Sunrun

Starting out, our monthly amount is less than what we would pay the utility company for energy. So, it remains to be seen over time. If utility rates stay low like they are right now, eventually we’ll end up paying more for the solar power that we’re getting through the system. But I can’t see that happening. At some point, everything is gonna go up in price. At least we know what our rates are gonna be for the next 20 years.

We have two separate solar systems on our property. We started our Sunrun process in 2016 and it got installed in 2017 because we started late in the year and it overlapped. But I was real happy with the way that turned out. I have 32 panels on the roof of our garage. And after having that for two years, I thought we could double our capacity and save more money. So, we had 35 panels installed on our house last Christmas and they showed up the day after Christmas.

We did all the preliminary stuff and they came out and did the inspection. They happened to be the same people. When they came out, they did the inspection and all the measurements. They sent the into the head office and they made a determination that the roof on the house wasn’t good enough for them to put the solar system on it. They said, “The bad news is your roof needs to be replaced. The good news is we’re gonna replace it for you.” So, we got a free roof with our solar system that we’re basically paying for that’s less than our utility bills. So, it’s amazing.

So far, we’ve not had any leaks although we had a shingle blow off in the wind last winter. I had to try and figure out how to get back to the roofing company since it was a subcontractor. But once I did get a hold of them, they came right out, literally got up on the roof in the snow, blew it off with a leaf blower, and fixed the shingles that had blown off. They made a determination that since it was on the ridge vent, they said that probably what happened was when they were installing the solar system, somebody stepped there. Because it was in a tight area, they probably had to sit there and it tore the shingle off the nail, which I can understand that by looking at it. Other than that, everything has been great.

The guys that they sent out took three days to set up the panels. We had a backyard that we never used. We also have people that live behind us and there's always a privacy issue with us so we put the solar panels up in a south direction to get full sun from 8:00 in the morning until the sun goes down about 7:30 to 8:00 at night. We couldn't put that many on the roof because I have a new part of the house which would only take four panels and the in the old part of the house, the roof isn't solid enough to carry that weight so we did the solar panels in the back. They came in, they dug the holes, they poured the concrete. got the panels set up. They ran the electrical under the house right into the PG&E box and we were up and running and generating power. And they were all nice and knowledgeable. They showed my husband how to read the meter outside. Everything just worked perfectly.

The way this is set up is Sunrun owns the solar panels. They're responsible for the insurance. We do have to do the maintenance of keeping the panels clean and stuff, but if anything goes wrong with the solar panels, they will send somebody out to fix them. All we're paying is a monthly fee which is a hell of a lot less than we would have paid if we stayed with PG&E and it took all of that off our shoulders about having to get a loan and all of that stuff in order to be able to do it.

I'm very satisfied going solar. In the winter months, we were able to run our heaters more than we normally would have because PG&E is so expensive here, it's just outrageous. When March, April, and May came, it started getting nicer and we had everything off. My true-up went from $480 something down to 200. I figure, by the time we get to October for our true-up, we're gonna be even so I'm getting enough solar to offset at a cheaper kilowatt rate that even on the flat fee, we're gonna save probably about $6,000 over the year. It's awesome.

The rep got our last two or three years of kilowatt consumption and billing costs from PG&E downloaded into a spreadsheet and then they base their monthly rate on an average for us, but it was an average that was cheaper than what PG&E would have cost us. We went through all the figures and the kilowatt usage, 'cause I'm always trying to be careful with PG&E anyway. We stuffed as much insulation in the walls as we could. We had already replaced with thermo-insulated windows all through the house and we redid all the sheetrock on the inside of the house and insulated the attic, the walls, and the flooring, installed an attic fan and were trying to make the best ‘cause there's one room that gets really hot and that happens to be the living 'cause it gets full sun all day.

So, our PG&E bills were running $200, $300, and $400 a month in the winter, depending on how cold it got. In the summer, because the walls are so thin, this one room gets really hot, so we were running an air conditioning unit a lot. I never had a bill lower than $170 to $200 a month even in the summer. But now, I'm getting zero from PG&E and my true-up has gone down to $200 and something. By the end of the summer, we're gonna be even and it's already saved me a bunch of money. Sunrun was really great. I've already recommended them to my neighbor. I gave him a copy of this business card for the contract rep because he was interested in solar too. And if anybody asks me, these are the people I'll recommend.

Our interactions with the customer service were a little scary at first because we had an issue where our battery’s circuits tripped. We had power to everything in the house except the important circuits that were backed up to the solar battery. That became a concern because those are the refrigerator, internet, and all the important things that were supposed to be backed up. They were not working. We knew it had to do with the solar and not SDG&E ‘cause everything else had power.

When I called Sunrun’s customer service, I was told they would not be able to send someone out for 4 to 5 business days. This happened on a Friday so it wouldn’t be until later the next week. I asked if there was any way they could put it as urgent and they said 3 to 4 business days. But it still ended up being well over a week before they sent someone out. Thankfully, I did call the salesperson and he got the installer to come out. He was able to reset the circuits. It’s located in a box that we are not able to access, and it will void our warranty if we try. It worked but we didn’t know that when it had gone out, it fried out our microwave. As soon as the power came back on and they tried to use the microwave, it tripped it again.

Once again, we were jury rigging extension cords all over the house, trying to power the refrigerator, the TV, and the internet. I still ended up having to wait. It went out on the 22nd of February and they didn’t really get it up and running until March 7th. I wasn’t thrilled about that, but in the end, they did right by us. They bought us a new microwave because it had been working fine before all that happened. The amount included enough to get it installed, too.

It would be nice if customer service-wise, there is somebody locally. It took too long for them to get someone out here. The fact that Sunrun does not have a sooner response time is not cool. I was thankful that our salesperson was willing to call on a weekend and that the installer was willing to come out and reset that for us. Those guys went above and beyond. Overall, it all went really smoothly. We’re satisfied with our decision to go solar which we did because of the rising energy costs and we like the idea of being green. It hasn’t been a year yet but so far, we like it.

I paid off a 20-year plan in full, which was always my intent because if I paid it off over 20 years, it would’ve been $40,000. The only way that it would be a benefit to me was if I paid it off early. I got free installation and it was what the salesperson said was a viable option. It was in the contract worded that way. They never had somebody do that, so the company challenged me on it. I had to jump through a lot of hoops and they eventually said I was right. So, they did one bill and automatically drafted me, then they showed me another that I still owed the next month of around $140. I do not owe them $140 and they owe me $140 because they took it after I paid them off.

They had a representative contact me and say sorry that they made my account balances zero. I contacted them back and I said that they made my account balances zero as if I didn’t owe them any money, but they never gave me back my $140. I went through that for the longest time. They literally never returned my call and it was a supervisor. I would leave a detailed message but I never heard anything. After a while, I thought that I was just done with it. I hate for that to ruin the experience because Sunrun was saving me a ton of money. Going solar was the biggest, no-brainer decision ever.

You can only legally get enough for 20,000 kilowatts per year and I utilize 50,000 kilowatts per year, so it was cutting my electric bill for a time. My monthly bill would’ve been around $140 if I hadn’t paid it off monthly. Then, I would have to pay Duke Energy my regular utility bill. Before Sunrun, I was paying roughly $600 a month, but now, after paying off Sunrun, I have bills between 50 and around 120, so it is literally hundreds of dollars difference every month. However, they still should have given back the $140 to me. It was a lack of their customer service department. Once you have the product up, they just don’t know what they are doing. They had poor follow-through to realize what they had done and to rectify it. Nonetheless, I recommend Sunrun.

I got a friend in Denver, Colorado and when I went there, it was all solar panels and that sparked my interest. Tony was the one who reached out to me. I made him talk and he gave me the whole Sunrun deal but all I needed to know were how many panels, where they were gonna put them and when I was going to get a battery pack. We have our storms and that was my main concern because my house is all electric. So, with all of the home improvements, AC, insulation, windows and all of that, solar was my only option because nobody's doing wind yet. If I can have a wind turbine, I'd put that on here too but I can't do a generator because we don't have gas in the neighborhood. So, I would have to store gasoline in my garage and hope it doesn't blow up.

I’m trying to save energy and for my peace of mind, I’m trying to make my house as environmental-friendly as I can. I even have a water filtering system. So, with the hurricanes and storms we get in Texas, I never know when we're gonna have to boil water. I'm good with water but I'm trying to get electricity. I'm trying to get off the grid in the city. I asked Tony to get me a great package deal on some battery packs. When we have hurricanes here in Houston, I wanna have electricity. Here, we would be without lights for almost a week. It depends on where you at and how bad it is, so I need some off the grid power. I’m waiting right now on Brightbox because I’ve got the solar. I need the battery packs or a good cost on the them. When our lights go out, I need energy because of my wife's health. Generators would have been good but no gas. So, solar is my next option.

Enrolling with Sunrun was very easy and I understood some of it as far as the billing but I was trying to understand again as far as me having a bill from Sunrun and then me having a bill from Think Energy. It depends on how much energy I produce to save and at the time when it was installed, it was more during the winter months where days are shorter and more clouds. So, I'm looking forward now being the summertime to where it's hotter. I know the solar panels absorb heat in the sun, so I should be producing good for the next winter.

I was using Stream Energy which was one of the cheaper ones on the market and on the average, in the summertime, my bill would be somewhere in the ballpark of $190. In the wintertime, it would be somewhere in the ballpark of 160. With Sunrun, it would be 132. The first few months I had with Think Energy, the highest I paid was $76 so, I was still kinda within that range. However, just last month, I got my bill from Think Energy and it was $7. So, I'm on my way.

Despite what the rep shows you, you will ALWAYS have a utility bill, it will be approximately 20%less dependent upon energy produced by the panels. BUT YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE A BILL! Essentially your property is being used to make a solar company rich. Don't fall for the "argument" that it is the Moral thing to do! After-all in the case of Sunrun the CEO gave herself a six million dollar bonus!

Eric stated that Sunrun’s panels would produce electricity at a cost of $.12 KW/hr. He asked what we were paying from APS and asked to see our latest bill. Like most electric companies, APS has a confusing bill which doesn’t list the KW/hr separately and rolls the taxes and charges into a difficult to understand total monthly bill. Eric pulled his calculator, looked at our bill and told us we’re were paying $.18 /KHR and therefore we would be making money every month from their system. Eric then started the high pressure sales pitch wanting us to sign various screens on his IPad. I told him I wanted to do some research before we proceeded and Eric became belligerent and we asked him to leave. I called APS and asked them for a breakdown on our bill and APS told me we were paying $.12 /KHR.

The balance of the charges on the bill were state and federal taxes, monthly hook up charges and other mandatory charges. Eric obviously knew this this and used the total bill, divided by the kilowatts used and came up with his inflated figures, to his favor. Once I received the true cost /KHR from APS, it was apparent Eric was lying just to make a sale. I also researched his claim that I could get a new roof and Gould he lied on that too. The only possible reimbursement a homeowner would be for the footprint of the solar panels on the roof, not the entire roof the Eric stated.

I’m a retired engineer and my questions would be; 1) If these roof top panels were truly an efficient method to produce electricity, why wouldn’t APS and the hundreds of power generation companies in the world be installing the panels rather than some fly by night company like Sunrun? 2) Why mount the panels on the roof in the first place where their weight will stress the roof and the mounting system will cause leaks? Why not mount them in the back yard on a rack where they would be accessible for maintenance? 3) If the entire solar panel idea actually works, why wouldn’t the power company themselves buy cheap land out in the desert and build huge panel farms to produce cheap electricity? The obvious answer is the panels do not produce electricity at a cheaper rate than other sources such as hydroelectric power. The bottom line is stay away from these liars.

JCL. A retired power company engineer.