Do I want to jump in again, Purple

Last night a good portion of my evening was spent with a representative from Soligo, a solar leasing company. I am very familiar with solar as I had a 48 panel ground mount system installed at my old house. With that install I purchased the system outright and basically exchanged my electric bill for a solar loan payment. It was basically a wash although I did like the idea of generating my power from the sun.

When I moved to the new house I had considered solar but my quick analysis determined that I did not have enough southern roof exposure and my electric consumption in the smaller place was less so it didn’t seem worthwhile. Well the way solar leasing works is a different model so I was willing to listen and run some numbers.

In this scenario you do not own the actual equipment, the solar company does. You do have the option to purchase it at a fair market value after 5 years but to be honest, I’m not really sure why you would want to do that. Since they own the equipment they pay for all of the installation and repairs over the life of the system. This arrangement also means there is no lien on your home, unlike a conventional purchase like I did before where I had to pay off the solar loan as part of settling on the house.

The company had already done an installation mock up which would include putting panels on the three sides of the roof which would work out to be just under a 10KW system. However there was a downside to this. In order for the panels to get enough sunlight it would mean significant trimming of the three large oak trees on the property which I am hesitant about. The trees are beautiful and I am worried what they would look like after major pruning, which is also included for free with the installation.

So what’s the catch? In a similar fashion you are exchanging one bill for another however there are some perks. The monthly charge to the solar company is a little less than my FPL bill is currently however that gap will increase over time. Why? Because utility companies can raise their rates significantly over time. For 2025 FPL has already gotten a 12% increase in rates approved. With Soligo the amount of yearly increase is hard capped at 2.99% so although the costs will go up, it will do so at a dramatically slower rate than FPL. So the more time that passes the more you are ahead. All good stuff, right?

So despite the sales guy doing a nice job of pitching his companies services when he asked me if I wanted to move forward I did not give him a green light. I told him I see the benefits and that I was already a fan of solar. I said the two things that did not excite me were the potential severe tree trimming and the fact that although the savings were nice, they weren’t significant enough to make me feel compelled to go through the process. So he asked me what would excite me.

I told him that if the system was coupled with something like a Tesla Powerwall that would be exciting. Adding battery storage would give me emergency power during an outage AND allow me to actually utilize my solar system during a prolonged power issue. With a conventional grid tie solar system if the grid goes down your solar system is dead as well as a safety precaution because of the potential unsafe back feed into the grid. If you have battery storage the panels just feed the battery instead, keeping the lights on without you having to rely on something like gas generators. I told the sales guy THAT would excite me because it would give me something that I don’t already have. Plus the battery system falls under the same maintenance as everything else, if it breaks they fix it/replace it on their dime.

So he ran numbers with the battery storage which of course bumped the total up, right about to the point where I would draw a line. I told him this solution was definitely more appealing but I still was not ready to commit at this point. He was supposed to email me some of the key information regarding the install last night but I have not seen it yet. I’m still up in the air if I want to jump back into solar again. There are definitely some advantages to doing so.

Last night I also finally finished up my first shiny purple EUCA stand. I had bought the purple for another project and felt like I may as well get some use out of the rest. I think it turned out well. The part that I printed vertically felt so good. It was clean and strong. I may try printing the part it connects with vertically as well to see what sort of result I get.

I felt very drained after the two hour sales pitch and slamming down some food. I went to bed early and fell asleep but had a very unsettled night, waking up a number of times. Instead of waking up refreshed I awoke wishing I could just stay in bed. As is often the case, an overly active mind is the cause.

Tonight we have our HOA annual meeting where everyone in the community is invited to attend. This will be my first one as a sitting HOA board member. I am expecting there to be decent attendance because the annual fee is proposed to go up significantly because of a number of increased expenses. Money will always get rear ends in seats.