Solar City Wait before buying. You won't make anything first or second year. 20 Year Slave Contract! Nationwide
The solar industri is working full gear to sell you their no money down, only a small fixed 20-year monthly fee, solar system. These systems will deliver a roof-top solar panel system connected to your Electric Utility Company and everything will work as advertized. In some cases all you would have to sacrifice would be your beautiful old trees....
1. The 20 year contract they make you sign is a slave contract with no well determind, well documented, way to get out of it. They present a very complicated contract requireing 8 signatures! You would think that one signature would suffice. So, what's going on here....
2. The incentive for me to buy this contract was that I would save $103 dollars on my electric bill the first year. This is not enough of an economic incentive for me to have to handle all their system installers and all of their required administration. Nor is it a big enough economic incentive for me to take the risks I would be taking concerning possible future changes in the electric energy market.
3. The pricing in California today is twice that of what it is in Germany. If you wait a year or two the prices are likely to go down substantially, and you cost for waiting is miniscule.
4. This industry is still in rthe "early adopter stage" which guarantees that the prices will go down substantially when this industry matures. You don't want to lock yourself into paying $350 every month for 20 years, when it is very likely that you will pay maybe $200 in a couple of years. Especially since there is "no way" to break the contract if something better comes along.
5. If your electric utility (which supplies your electricity at night when the sun is turned off) decides to change their charging plan to include for example a $40 fixed fee per month, and then in turn reduce the kWh rate, you are up the creek. In 5 years yI would have been out at least $1,500 and in ten years I would have been out $2,000. Not a pretty picture.
6. I have nothing against the industry, but currently the industry is not mature, and it seem to be populated by the usual entrepeneurial feeders who want to quickly maximize their profits. In a mature business model the owners will share some of the profits of the enterprice with the customers; this is not the case in this industry today. Example: I would only gain $103 the first year, hardly enough to compensate me for the 20 year risk I am taking.
7. I have to give them that they are extremely professional; they employ a pressure cooker sales mentatlity; they have excellent legal procedures, although overly complex and scary; and I'm sure their financial people are geniouses. Do they leave any money on the table? No. Is there any appearant compassion for the customer? No.
respectully
hm...