Solar Panel Installation | Solar Panels, Battery Storage, Roofing, HVAC
Have you noticed solar panels dotting a lot of the roofs in your neighborhood? If you want in on solar energy, you likely have some questions before you take out your checkbook. As you research solar panels in California, you’ll notice that you have dozens of brands to choose from. And each solar panel brand comes with a different price tag. You want to get the best solar panels for your money, so how do you compare the cost of solar panels in California? It can be confusing to accurately compare pricing on solar panels and to figure out what you’re really getting for your money. This is especially true if you receive wildly different quotes from different solar panel installation companies. Here’s everything you need to know to compare the cost of solar panels in California. Comparing the Details Before you can even start comparing solar panel pricing, you need to make sure everyone’s playing on the same field. First, make sure each quote you receive from a solar installation company gives you the same payment option. If one company quotes you a price to purchase the solar panels outright while another quotes you for leasing the panels, the price tag is going to be very different! Next, double check that each installation company quotes you on the same solar power system size. The size of your solar system is a measure of how much energy the system will produce, and how many solar panels you need. If solar Company A quotes you for a 5kW system (kilowatts per hour) while Company B quotes you for a 7kW system, then Company B’s quote is going to be a lot higher. (Not sure what size solar power system you need? No problem! This article will help you figure out how many solar panels you need for your home.) Comparing Cost Per Watt As you start looking at the price tag of individual solar panel brands, you’ll notice they can vary by quite a bit. As with most industries, within the solar world you have your top-tier brands of solar panels as well as workhorse models that will save you on costs upfront but may not offer the same level of efficiency or lifespan as the premium models. The best way to directly compare costs between different brands of panels is to find the average cost per watt of each panel. This will give you a direct head-to-head comparison of what you’ll be paying for each watt of electricity your system produces. For example, our best-selling solar panel brand at Semper Solaris is SolarWorld. With SolarWorld, you can expect an average cost of $5.62 per watt before tax credits are calculated into the equation. Comparing Warranties If you were in the market for a new car, you probably wouldn’t just pick the cheapest option on the lot. Instead, you’d look for a car with all the features you want. The same logic holds true for solar panels. Cost is part of the equation, but there are other factors to consider; one of the most important is the type of warranty offered. Most solar panel manufacturers provide some form of warranty on their panels, which guarantees that the panels will meet certain levels of efficiency for a certain amount of time. The length of the warranty varies from brand to brand. A warranty gives you peace of mind in your solar panel investment and also demonstrates the quality and pride a manufacturer has in their product. Panels with longer warranties tend to be more expensive, but you’re also getting a premium product. Comparing Reputations of Solar Brands A low-quality solar panel that will quickly lose efficiency or break down isn’t worth your investment, but how do you know which solar panels are the Cadillacs and which are the lemons? A great starting place is your solar panel installation specialist. As you search or solar installation companies, ask the representatives which solar panels they recommend. Each solar panel installation specialist will have their own favorite brands, but they can also give you inside information on many different brands on the market. Another great resource are homeowners who have already purchased the solar panels you are considering. Check out SolarReviews for feedback from real-life homeowners. These reviews and the advice of your solar installation specialist can help you understand the true value of different solar panel brands. Comparing Installation Cost The cost of your solar panels is only part of the price that come with installing panels on your California home. You’ll also need to pay for the installation and accessory parts. Don’t overlook these costs during your price comparison! It’s also wise to do your homework on the installation company. As with the solar panels, when it comes to solar installation companies, cheaper usually isn’t better! Semper Solaris, for example, is the only company to ever win the National Dealer of the Year Award two years in a row. Finally, make sure to ask each installation company about the rebates and incentives they offer. Here at Semper Solaris, we are excited to extend to our customers $500 off our installation services. We also provide additional discounts to veterans and first responders, and provide a variety of zero-down financing options. We even offer additional discounts if you discover that you need a new roof and use us to install it. Be a Savvy Solar Panel Customer Solar panels are a big investment, so do your homework before you make your purchase. As a savvy solar panel customer, make sure you are comparing apples to apples when it comes to financing and the size of your solar panel system. Look at the average cost per watt to get a true price comparison between different solar panel brands, but don’t decide on price alone! If you wouldn’t buy the cheapest car in the lot, don’t automatically buy the cheapest solar panel. Instead, look at additional factors to get a true sense of each brand’s value, including its warranty and its reputation. Still not sure which solar panels are the right pick for your energy needs and budget? If you live in California, sign up for a free energy analysis. We’d love to tell you about which solar panel brands we recommend to our clients and use on our own homes!
If you’re thinking about adding solar power to your San Diego home, you have a lot of choices when it comes to hiring local solar panel installation companies. So, what makes Semper Solaris different from the rest? First and foremost, we’re committed to offering our customers unparalleled service and the highest quality solar panels on the market. However, what really gets to the heart of our company is our passion for the San Diego community, our support of local veterans, and our commitment to help San Diego County and California retain its role as a renewable energy and environmental leader in our country. Veterans Hiring Veterans San Diego is a military town, and it isn’t just because we are home to top military bases, including Camp Pendleton, the Marine Corps Air Station at Miramar, and the naval bases in Coronado, Point Loma, and San Diego (homeport of the Pacific Fleet). Even after completing their service, many veterans make San Diego their long-term home. According to the U.S. Census, approximately 230,000 veterans live, play and raise their families in San Diego County. That’s the third-highest number of veterans by county in the entire country! Of course, you don’t need to rely on these numbers. You’ll see veterans everywhere: at the grocery store, jogging down the street, and moving in next door. These men and women have a special bearing, a sense of duty, and a fierce patriotism that never fades, even after they leave the service. At Semper Solaris, we love that so many veterans live in our city. We are a veteran-owned business and are committed to hiring veterans. Our co-founder Kelly Shawhan proudly served as a Captain in the U.S. Marine Corps, and knows that it can be challenging for veterans to transition into civilian life. That’s why we make a special effort hire veterans. We are proud of our workforce, which includes veterans from nearly every branch of the service. (Check out this video introducing some of the veterans on our team.) Military veterans are the backbone of San Diego, a city we love. That’s why we are especially proud to make our city a little cleaner and a little more energy-independent by offering solar power in San Diego. We’d like to think our efforts help San Diego pursue its renewable energy and environmental goals. San Diego Stays Classy and Clean California gets a lot of attention for its progressive (in fact, some might call it controversial) environmental initiatives, but we’re a big state, and each local city and county has a lot of control over their own environmental policies. San Diego may not make the headlines as often as our state, but our leaders are committed to lowering our environmental footprint and keeping our diverse county clean and beautiful for its residents. Solar energy in San Diego is a big part of these efforts. Here are just a few environmental initiatives, programs, and benefits that San Diego residents should know about. The Climate Action Plan (CAP) Perhaps the most ambitious local initiative in San Diego is the city’s Climate Action Plan (CAP), which calls for cutting all greenhouse gas emissions in the city in half by 2035. There’s one more little thing that makes the plan stand out: the city also wants to generate all of its electricity from renewable sources by 2035. This is a big goal, but as more and more businesses and homes adopt solar power in San Diego, it seems possible that we can achieve it. The CAP program is made of up of many different initiatives to try to achieve this goal, including: Expanding its Green Business Program Supporting residential and commercial environmental upgrades Assisting low-income households with weatherization and energy-efficient upgrades Retrofitting 13,000 to 15,000 streetlights with adaptive “smart” lights Public Transportation The city of San Diego isn’t the only one getting into the lower-carbon-footprint game. Throughout San Diego County, you can see efforts to encourage people to drive less. You can’t miss the iconic blue and green Sprinter Trains getting students to college and residents to work. You’ll also notice Breeze buses picking up and dropping off residents all across the county. As you get closer to the city, you’ll pass city dwellers cruising by on Discover, Lime and Byrd rideshare bikes and hear the Trolley arriving into town. Want to see where these options can take you? Here’s a convenient list of San Diego’s primary public transportation options. HOV and Bike Lanes Even if you have to jump into a car to get to your destination, San Diego County rewards you for carpooling when you can. Most of our major highways include High-Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes that let you zip past traffic if you’re carrying passengers. Have an electric vehicle? You may be able to get a special pass to use the HOV lanes to your heart’s content. When you can, San Diego makes it safe and easy to switch from four wheels to two. You’ll find dedicated bike lanes throughout the city and the county on most major roadways. No wonder our city is considered a cycling destination! Solar Energy in San Diego Solar power in San Diego will play a big role in meeting CAP’s goal of producing 100% of electricity through renewable resources by 2035. Though this goal may seem “pie-in-the-sky,” it may be closer to reality than you think. A report by the Solar Energy Industries Association found that in 2016, solar “added more generating capacity than any other source of energy for the first time ever.” To us, that sounds like we’re moving in the right direction! In many ways, San Diego is following California’s lead in pushing for big changes to lower our state’s carbon footprint and combat climate change. California Leads the Way California gets a lot of attention for its environmental policies, which are often some of the most progressive and ambitious in the nation. The state is also credited with leading the way for other states to adopt similar policies. But this wasn’t always the case. In the 1940s, California was famous for something else – the thick blankets of smog that choked its cities. In response, California got to work. It became the only state to receive a waiver from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set its own emission standards. Our state hasn’t looked back since. Here’s a short timeline of our biggest environmental achievements: 2002 – California becomes the first state to approve new standards for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from cars, including the requirement for most cars to use catalytic converters. 2006 – California passes AB 32, The California Global Warming Solutions Act, which is hailed as a watershed moment in the state’s history. The bill requires the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. 2013 – California institutes a cap-and-trade program to reduce carbon levels. After early stumbles and legal challenges, the program auctioned off 64 million carbon credits in 2017 in partnership with Quebec, which raised billions of dollars for energy programs and the state’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. 2015 – Governor Jerry Brown signs SB 350 into law, which requires that California receive half its electricity from renewable sources by 2030. 2017 – In response to the United States pulling out of the Paris climate accord, California, signs onto the United States Climate Alliance, along with over a dozen other states. The Alliance commits to reducing carbon dioxide to fulfill the U.S.’s original pledge. At Semper Solaris, we are proud to put veterans to work and to stand with San Diego to support policies that will ensure a cleaner city and a cleaner state. Interested in lowering your electricity bill and helping San Diego meet its Climate Action Plan goals? If you are ready to join the movement, learn how to get solar energy in San Diego by scheduling a free energy audit with Semper Solaris.
One of the most common questions we get from prospective clients is: How many solar panels will I need for my house? It’s a good question, because the number of solar panels you need will of course affect the price of your solar panel installation. The number of solar panels you need for your home will depend on how much energy you typically use, where you live, and the efficiency of your solar panels. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, in 2016 the average U.S. family used roughly 10,000 kWh (kilowatt hours) of electricity, which would require about 16-20 solar panels. That’s the average, but you’re not average, right? In this article, we’ll help you figure out how many solar panels you need to power your life here in sunshine-rich Southern California. Your Energy Usage The first step in determining the size of your solar installation is to figure out how much energy you use. The last thing you want is to invest in a solar power system that doesn’t produce enough energy or produces more than you need. This average household data we mentioned above provides a baseline, but it might not be relevant to you. A family of six in a 5,000-square-foot home in San Marcos with a heated pool and two electric vehicles is going to use a lot more energy than a couple living in a 2,000-square-foot home in Carlsbad who don’t drive electric cars or have a swimming pool. You can find your typical energy usage by looking up your energy bills for the past year. These should be available by logging into your electric company’s customer portal. Each bill should include your total energy usage in kilowatt hours for that month. Add up the amount for the past twelve months and then divide by 12. Viola! You’ll have your average monthly energy usage (typically between 850 and 1,000 kWh). Assuming you want your solar panel system to cover all of your electricity needs, you’ll need to install a system that can produce this amount each month. Where You Live Where you live also plays a role in how many solar panels you need for your home. Americans who live in states like Washington and Maine have to endure long winter nights and many overcast days of the year. Their solar panels get less sunlight, which means they have to put more panels on their roof to produce the same amount of electricity as someone living in a sun-rich state like California. Of course, just because the sun is in the sky doesn’t mean your solar panels are producing at max capacity. For example, sunrise and sunset won’t help your panels generate much solar energy, because when the sun sits at such a low angle, the atmosphere filters a lot of the light. Also, rates of sun can even vary from house to house depending on external features (like tall trees or a big hill behind your home) that affect how much sun you get. When calculating how much electricity your solar panels can produce, it’s more important to figure out how many peak sun hours your location receives on an average day rather than just the amount of time the sun is in the sky. Without getting too technical, you can think of a peak sun hour as an hour when your panels are receiving strong, direct sunlight. (If you do want to get technical, a peak sun hour is when the intensity of sun is 1,000 watts per square meter.) In the U.S., most areas receive an average of three to five peak sun hours per day. When you schedule your energy analysis with a solar installation company, an energy expert will help you determine the average daily usable hours of sunlight your home receives. Solar Panel Efficiency Not every solar panel is alike. Different brands offer different levels of efficiency. When we talk about efficiency, we mean how much electricity each panel can generate in an hour. Depending on which brand of solar panel you choose, you can expect an efficiency anywhere from 250 to 350 watts per hour. (Note – these numbers always refer to the amount of energy produced during peak sun hours.) That difference adds up. Let’s assume your home receives four hours of peak sun hours a day. A 250-watt panel will produce 1kWh per day (250 watts x 4 hours). That’s around 30 kWh per month in a 30-day month. A solar panel that produces 350 watts will give you 42 kWh in that same month. While higher efficiency solar panels tend to be a little more expensive than their less efficient counterparts, they can end up saving you money if you need to purchase fewer solar panels. They’ll also take up less room on your roof! At Semper Solaris, we are proud to use SunPower solar panels, one of the highest quality and most efficient solar panels on the market. Calculating How Many Solar Panels You Need for Your Home As mentioned above, our energy experts will help you determine how many solar panels you’ll need. If you’d like to estimate this beforehand to start your planning, here’s a quick example of how you can crunch the numbers: Say that you own an electric car and aren’t about to scrimp on using your air conditioning in the summer. Your average monthly electricity usage rate is a little higher than average at 1,000 kWh per month. During your energy audit, the solar representative mentions that your area receives a daily average of 4.5 peak sun hours. After discussing your options, you consider high-efficiency solar panels that can produce 300 watts per peak sun hour. Let’s do the math. 300 watts x 4.5 peak sun-hours = 1,350 watts One solar panel on your roof will produce an average of 1,350 watts or 1.35 kWh per day. 1.35 X 30 = 40.5 kWh per month (assuming a 30-day month). You need a solar panel system that produces 1,000 kWh per month. 1000 kWh / 40.5 kWh = 24.69 solar panels. Whew! That was a lot of math, but we got our answer. Your home would need roughly 25 solar panels in order to meet your existing energy needs. You’ll notice that this number is actually lower than the average mentioned at the beginning of this article. That’s because we get higher-than-average amount of peak sun hours here in San Diego, and because this scenario incorporates high-efficiency solar panels. No wonder Californians love solar panels! This article should help you get a general idea of the number of solar panels you need, but to get an accurate estimate, request a consultation with a knowledgeable and reliable solar panel installer in your area. If you live in California, take a look at our serviced locations and schedule a free energy audit with Semper Solaris.
With Tax Day looming, you may be scrambling to get your finances in order. And if you’ve already filed, you might be looking ahead to this year to make sure you’re set up for financial success. If you’ve had solar installation done, you could qualify for multiple tax breaks and rebates at the federal, state, and local level. Little did you know that while you’ve been saving costs on electricity bills and doing your part to reduce carbon emissions, you’ve also been doing your taxes some justice. As you file your taxes, there is light at the end of the tunnel, and that light is solar-powered. Here are three major ways solar installation may affect your taxes to your benefit. 1. Solar installation might qualify you for a federal tax credit. While the cost of your actual solar installation may have seemed like an expensive investment, just know that you’re saving money in the long-term. In order to help lessen the initial financial burden solar energy installation may cause, the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy offer tax credits for solar-powered systems. The solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC) incentivizes Americans to adopt solar energy, driving the growth of the solar industry. It applies to owners of residential and commercial properties that have had solar panel installation. If you’ve installed solar power systems within your home, you may qualify for a federal tax credit of up to 30% of the total cost. To put that in perspective, a solar power system that costs $25,000 may be eligible for a $7,500 federal tax credit. It’s important to note that this credit is not applicable to rental properties that are rented out. Although you may own it, you must live in the home to claim the credit. If you live in the rental home for a portion of the year, then you can still receive a prorated credit; that is, the percentage of the year you stay there is the percentage of the 30% tax credit you would receive. Additionally, keep in mind that the ITC will be gradually reduced in the next few years. 2. State and local rebates may also be available to solar power system owners. In addition to the federal tax incentives for solar panel installation, there are some state and local rebates and credits solar owners can take advantage of. Each state is different—you can check the Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency to see what potential tax breaks are available for renewable energy installments within your specific state or city. If you live in California, for example, you may have heard of the California Solar Initiative (CSI). The initiative offered cash incentives on solar systems, available to customers of Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric. While the program has expired, there may be local solar rebates you can take advantage of depending on where you live, such as those through the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. With the end of the CSI, Semper Solaris also offers our own rebates throughout the year to make up for the lost incentives for solar installation. To learn more, take a look at our Current Offers. 3. Residential energy property credits may be given for making overall energy-efficient home improvement. It’s smart to think outside the box — or outside the home — when it comes to what you could get a tax break on. Beyond an overall home solar energy system, any improvements you make to your home that make it more energy efficient can also qualify toward federal tax credit. This includes energy-efficient windows, doors, skylights, heating and air-conditioning systems, insulation, water heaters and roofs. Naturally, solar installation can indirectly cover many of these appliances and generate the power to run them in an energy-efficient manner. Installing alternative energy equipment can also count toward the residential energy efficiency property credit. A solar water heater and small wind turbines are examples of appliances that qualify. To note, there can be limits to these credits depending on the type of alternative energy improvement. Although some alternative energy upgrades may not call for solar power, many do. Your roof is one of them, as solar panel installation usually starts with upgrading the roofing of a house. It’s the main spot where the sun hits, so installing energy-efficient panels is a key way to save with both tax credits and on electricity. From federal tax credits to state-specific programs to local rebates, making your home more energy efficient and reducing your carbon footprint can be a profitable investment. Tax Day doesn’t have to be daunting when you know that you’re getting the most bang for your buck with your solar power system in place. If you haven’t yet benefited from solar panel installation, learn more about the advantages of solar installation and get your free solar quote today!
