Frequently Asked Questions

First and foremost, Go Solar East is NOT a solar company in the typical fashion.  Rather, we are independent advisors.  Advisors that are not affiliated nor represent any one solar company in the United States.  We are not salespeople with a quota to fill or looking for a quick commission to pocket.

We provide free, independent, and honest expert advice with a comprehensive range of customized solar options to provide the best solution tailored to your home and energy needs.

With no upfront cost or obligation, Go Solar East will provide a home energy assessment to learn where your home is leaking energy and if solar energy would be a good fit. Fortunately, while not every property is perfect, most homes are well-suited for a solar energy system.

Next, we determine how your home improvement dollars would best be spent. That can only be accomplished if your consultant is knowledgeable, unbiased, independent of home improvement salespeople, and honest. At Go Solar East, it is our reputation, and we stand by it.

Choosing solar energy is a responsible decision, but it should always be done under the right circumstances. Avoiding solar panel scams is just as crucial for the environment as the solar panels themselves. How can we clean up our environment if we cannot even run ethical businesses?

Solar energy gives you the choice to power your home, your way. And the best part is solar panels could save you money on your electric bill. Energy rates from traditional power companies can fluctuate unpredictably, but solar gives you reliable rates you can plan on. You’ll help reduce the negative impact on the planet and potentially lower your costs — so you can breathe easier and live better.

Contact us today at (207) 245-8411 or via email at info@gosolareast.com, for your free solar quote and find out how you can join the solar energy revolution. With your free consultation, a Go Solar East expert will take the first step to designing a custom solar panel system to fit your needs and show you how you could save money on your electric bill.

At Go Solar East, we understand the consumer’s needs and know how to provide high-quality service to people in the communities we serve.

These are a few main factors that will determine exactly how much you will spend to install solar panels on your home that we list out below:

• Your home’s average utility costs and energy usage
• Your rooftop’s solar potential – amount of sun it receives yearly
• The average local cost for a solar panel system in your area
• The average labor costs and demand in your area
• Local incentives and rebates you could receive.

The Department of Energy expects lower solar installation cost trends to continue and estimates that one million plus homes will have solar panels installed by 2020. Solar costs dropped dramatically in the last few years when the Chinese government influenced the worldwide solar market by pouring low-cost financing into the sector which boosted solar panel manufacturing more than ten-fold.

The short answer is yes, and we have worked with hundreds of valued clients that would attest to it. Some could not build a big enough system to cover all their energy needs, but every single one of them save money. Some in the thousands of dollars a year. But the long answer (which any good consultant will offer) is of course “it depends”. Basically, it depends on whether you – as we like to say – “live in a forest”.

Trees are great and they have their own role in controlling carbon, but sometimes the terrain and trees around your home combine to make solar a less than stellar financial investment. You might want to go solar for other reasons, but your system may not be able to generate enough power to reasonably pay you back.

Beyond that point however, solar can, most definitely, pay you back.  How fast depends on where you live, what utility you have, and several other parameters. Parameters we can review and outline for you.

Solar leases and solar PPAs (Power Purchase Agreement), is an arrangement where a PPA company installs a solar energy system on a homeowner’s roof and the homeowner buys the electricity generated by the system at a fixed amount. The homeowner does not own the solar system both work similarly to leasing a car – you don’t own the solar panel system, but you make monthly payments for having it put on your roof.

You then get to use the solar energy the system produces to offset your utility bill through net metering. In return for the solar energy, you pay the solar company a monthly fee that is less than your electricity bill.

Here are some of the key features of solar leases and solar PPAs:

No upfront costs 

You don’t pay for the cost of the solar panels or installation. However, this means you are not the owner of the solar system on your roof.

Monthly payments 

Instead of paying the upfront costs of a solar installation, you make a monthly payment for the services the solar panels provide – generating clean energy! So, you don’t own the panels, but you do get to use the energy they produce.

The solar energy your panels produce cuts down (or eliminates!) your utility bill. A solar lease or PPA monthly payment will typically be less than what your monthly utility bill would be without solar.

Price escalator 

The amount that you pay for your solar lease or solar PPA payment will increase each year. The amount in which your payment will increase by will be defined in your solar contract. The price escalators for solar leases and PPAs are usually between 3% and 5%.

Long-term contract 

You will be entering into a long-term contract with a solar company. Solar PPA contracts usually have terms between 20 to 25 years. Solar leases may have shorter terms, between 10 and 25 years.

At the end of your contract, you can choose to purchase the solar panels or have them removed.

No maintenance 

The solar company will be responsible for the maintenance and monitoring of the system. This means maintenance and monitoring costs won’t fall on you.

Uncertainty with selling your home 

If you want to sell your home, solar leases and PPAs can be passed onto the home’s next owner. However, this can sometimes make it harder to sell your home.

In the case that new homeowners don’t want to continue with the solar lease or PPA, you might have to pay a break fee to end the contract.

Solar leases and solar PPAs are extremely similar, making it difficult to tell the difference between the two. So, how exactly are solar leases and solar PPAs different?

With a solar lease, you pay a flat fee each month. The payment amount will be outlined in your lease contract. This payment will be less than your utility bill before you started leasing solar panels.

For example, if your utility bill was $150 a month, your solar lease payment might be $80 a month. The actual lease payments vary depending on location, installer, and system size.

A solar PPA works more like your utility bill, where you pay for each kilowatt hour (kWh) of solar energy you use. Your solar PPA bill will fluctuate depending on how much energy the solar panels produce.

The price you pay per kWh with your PPA will be lower than the price your utility charges you per kWh. So, if your utility charges you $0.15 per kWh, a solar company might charge you $0.12 per kWh with a PPA. The actual PPA cost will vary depending on location, installer, and the price of electricity.

Whether you get a solar PPA or a solar lease, you still save money on your electricity bill, all while using clean, renewable energy. However, a solar PPA has the potential to save you more money over the entirety of your contract because your monthly payments are directly related to how much energy the solar panels produce.

Let’s say in July the solar panels on your roof produced 800 kWh of solar electricity and your PPA company charged you $0.12 per kWh. Your July PPA bill would be $96. Then, in December the panels produced only 600 kWh of electricity because there are less sun hours in the day. Your PPA payment would only be $72 because less energy is produced.

With a solar lease, your payment would stay the same throughout the year, no matter how much or how little power the solar panels produced. While leasing might not save you as much as a PPA could in the long term, having one flat lease payment makes paying for your electricity much easier. You don’t have to worry about fluctuating monthly payments and can easily build your budget around your standard monthly payment.

It is important that you consider all the solar financing options available and get multiple solar quotes from different installers. Purchasing a solar energy system outright or taking out a solar loan will give you the best savings in the long term, and you can take advantage of solar incentives and rebates.

You should only consider a solar lease or solar PPA if you don’t have the cash to purchase solar or you don’t qualify for a solar loan. If this is the case, then solar leases and solar PPAs could be the best way for you to go solar.

Other financing options can save you more than a solar PPA or solar lease

While you don’t have to pay the upfront costs of a solar panel system with a solar PPA or solar lease, they do come with their downsides.

With both solar leases and solar PPAs, you do not own the solar system on your roof. This means you are not eligible for various solar incentives, most notably the federal tax credit, which reduces the cost of installing solar by 26% until the end of 2020.

After 2020, the credit steps down to 22%, before expiring completely in 2022. It’s best to take advantage of the credit now, in order to maximize your savings.

Going solar is a smart decision for your wallet and can be an asset for your tenants, too. Whether you are an onsite landlord (living on your property and renting one or more units to tenants) or an offsite landlord (renting out all your building’s units to tenants), there’s a solar option for you.

A solar-powered building is also a great marketing tool when it comes to renting out your unit: solar appeals to a growing segment of residents that care about the environment and installing a solar energy system can help you attract tenants.

Yes, of course! Go Solar East will assess your home for solar at no cost.  We will even work with the solar designer and find the best Installer for your home at no cost!  Yes, our expert guidance services are free!

The only time we ever charge is if you would require significant assistance in your planning process for a new home or building.  In short, there are a lot of ways to build in a solar friendly way and we are happy to take the time to review plans and goals with you, almost like a “solar architect”. If that applies to you, we will typically charge a fee.

Outside of shade and availability of sunshine, there are a few factors to consider when evaluating the solar potential of your roof:

Age

Solar panel systems last a long time (often more than 30 years!) If your home’s roof is towards the end of its life, you should replace it prior to any solar installation. This will add to the upfront cost of the project but replacing your roof prior to installing solar certainly has its advantages: for one, you avoid the trouble and costs associated with uninstalling and reinstalling your solar panel system in order to work on the roof. Additionally, solar panels will help extend the life of the portion of your roof that they cover, as they are durable and protect the roofing material from the elements.

Material

Thanks to continuing innovation and variety in solar mounting equipment, you can install solar panels on most roofing materials, including standing seam metal, clay tile, asphalt, and rubber.

Two of the more difficult roofing materials to install on are slate and wood: given how brittle both materials are, the installation process is more delicate than with other materials and requires specialized equipment (which can be costly). Because of this, most installation companies do not install solar panels on these types of roofs, so it may be difficult to find a company to work with.

Space

Solar panels come in a fixed, rectangular shape, and most residential installations use at least 10 solar panels. To maximize your solar savings, you’ll need adequate space on your roof. With more uniquely shaped roofs, different structures such as dormers, chimneys, vents, or widow’s walks may cut off certain portions of your roof from installation, making it more difficult to fit enough solar panels for a viable installation.

Tilt

You can install solar on a flat roof but installing solar panels on a flat roof typically requires more space since you need to tilt and stagger the rows of panels for optimal electricity production. Tilted solar panels are also important for the self-cleaning of the equipment.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, panels that are installed on a steep roof generally produce less electricity and are more difficult to install. As a rule of thumb, anywhere between 30 to 45 degrees is the optimal tilt for most solar panel systems.

Orientation

Your roof’s orientation, or the direction your roof faces, will impact how much electricity your solar panel system generates. Generally, solar panels that face due south receive the most exposure to sunshine (note: this is the opposite for properties located in the Southern Hemisphere.) However, while south-facing is ideal, it’s certainly not a necessity for going solar: panels facing east and west can often receive more than enough sunshine to make your installation a worthwhile investment.

And, what if my roof isn’t suitable? 

If you can’t or don’t want to install solar panels on your roof, consider doing so on available, sunny land space – with a ground-mounted system.  You’re less likely to have space limitations and can install your array at the perfect tilt and direction, as opposed to being restricted by the dimensions of a roof surface.

Ground-mounts aren’t your only alternative to consider – while less common, some homeowners choose to install a solar carport, shed, patio cover, and more.