so how much does a system cost - most systems are installed by companies that add 100% to the cost. There are newer companies that are much cheaper - so if I use them this system will cost $11,819 (with incentives).

This investment thus has a 14% return.

It actually has a higher return when you factor in income taxes from a comparable investment.

$1670 / ( 100% - 35%) = $2570
$2570 / $11819 = 21%

(N.B. We can get these costs even lower)

Fundamentally putting solar on my house is a no brainer. It has a high ROI and will achieve all 4 of the 4 future things we need to do.

​So what are my options?

To get this system I can:

• Buy it in cash
• Lease it
  • solar lessors will not use the newer cheaper companies so terrible ROI
• Take out a home equity line of credit
  • dings my credit score
  • have to deal with a bank
  • my mortgage provider actually only does HELOCs in California so no
• Get a personal loan
  • +8% interest rate
  • dings credit score
• Get a solar loan from a solar Co-op
  • dings credit score
  • rate is variable
  • no guarantee of loan availability

​Let’s take a step back

As normie user - to have gotten this far I have had to:

• invest several hours researching
• understand the nuances of solar systems
• look into financing options
• run capital financing calculations

All I want to do is try and hit the 4 future tasks and maybe lower my costs. It should be much simpler than this.

Others Problems

So far this is mostly personal problems and insight. I got out of the building and asked both my neighborhood & some FIRE (early retirement communities):

If you have a south facing roof with no tree cover - what is stopping you from going solar?

I got hundreds of responses
Here are some highlights:

• Cost, primarily.
• price point and benefit wasn’t worth it
• We paid WAY more with solar than we did without
• quoted $80k for system
• Cost, it would actually be paying more to have solar with our current energy use
• Roof space
• Unfortunately I wasted my money on solar because of a smooth sales pitch from Blue Raven. Now I just spend an extra $85 a month and I see no return on savings from excel
• Aesthetics
• High pressure sales tactics
• We’ve had solar for 9 years. The numbers don’t work so we’re at least feeling like it’s a good thing to do.
• Because you need either $50k upfront or you lease it and if you lease it you pay more than not having it
• Literally just the door-to-door sales people.
• The panels that sit atop the roof and have a gap ofter attract small nesting birds.
• Heard of leaks. How much can a leak be worth?

​The major themes are:

• Bad sales people
• Cost

​Honest, a simple transparent solution

Enter stage left - a current thinking on my solution

What if there were a company - Honest, that came, installed a system on your house and sold you all of the energy at your normal price. They own the panels, the liability, the system and the permits and you get resilient, clean energy.

If you want to sell your house they will either come take the system away or you can get the new owners to agree to take on the Honest deal (you get $100 to say thanks).

The only terms are - if you move within a year you pay a penalty, and if the panels are stolen you pay half the cost.
​
Future option - If you love the system so much we can sell it to you and you can finance it out of your energy costs.

​Nuances

There are a series of nuances to this problem and solution not covered here that people have raised as objections so I will list them here:

• This is mental no home owner will accept this
  I would and 4 out of 4 neighbors with the same roof have agreed to it also
  
  
  
  
• You’ll be competing with the utility
  Actually I won’t - what I will be creating is a decentralized community solar garden. The energy company loves this as they can do nothing and claim they are increasing green energy production
  
  
  
  
• Are there energy credits?
  There sure are - systems above 20kW in Colorado pay massive energy credits so more revenue not factored in to the equation
  
  
  
  
• Scale Costs
  At scale the cost of installation drops dramatically as does the cost of the panels (wholesale). As most roofs are going to standard there is cost saving in standardization.
  At scale we can also use used panels rather than new ones (much cheaper)
  
  
  
  
• Where will this work
  I think this will only work in CO, CA, TX, UT, NV, AZ
  
  
  
  
• 14-20% returns are nice for people but not capital investors
  So glad you asked - I agree. 14% to me is great, to a VC not so much.
  So part 2 of the plan becomes a search for greater amounts of capital - well we can actually let neighbors invest in the garden pool with a guaranteed return of up to 10% (likely). A retail investor does good and gets a great return.
  
  
  
  
• Your solution doesn’t fix the toxic or recycling issue?
  yes and no - if it is on your house you can actually have the panels there and use them until they no longer produce electricity as it is no cost to you. They will not need dealing with for +60 years.
  
  
  
  
• Why “Honest”?
  It’s a working title but here’s a few things I am thinking about the name and brand
  It needs to be simple, transparent, honest, freeing and not about the sun or solar - that market is so saturated.