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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

1. (Edit: In most cases) Never pay for premium PV panels. The 10-20% premium only nets you an additional 1-2% in generation output.

2. Always get at least three quotes, using energysage: https://www.energysage.com

3. As a residential customer, never sign a PPA. Either pay cash or get a loan

4. Tesla solar customer service is wildly inconsistent. Even as a Tesla investor, I do not recommend them for solar.

Sorry for your poor Solar City experience.

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Premium PV panels can be worth it if they look better. My parents paid a bit extra for black rather than blue solar panels (said panels also have higher output), and the house really does look a lot better for it. This can matter come sale time; curbside appearance is very important in real estate.

Black backings produce ever so slightly less than white backsheet, and premium panels can technically be worthwhile if you have limited roof space like we do.

I think they are talking about the cells themselves. Black cells have higher light absorption than blue cells (which are reflecting blue light) but I can't speak for their efficiency (and I should note that absorbed light that doesn't generate electricity generates heat which is bad for PV efficiency.)

Also a good value if you're launching them into space

Launching a rooftop residential installation into space is kind of a niche use case, though.

Elon Musk needs one up there to charge his Roadster

If you are doing a self-owned grid tie installation and have limited space, premium panels CAN make a big difference in your cumulative kWh produced per month.

Let's say you have room to mount sixteen, 2.0x1.0 meter size (72-cell) panels.

320W (cheap panels) x 16 = 5120W STC rating

370W (more expensive panels) x 16 = 5920W STC rating.

In the above i'm comparing cheap polycrystalline panels from a not-very-big Chinese maker to a well known manufacturer using high quality 156mm monocrystalline cells from a reputable cell manufacturer.

Edit: Others in the same thread have pointed out there can be aesthetic considerations as well, a cheap panel will look like this:

http://energyinformative.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/sola...

A panel built from 72 x 156mm mono, black cells will look more like:

http://www.cirelectric.com/content/images/TouSilevoPanel.jpg

This can be a big monthly and yearly kWh-fed-back-into-grid difference.

Now, "super premium" panels will be a lot more expensive, like Sunpower, which might have a STC W per sq meter rating even higher (390W in the same space), but you'd be paying literally double per panel.

I have to agree with some of the points you made but disagree on some others. I definitely agree that you should never use a PPA, get the loan or pay cash. But I have to say they whole process for getting my solar installed was really nice. I purchased my first home three years ago almost now and had solar installed back in the spring of 2017. It was on my short list of things to do as it seemed reasonable to do. I had one guy come to my door from a competitor but I was very put off by how pushy they where. So I called Solar City (Now Tesla) to talk to one of their sales people. They came on time and was very professional. In terms of financing it all I asked them to run the numbers for everything just to compare. When it came to the PPA I quickly realized that it basically meant I was replacing my normal provider, PG & E, with them for electricity. That didn't set well with me as I was gonna end up paying roughly the same for what I was currently paying. I had just bought the house so I didn't want to take out the loan. I had the cash so it seemed like the logical thing to do. It was nice and comforting to know that I had some time to decide how I wanted to pay for it, and that I could cancel practically up to the day they installed my system. Since then my power bill has been great. I paid just about 200 dollars for the first year since the day they turned it on. And I am on track to pay even less this year. As far as customer service. I don't have a huge opinion on that yet. I haven't needed to call them, though I probably should call and schedule my panels to get cleaned.

Probably the most interesting part of the whole process was paying nearly 10k dollars through PayPal. That was something interesting.

1) premium (high power density) panels can still make sense if you have limited roof space to work with, especially limited south or west facing.

Energysage website is broken and requires an email - seems like it's main purpose is to harvest PII. I'd be wary of using that site. Gave fake quotes after I gave fake email...

Energysage is a legit marketplace for solar quotes with funding from the Department of Energy. No affiliation, but I do send everyone consisting solar there for quotes.

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