Not all solar panels are created equal. EnergySage uses a classification system for solar panels based on performance, quality, durability and warranty to help solar shoppers compare the quality of all of their options. A solar panel’s efficiency (how effective a panel is at converting sunlight into electricity) is a key factor determining solar panel quality, and manufacturers are constantly improving their processes to create higher-efficiency solar panels.
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The U.S has witnessed remarkable solar growth over the past decade with California leading the way. The Golden State is the behemoth of the U.S solar market boasting 19,000 megawatts of installed solar to date, which is almost as much as the other top ten solar producing states combined. San Jose, like much of California, has consistent and strong sunlight totals and in this article we’ll explain why San Jose, California is a great spot for solar power and how San Jose homeowners can maximize their solar savings.
As of mid-2017, the average price for solar panels in San Jose was $3.61 per watt. Thus, since the typical system size in the U.S. is 5 kilowatts (5,000 watts), the average cost of a solar panel system in San Jose is $18,050 before any rebates or incentives.
Though this price may already look attractive, it’s missing a major incentive that bolsters the economics of solar in the U.S.: the federal tax credit for solar energy systems. The solar ITC signifies a huge price reduction thanks to a hefty 30 percent rebate offered to both residential and commercial markets. Check out this data table that shows the cost of solar at different system sizes with the ITC factored in:
| System size | San jose Average solar system cost (after ITC) |
|---|---|
| 3 kW | $7,623 |
| 5 kW | $12,530 |
| 7 kW | $17,640 |
| 10 kW | $24,290 |
| 12 kW | $29.400 |
The above table shows the discounted price for a solar panel system in San Jose after the solar ITC is included. The data draws from real quotes submitted to homeowners on the EnergySage Solar Marketplace over the past year. Keeping in mind the typical system size for a U.S. homeowner is 5 kilowatts (5,000 watts), a solar panel system will cost just under $13,000 in 2017.
Net metering has faced recent legislative battles in California but remains one of the biggest incentives for going solar in the state. Every California solar homeowner is eligible to receive bill credits for their excess solar generation at retail price from his or her utility.
Other incentives in California include the California Solar Initiative which is a cash rebate available to customers of either Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), Southern California Edison (SCE) or San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E). This program is for low-income homeowners who receive cash back for installing solar panels on their homes. The rebate amounts can be as high as $10,000.
Some local utilities also offer homeowners rebates that can pay anywhere from $0.20 to $1.25 per watt of installed solar capacity. For example, Silicon Valley Power offers a cash rebate for every watt of solar power installed up to 10 kilowatts, and Los Angeles Department of Water and Power offers a rebate of $0.30/W of installed solar power.
Though San Jose residents will see solar prices in the country continue to decline over the next five years, low prices aren’t necessarily the biggest selling point. When it comes to going solar, the long term ROI and savings from avoided bill payments is often the biggest deciding factor – and the figures can be staggering even in states where utility rates are reasonable.
In 2017, solar quotes received by San Jose homeowners yielded 20-year savings estimates of over $62,241 on average. Checkout the breakdown of average net savings by solar system size:
| System size | Average solar savings over 20 years |
|---|---|
| 3 kW | $30,370 |
| 5 kW | $51,219 |
| 7 kW | $77,029 |
| 10 kW | $107,678 |
| 12 kW | $131,675 |
As with any big ticket purchase, shopping for a solar panel installation takes a lot of research and consideration, including a thorough review of the companies in your area. A recent report by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) recommended that consumers compare as many solar options as possible to avoid paying inflated prices offered by the large installers in the solar industry.
To find the smaller contractors that typically offer lower prices, you’ll need to use an installer network like EnergySage. You can receive free quotes from vetted installers local to you when you register your property on our Solar Marketplace – homeowners who get 3 or more quotes can save thousands on their solar panel installation.
The bigger isn’t always better mantra is one of the main reasons we strongly encourage homeowners to consider all of their solar options, not just the brands large enough to pay for the most advertising. A recent report by the U.S. government found that large installers are $2,000 to $5,000 more expensive than small solar companies. If you have offers from some of the big installers in solar, make sure you compare those bids with quotes from local installers to ensure you don’t overpay for solar.
National-scale installers don’t just offer higher prices – they also tend to have fewer solar equipment options, which can have a significant impact on your system’s electricity production. By collecting a diverse array of solar bids, you can compare costs and savings based on the different equipment packages available to you.
There are multiple variables to consider when seeking out the best solar panels on the market. While certain panels will have higher efficiency ratings than others, investing in top-of-the-line solar equipment doesn’t always result in higher savings. The only way to find the “sweet spot” for your property is to evaluate quotes with varying equipment and financing offers.
For any San Jose homeowner in the early stage of shopping for solar that would just like a ballpark estimate for an installation, try our Solar Calculator that offers up front cost and long term savings estimates based on your location and roof type. For those looking to get quotes from local contractors today, check out our quote comparison platform.
This week, EnergySage released its fifth Solar Marketplace Intel Report™. In this report, you’ll find trends on solar pricing over the past 12 months, as well as equipment and financing options for solar. In addition, this report includes new information about community solar and the level of solar interest in states across the country. Read on for some of the top takeaways relevant to today’s solar shoppers.
Continue readingReducing your carbon footprint and simultaneously saving money is easier than ever with the growth of energy-saving technologies. From LED light bulbs to devices that monitor your appliances to solar panel systems, there are many opportunities to put smart technologies to work saving you energy around your home and lowering your environmental impact each day.
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An unfinished nuclear project switches to solar, Utah reaches a new net energy metering agreement in Utah, and researchers set a new record for PV cell efficiency in this week’s Solar News Roundup.
Designing a “storage-ready” solar panel system is the first step to ensuring that you’re set up for success when you decide to move forward with a solar battery for your home or business. EnergySage spoke with Chip Means, Director of Marketing at Pika Energy, for his perspective on storage-ready solar.
We see the value of storage-ready solar as being the difference between buying what you need today versus ensuring stability and flexibility for what you might need tomorrow. Your load profile for your home will change as you add devices such as air source heat pumps and EV charging, and along with those changes, grid-provided energy is likely to change in cost as well. We see increasing cases for solar-connected storage where Time of Use billing is taking effect, or where net metering benefits are on a declining schedule. In addition to offering a backup power resource, storage-ready solar ensures a residential customer has a clean, simple path to upgrading their system with a smart battery should the need arise.
Anyone who wants clean backup power or is working with scenarios like Time of Use billing or residential storage incentives is a great candidate for adding a battery today. Furthermore, adding a battery appeals to residential customers who want to self-consume more of their solar-generated power directly. Having a battery “behind the meter” reduces transacting with the fossil utility grid, maximizing the homeowner’s direct use of clean power.
Commercial entities that are billed for peaking demand periods are also looking at adding batteries with solar to shave peaks are among the present buyers for solar-plus-storage.
Take a long look at the differences in power capacity you get from the batteries that are available to you. The amount of available power when the system is islanding (performing without a grid connection) is a major factor in the buyer’s satisfaction with the system’s performance; it can be the difference between whether or not you have a well pump running when the grid fails.
Also ensure you get a system that offers scalability — as your home’s electrical loads change over time and the price of lithium ion batteries continues to fall, you may find yourself wanting to upgrade your energy storage capacity down the line.
The Pika Energy Island is designed with three key principles in mind:
We made the Energy Island simple to install by eliminating the autotransformer that other systems require for islanding performance and by building the automatic transfer switching into the inverter, so it seamlessly disconnects from the grid and powers the home’s protected loads instantaneously and automatically.
We made the system flexible and scalable by building a DC combiner box into the inverter itself, so you can connect any combination of solar and batteries on the combiner (e.g. with a single Pika Islanding Inverter, you can use 10kW of solar and up to 30kWh of batteries, or 7.5kW of solar and 45kWh of batteries, etc.)
We delivery more power than other options on the market because the Energy Island system is transformerless and can surge at up to 10kW of AC power. We deliver higher efficiency because the Harbor Smart Battery™, which we co-developed with Panasonic Eco Solutions, is DC-coupled to the Energy Island system for exceptionally high conversion efficiency, whereas other systems on the market are often AC-coupled, meaning they require two inverters and incur more efficiency losses.
We offer three compatible battery options as of August 2017.
The Harbor Smart Battery™ is available in two sizes, 10kWh and 15kWh of usable energy. The third option is Coral™, our deep-cycle backup battery solution using conventional AGM batteries. These options are all UL-listed and available to order, and all are directly DC-coupled to the Energy Island system.
Designing a “storage-ready” solar panel system is the first step to ensuring that you’re set up for success when you decide to move forward with a solar battery for your home or business. EnergySage spoke with Timothy Stocker, Product Manager, Energy Storage at SMA America for his perspective on storage-ready solar.
The value proposition for an on-grid storage-ready solution for residential customers is that it gives the end customer the option to add storage at the time of PV installation or at a later date with minimal effort. The customer may not have the resources to install storage at the time, or may not be in a utility service territory where it would make sense to add storage, so a storage-ready solution offers great flexibility. For backup-based applications, it makes sense to install storage at the time of the solar project due to the complexity of such installation.
People in high energy usage areas like Hawaii and Arizona should consider installing a storage-ready solar option now, as well as people who live in areas where utility policies are in flux (such as Nevada, where the net metering debate is happening) – or anywhere where rate structures have shown some volatility. Anyone who lives in areas of inclement weather where hurricanes, superstorms and other unpredictable weather patterns are common should also consider this option.
For on-grid customers who cannot budget for a storage system at the time of installation or are in a utility territory where storage doesn’t make sense right away, a storage ready system can help alleviate some burdens. This is really only the case with a DC-coupled architecture that requires you to add hardware that will not be used until the energy storage system (i.e. battery) is installed. Installing a storage-ready system in an AC-coupled architecture is quite simple and can be as easy as adding a breaker, or for more advanced installers, installing an “energy system ready” load panel, which includes a 60+ amp-rated feeder directly tied to the meter.
Consumers should keep in mind that in order to easily claim the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) for the storage portion of a system, it should be installed at the same time as the PV portion. If the storage system is installed later, claiming the ITC is more difficult. Other incentive programs can help with this problem, such as California’s Self Generation Incentive Program (SGIP), which helps fund the capital investment and has performance guarantees associated with it.
Power capacity vs. energy capacity – Customers should be familiar with power and energy requirements, and kilowatt (kW) vs. kilowatt hour (kWh). Customers and installers should be aware of the power requirements for a customer’s household load, depending on the application. Batteries are sized in kW and kWh, whereas inverters are just sized in kW or instantaneous power. It’s best to make sure the inverter is properly aligned with the battery in terms of power capacity to fully utilize the inverter’s power output. Shoppers should also ask how to increase their capacity in a system without having to add another inverter, even when they don’t need the extra power.
Backup needs – Customers should be aware of the product’s backup options. They should ask how it works, what other hardware is required, and what the load/power requirements are. Backup calculations can quickly get complicated because the calculation requires a load study to determine what the system characteristics should look like.
Future proofing – Customers should familiarize themselves with the brands that will be installed. How stable is the company/brand? How long have they been around? What will happen if they go bankrupt, and how will that affect the customer’s warranty? What does their service and support structure look like? This is extremely important with battery manufacturers, as we have seen many come and go, and this will continue to be the trend as the market grows. Another question to ask is, “What happens when I want to add more energy capacity (kWh)”? Choosing the right products and right technology will ultimately allow the customer to hit their ROI sooner and complete the shift from a consumer to a prosumer.
SMA’s new Sunny Boy Storage–US battery inverter, which will start delivery later this year, is an AC-coupled architecture inverter that allows for easy installation regardless of the PV system. This means you design and install it independently of a renewable energy system, which allows for the best flexibility and scalability. It features three independent DC inputs that can be attached to three different batteries from three different manufacturers with three different chemistries and three different voltage windows. This is incredibly unique, and allows for ultimate future proofing. As we saw with Tesla’s Powerwall 1, it’s hard to know how long a battery storage manufacturer will produce and support its products. Having multiple independent DC inputs allows customers to use the latest technology without having to worry about compatibility issues in the future.
The Sunny Boy Storage-US product line includes built-in energy management functions to best match different use cases, such as time-of use (ToU) or zero-export using a meter from our qualified energy meter supplier list.
SMA’s Backup Unit will allow for whole-home backup or a protected-loads panel, depending on the customers need.
Ultimately SMA’s inverter is battery agnostic, but the battery does need to fit within the voltage input window of the inverter (150 – 550 Vdc) and the battery needs to communicate with the inverter though the BMS interface. The Sunny Boy Storage-US inverter is compatible with many battery manufacturers including LG Chem and others as they come to market with their products. SMA specifically engineered the Sunny Boy Storage to offer the industry’s most versatile solution, simplifying the job of PV installers.
Designing a “storage-ready” solar panel system is the first step to ensuring that you’re set up for success when you decide to move forward with a solar battery for your home or business. EnergySage spoke with Matt Allan, Product Marketing Manager at Enphase for his perspective on storage-ready solar.
While ‘storage-ready’ solar products might be interesting, residential solar customers are encouraged to select home energy solutions that provide an integrated system. Such a system will combine solar energy production, consumption monitoring, and storage out of the box, even if storage is added later. As with many consumer electronics and devices, solar consumers should select home energy systems that are built for plug-and-play simplicity; adding storage to a solar system should be as simple and flexible as possible. So yes, ‘storage-ready’ is generally good, but ‘built for native integration’ is better.
The US market for solar + storage is varied and dynamic. Fifty states each have different utility districts (some have several), and each district has nuanced and different approaches to energy production and the integration of distributed energy resources.
In Hawaii, for example, the local utility has introduced a zero-export rate scheme, which makes solar + storage significantly more attractive for new solar systems. In many US states, utilities are adjusting the value of net metering for consumers. Solar consumers are well-advised by working with a solar professional to understand the mix of solar and storage that is right for them, given their economic goals and the status quo dictated by the local utility.
System sizing for rooftop solar is relatively simple. The main question involved is, how much energy does the homeowner want to produce? To optimize sizing for a system with solar generation and energy storage, especially where the homeowner will pay time-of-use rates for electricity, installers must address energy pricing variables. It’s not enough to simply match storage system size with the size of the rooftop solar system. From a system choice perspective, the following are important criteria:
The Enphase Storage System is built around a modular architecture, delivering smaller blocks of storage so our customers always get a competitive price of installation. Storage is truly a ‘one size fits none’ product category. Starting with 1.2 kilowatt-hours of capacity, you can take the first step to improve home energy management now and easily expand the system later as your family grows or you add an electric vehicle.
The Enphase Storage System is designed around smart about electricity usage. The system supports time-of-use utility pricing and energy self-consumption right out of the gate. It can also deliver added value through electricity rate arbitrage—storing up energy when rates are low and discharging when rates are high—and grid services that qualify for compensation, such as frequency regulation.
Safety was a primary consideration in the design of the Enphase Storage System. That’s why we selected battery cells that meet the highest global safety standards, cells that minimize risk of thermal runway and do not catch fire even if punctured by a needle, crushed, or overcharged. Like the Enphase Microinverter System, the storage system also does not expose consumers and their families to high-voltage DC power.
The Enphase Storage System is a fully integrated solution that can deliver faster installation, easier commissioning, and a more satisfying user experience. The Enphase Storage System follows a three-step installation process, one that enabled a NABCEP certified installer to complete a 4.8 kWh project in 1 hour and 40 minutes. There is no separate inverter purchase required, and the Enphase AC Batteries integrates seamlessly with the communications gateway, the Envoy, used for the PV system. The Enlighten platform provides extensive visibility and control so users can monitor performance and interact with a wide range of smart appliances, including those already on the market and those that have yet to arrive.
The Enphase Home Energy solution is natively (plug-and-play) compatible with Enphase AC Batteries. The Enphase AC Battery product is compatible with any PV system.
Solar plus storage is a rapidly advancing technology that makes it possible to both generate and store solar energy onsite for backup power. Solar batteries can also help homeowners and businesses maximize solar energy use onsite. The cost of installing a battery is high today, but prices are falling rapidly. As a result, many property owners are installing a solar panel system now and planning to add energy storage later on.
How can you ensure that you’re set up for success when you decide to move forward with a solar battery for your home or business? Designing a “storage-ready” solar panel system is the first step. EnergySage interviewed four solar inverter manufacturers to offer more insight into the concept of “storage-ready” solar. The highlights and key takeaways from each manufacturer are below, and links to each company’s full range of responses on storage-ready solar are at the bottom of this article.
Continue readingAside from the Solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC) provided by the federal government, which covers 30 percent of your solar project’s cost in the form of income tax credits, many states offer their own tax incentives to help you go solar. One popular incentive is a solar property tax exemption. Read on to learn how they work, and which states have these policies in place.
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