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Any Happy Bay Area Customers? Looking For Recommendations

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Hey everyone,

I am about to close on a SFH in the Menlo Park area and am looking at solar. I don't think power outages happen here often, but I do have a Model 3 and am hoping to start a family soon.

Does anyone have any good recommendations on installers with competitive price points? Whether it's recent or awhile ago, I appreciate any recommendations :) Feel free to post here or DM me.

Or is solar not going to be economical? TBH the only consideration I have is economics, which is why I'm factoring in the 2022 tax credit and NEM2/3.

Storage is recommended right? I've always found PowerWalls to be uneconomical, but that was years ago and I never took a critical look (until just now). Maybe Enphase Ensemble is better. But then again an installer will just bundle everything together and give me a quote ya?
 
Yes....
BTW, the Penisula and Bay Area in general will be prone to power outages (primarily due to fires or winds concerning for fire risk).
We just had one last month for a day (some people a couple days) due to a fire in Redwood City Emerald hills area near the 280.

AS to price points for solar, most here will favor Tesla as having most competitive bids for both solar and certainly power walls. Some here will favor non-tesla vendors for the more customized installs, attention to service and hand holding. Those are not Tesla's forte. Most everyone here would favor power walls for storage choice.
 
I suggest just getting a lot of quotes and see what rises to the top. I got about 10+. I used energysage as well and contacted both Tesla and multiple local installers (all the big names). Also, what is your energy use now? Solar makes no sense if you have a very low bill.

No one will probably beat Tesla on price, but you have to weigh the pros/cons and your needs vs. others. Tesla doesn't do microinverters anymore and you can't really pick panels if you care (I did, then later didn't). Read other forums here on PTO times for Tesla (some are great, some, not so much). Tesla prices have gone up a lot from the early days (pre 2019) so I personally don't think they are the best option anymore on a cost/risk PTO delay timeframe. Enphase batteries are LFP (and they have an out of the box generator connection option), but I don't think there's ever been an y issues with PW batteries. Non-Tesla installers pretty much charged the same for Enphase vs. PWs (but Enphase has less capacity per battery).

I don't think there is any ROI on batteries (so I don't delude myself there is, but I've started to use a lot more energy now due to Solar and ToU arbitrage), but if you want to be shielded or have options if IOUs decide to jack up prices for off-peak times, batteries can allow you to completely self power if that were to happen. IOUs know not many people have batteries, but a lot have solar.
 
The only thing I can add is that I went with a local installer because I needed a responsive vendor, not one that may or may not respond. With Tesla, there was the risk that I’d have to play project manager and keep chasing things. Tesla was indeed cheaper, but I couldn’t take the risk as I had a picky HOA and city to work with. Some of my neighbors had good experiences, but YMMV I guess.

With a local vendor/installer, I had my choice of equipment, designs were sent for my approval within 2 weeks of signing the contract, and installation completed in one day, 3 weeks after that. City came to inspect a week later, signed off, and I received PTO from PGE in 10 days (right before Thanksgiving).

Had a couple of issues with hardware, but everytime I emailed the installer with issues, I received a response and follow up within hours. Yeah, the local guy could be out of business before you know it, but happy with the choices made at this time.

Good luck with the search!!!
 
PG&E seems to have outages once or twice a year for any specific customer due to 100 year-old infrastructure failing, trees falling on power lines, fires, etc.

Do get bids from different installers, e.g. Tesla, Cinnamon Energy, and Cobalt. Prices and designs will vary. But without a year of usage data for your new home, how will they size the proposed systems? (I've yet to see any price demand curves, in fact people seem fairly flexible about prices, so price points are irrelevant.)

Do sign up with Peninsula Clean Energy on the peninsula (Silicon Valley Clean Energy in the valley) as your community electricity provider.