I recently tried the solar calculator form PG&E's website. I believe it is supposed to be using NEM3 rules. I did not upload my usage data as I already have solar. I entered a monthly average bill of $400. Everything else was consistent to my house. I also entered that I had gas heating. The results are verey suspicious for NEM3.
Solar Only:
Cost = $26,220
Incentives = $7,866
Net Cost = $18,354
Payback = 7 years
8.7 kW system
There was also a Solar plus Battery option with payback of 8 years.
There is a graph of total usage and solar usage. pasting link below, but it may be tied to cookies on my PC. They are assuming no export to grid so all savings is cost avoidance. The weird thing about the graph is that the total usage is nearly flat across all months and even rises in December compared to the Summer. How could that be with gas heat. then I took the solar production numbers by month and used my average winter/summer rates. I know this is approximate, but I get a payback of 10 years which is more what I would expect under NEM3. Also the summar production does not look high enough compared to winter (or winter does not look low enough). Also, how can there be no grid export? I would think that dependiing on the time of day, the home usage cannot always exceed the solar production. Thus they cannot claim all the production is savings at retail rates.
The reason I checked is that several installers are posting on Nextdoor in my area claiming 6 year paybacks. I looked at several solar company websites and the UI for their calculator is almost identiical to PG&E's. I suspect they are using the same engine.
This seems like a total scam. Has anyone else tried the calculator?
I posted similar under the NEM3 thread, but that thread seems about done. If this post needs to be moved there, so be it.
Solar Only:
Cost = $26,220
Incentives = $7,866
Net Cost = $18,354
Payback = 7 years
8.7 kW system
There was also a Solar plus Battery option with payback of 8 years.
There is a graph of total usage and solar usage. pasting link below, but it may be tied to cookies on my PC. They are assuming no export to grid so all savings is cost avoidance. The weird thing about the graph is that the total usage is nearly flat across all months and even rises in December compared to the Summer. How could that be with gas heat. then I took the solar production numbers by month and used my average winter/summer rates. I know this is approximate, but I get a payback of 10 years which is more what I would expect under NEM3. Also the summar production does not look high enough compared to winter (or winter does not look low enough). Also, how can there be no grid export? I would think that dependiing on the time of day, the home usage cannot always exceed the solar production. Thus they cannot claim all the production is savings at retail rates.
The reason I checked is that several installers are posting on Nextdoor in my area claiming 6 year paybacks. I looked at several solar company websites and the UI for their calculator is almost identiical to PG&E's. I suspect they are using the same engine.
This seems like a total scam. Has anyone else tried the calculator?
I posted similar under the NEM3 thread, but that thread seems about done. If this post needs to be moved there, so be it.
