Rooftop Solar Shines Light On Bad Business Practices

Solar Energy / Installation Technology

Date posted: 01/17/15

Dr. Conca reports that consumers, State Attorney Generals and members of Congress have raised concerns that rooftop solar-leasing companies are using deceptive marketing practices that overstate cost savings in order to get homeowners to buy their products. Despite the recent Google rejection of solar and wind as the saviors of the planet, solar rooftop arrays remain a great option for the consumer, especially in many areas that have both federal and state rebates and tax credits - in Washington. Since 2010 solar rooftop installations have increased six-fold in the United States, from 2,000 MW to over 13,000 MW as a result of about 500,000 individual systems. During this same time, costs have been cut in half. And recoup periods are as short as several years. Photovoltaic solar arrays distributed across rooftops and other structures are the best way to utilize this technology and will become ever more important in our energy future. The present regulatory, policy and financial environments have offset the large up-front costs of solar and should be exploited by consumers to get these systems installed as widely as possible across the nation. It is not surprising that Dr. Conca found the best companies did not lease solar systems, just sold them. This is best in the long-run. Removing solar rooftop arrays at the end of a lease defeats the long-term benefits of these systems. Moving these systems around, taking them on and off various rootops, disrupts any equilibrium that can be achieved in the grid and in net metering solutions. This will become important when rooftop solar captures a significant portion of our residential power needs, if that ever happens. Dr. Conca suggests that the industry will likely move completely towards loans and customer-owned systems. Traditional financing is more transparent and less likely to be abused.