What do you think about the offers to get free solar in your home?

I think you’re right to be highly suspicious of such offers. Those phone calls and ads cost money, as does the installation and the panels themselves. Solar can certainly be cost-advantageous if you live below the right latitude and have a southern-facing roof without a lot of tree cover, but the break-even period is usually years away.

My guess is there are hidden costs somewhere. I guess I could foresee a business model whereby investors front the cost of the panels and installation in exchange for a slice of the ongoing energy revenue (like an annuity).

I would definitely consider it but I don’t qualify for it. Most of the offers I get are from the power company itself. They benefit by getting power back to the grid from your solar installation.

I wouldn’t dismiss such offers out of hand but look carefully into who is making them.

There’s a “down side” to almost everything.

One angle, I think, is government subsidies.

Another, for the companies who call around, is whatever cut they get.

The companies who do “free” contracts are doing it for free. The one I talked to had a contract, where if my situation matched their model well enough, then there were some options but mainly they’d “take over” my electric bill from the utility company until they had made enough money to pay off their costs in building it, plus whatever margin they’re asking for. Until then, they were essentially selling the generated electricity (calculated to be more than my household needed) to the electric company.

So the basic idea is they will eventually pay for themselves and more.

If you can afford to get someone to build them for you in advance, then that might have you come out ahead in the end, but it’s going to take years to pay for itself.

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In my case, I didn’t do it with that company because it turned out they found out they weren’t yet able to do work where I am. But I am still interested in having solar panels – I just need to research who in my area it’d work well to do it with,

Caveat Emptor.

There are some good honest deals out there, and there are also a lot of scams.

If the salesman makes claims on how much return you will make by buying and installing the panels and equipment, look elsewhere.

Whenever such offers pop up, of course you are required to do deep research before committing a dime. The great and indelible lesson for me was some 40 years ago when the business required purchase of a couple of copying machines. I had no idea that the ridiculously low price for the top of the line machines was simply the lure toward addiction to the criminally overpriced ink cartridges.

The ironclad rule applies: If a product is free, you are the product.
In this case, it sounds like they get to use your property/land to harvest solar energy, without paying you rent.

Run away

Oh, I just noticed I typed:

“The companies who do “free” contracts are doing it for free.”

It’s too late for me to edit it now, but I meant to type

“The companies who do “free” contracts are not doing it for free.”

i.e. They’re making money, but are framing it such that the customer doesn’t think of it as being an additional expense to them, compared to what they’re already paying for electricity.

My in-laws are pretty forward-thinking. They did this years and years ago before it was a thing.

Threw some solar panels on their roof. Hardly notice them and their energy bills are way way lower.

Only thing they complain about is that they did it before there were these big incentives from the energy company to get them. Ha.

That said, we don’t have them. Not because I’m against the idea of them. Or that I think they’re a scam. (Just do it through your local electrical company.)

It’s because we have an old ass house (for the US anyway). And I don’t want to nail a bunch of shit to the roof. Already felt bad about the satellite dish. :/

I am constantly being offered such, but those companies don’t realize the trees surrounding my house are between 60 and 200 feet tall.

@filmfann Unproductive solar panels aside, that sounds lovely!

Scam.

There are different ways to finance solar. You can purchase the panels up front and then all the power you produce is yours and excess gets sold to the power company.

Another way is to get “free” solar panels. What happens is that this is in effect a lease where you pay less for your power but you still pay some. If you decide you don’t want the panels they should remove them. So it’s probably not a scam but the term “free” is a bit misleading. All they’re saying is that you don’t have to pay for the solar panels up front. This is a good option if you’re not planning on staying in the house for a long period of time.

I ended up purchasing my solar panels—it’s a much higher up front cost but after about 8 years they will have paid for themselves and then I will pay nothing for electrical power.

@Caravanfan If the person who has the solar panel “lease” sells their house do they transfer the solar panel contract to the new owner?

Usually, if you look, the offer is that you could get “free” panels. The key word is “could”. Also, they don’t actually tell you how many panels are free. It all depends on the area you live in. There are subsidies, there are tax breaks, and you can save on electricity. They are taking into account all of those things to offset the cost of the solar system. I’ve had 2 people come to try getting me to buy solar systems. And they offered “free” panels…I got 1 or 2 for free if I bought the system. Their sell was that they hyped up the supposed elevation of electricity costs in the future. Basically a scare tactic.

I then started asking questions, if you can believe that. I knew some of the answers, but I wanted to see if THEY knew the answers. They didn’t know any of them. For instance, the electric company in the area I live limits the number of panels I can put on my house. 9 panels. That isn’t very much. The power company also puts in a second power meter for the power your panels create. So all the power you make is sold to the power company but you have to buy your power off their grid. So if there is a power outage, my panels do nothing for me. In the end, using their numbers, I would have to crank out something like $35,000 for the system and it would take 20 years for them to pay themselves off. And the panels are only good for 20 years.

Not really a good deal and certainly not “free”.

As stated previously, the best thing to do is check with your power company, see what they offer and get their advice.

@JLeslie AFAIK yes, but don’t take my word for it.
@seawulf575 is exactly correct in that it depends on local laws and company policies.

Thanks everyone. I don’t think this is something I would consider for my current house, but I was very curious about it so I asked the Q. My current electric bill (the house is all electric) averages around $90—$100 a month now, it’s not very high.

@janbb I saw your answer. That makes sense.

It looks like there’s definitely some sketchy practices going on in the solar industry. It make sense that it would lure in shysters, since you’ve got a lot of variables at play, large dollar amounts, subsidies, net metering credits, and other complexities where a bad-faith actor has a lot of wiggle room to con people.

I do know solar can be an awesome deal financially for some people if they have the right circumstances, plus there’s the added security of having power when the grid goes dark in storms and such.

The one we looked into, the company owns the installed panels, and they “rent” it back to you, supposedly for the difference in a projected utility and the actual bill. An inspector paid by us determined we would on get a 40–50% relief because of trees, so we decided against it.
I have since read to only have an installation you pay for and you own. The other type never pays off.

No one ever mentions that solar leasers will put as many panels as will fit on your roof. That creates an aesthetics problem and more roof intrusions compared to a purchase, where they only put on as many panels as you want to pay for.