Comparison: Solar Panel Systems

Solar panels are a big part of the homeowners equation for many people. We recently put solar on our roof, and I thought I’d share our research with you to make it a little easier if you decide to jump in yourself.

First of all, just note that they’re usually only going to put panels on a south-facing roof. If your south-facing roof is completely shaded, it probably won’t work out. Also, the city of Austin will only grant permits for 110% of your estimated yearly usage, and no more. We went ahead and pursued that amount because we have a lot of energy needs with two electric cars, electic hvac system, charging my bionic body, etc. Unless you have a storage system, you give what power you produce back to the grid and Austin credits you over a year’s time. If we have extra electricity left over/more produced than we use, then maybe we can come up with some creative ways to use it like… mining bitcoin or running a 3D printer. 🙂 In any event, getting these solar panels seemed like a no brainer for us because the payments were a little better than the electric bills from the very beginning, and the savings only expound as years go by and electricty costs increase. What’s more, on top of state and national tax credits, the city of Austin GAVE us $3500 for installing them!

We priced a lot of different companies and never thought about pricing Tesla Solar (previously Solar City, also co-founded by Elon Musk). I had heard they were not cheap, and had assumed that a premium sounding product like Tesla that would indeed be expensive, so we didn’t even price them. Finally at the very end someone prompted us to do so, and to our surprise they blew everybody else out of the water… by a long shot!

A few common sense disclaimers: these are only the prices they gave me, at one snapshot in time. Times and places will change these numbers, although I assume the relative distance between each company will somewhat persist over time, at least in the short term. These numbers also do NOT include any government rebates or tax incentives.

Note that each company will give you SO much information to wade through, and its very hard to do an “apples to apples” comparison. What makes the most sense, in my opinion, is to calculate what price per watt you’ll be paying. They won’t tell you this usually, so you’ll likely have to make a spreadsheet like I did. Honestly though, if you’re buying any time time in the future not too long after this blog post, it’s probably safe to say that Tesla will beat everyone else on price. I think they’ll also beat everyone else on aesthetics as well. They put trim pieces on the edge of the panels that make it more smoothly blend into the roof. It really makes a big difference on how it looks, and I don’t know if anybody else is doing that. It’s also no extra charge.

Let me know if you have any questions and I’d be glad to share with you what I know or maybe help point you in the right direction.