Sunrun Prepaid lease quote - Bay area, CA

**J.P.M.** · 11-28-2019, 02:15 AM

After herding about 150 or so arrays into my HOA over the last 10 yrs. I'm of the opinion that Sunrun is one of the vendors I wouldn't let on my property if I was considering PV.

How long do you plan to stay in the residence ? Is that a year to year lease ? As for price alone, and if you're planning on staying put for a while, know you'll not be getting the benefit of what's going to be a 26 % tax credit as of 01/01/2020. That means if you can find some vendor who will sell you a system for less than ($13,348/4,640 W)/(1 -.26) = ~ $3.89/W, you'll be money ahead.

The Bay area tends to be a bit more expensive than around here (92026), but based on price alone, my guess is you could do better. Based on vendor quality and integrity, I'm sure you could do way better. Get more quotes from reputable, local electrical contractors who've been in business for at least 10 years and sold solar for at least 5. Avoid the big national firms that are mostly one trick ponies.

**PugPower** · 11-28-2019, 02:56 AM

Can someone explain to me why someone would sign a pre-paid lease instead if buying a system outright? Seems to me that you could buy a 4.64kW system for about the same price after tax rebate. Am I missing something?

**J.P.M.** · 11-28-2019, 11:15 AM

Originally posted by PugPower

Can someone explain to me why someone would sign a pre-paid lease instead if buying a system outright? Seems to me that you could buy a 4.64kW system for about the same price after tax rebate. Am I missing something?

Two possible reasons of several:

1.) There would be no particular tax benefit to the leasee. Not common, but not unheard of either.

2.) Solar ignorance on the part of the user. By now, even most semi-savvy folks know leasing is a lousy deal most of the time, but there's still a lot of ignorance around.

At $3.89/W comparable price with tax credit considered, I still think it's a bad deal for the OP, especially if from one of the solar bottom feeders like SunRun.

**scrambler** · 11-28-2019, 02:21 PM

A reasonable price before any incentive for the system you described is about $3.00 a watt or $13,920.
After the 26% tax credit (in 2020), this is $10,300.
So you can own a system for $10,300, or lease one for $13,348
You do the math

Now finding a contractor with the reasonable price may be a bit tricky right now given all the craze after the outages, but not impossible.

If you were OK with paying $13,348 up front, you should definitely ask for many more purchase quotes and forget the leasing option.

Invest some time in scanning all the solar contractors in your area and ask for a quote from 5 to 10 of them, it will be time well spent

**johnny4791** · 11-28-2019, 08:22 PM

Thanks JPM, scrambler. For the same system, for buyout option, Sunrun quote me $25,000 after incentive. With lease option, sunrun is responsible for maintenance or replacement. In case of buyout option, we just need to depend on the manufacture warranty.. we were not sure if we want to do that. we better depend on the solar company to take care in case panel go bad.

Another quote I got from Soleeva is $19,000 for buy out option for the same system size..

**johnny4791** · 11-28-2019, 08:28 PM

Thanks JPM,

There was typo in my mail. Agreement term is 25 years. so I prepay lease for 25 years $13,348 for 16 panels and 16 inverters, which is $2.87/w.

**Mike90250** · 11-28-2019, 09:21 PM

And the other problem with a lease, is the property is un marketable, until the lease is bought out.

**PugPower** · 11-29-2019, 02:30 AM

What maintenance? Generally speaking PV systems have little to no maintenance once they are installed and working fine. There are no moving parts, maybe need to be cleaned once in awhile is all. Most installers warranty their work for at least 10 years and like you said, manufacturers warranties are usually good for 25 years. IMO someone is selling you some BS to push you into a lease.

**J.P.M.** · 11-29-2019, 12:15 PM

Originally posted by johnny4791

Thanks JPM,

There was typo in my mail. Agreement term is 25 years. so I prepay lease for 25 years $13,348 for 16 panels and 16 inverters, which is $2.87/w.

Thank you. Understood.

$2.87/(1-.26) is still = $3.89/STC W. That's the price you can pay if you buy a system and get the (reduced) 26 % tax credit and come up ~ equal to the SunRun price.

Suit yourself, but for a lot of reasons, including the one that says you can likely buy a system of equal or better quality for less than that and come out in the same financial place or better, IMO, only, you'll be better off without SunRun in your future.

Most folks are in financial situations such that leasing winds up being at least a rip off, even before considerations for things such as Mike mentions. It's usually/often something the solar ignorant fall for. My bet is you can do better financially by buying. My strong opinion is you can do much better by avoiding SunRun altogether. My strongest opinion is you'll do the best for yourself by getting more informed about PV and how you pay for electricity. Your ignorance can and will screw you.

Take what you want of the above. Scrap the rest.

**noxiouscloud** · 12-02-2019, 05:15 PM

johnny4791, seeing that you are in San Jose. I was able to get a SolarEdge system with 14 of the REC TP2 290 panels (4.06kw) installed for $11,600 before tax incentives at the end of 2017 by a shop located in Campbell. I own the system outright. You can do much better than the quote you got from SunRun.

**azdave** · 12-02-2019, 05:47 PM

Forget Sunrun support, free maintenance and replacement during the lease. All of those things are quite unlikely to be needed. If you don't need solar to survive (who does?) then why burden your future with a lease/contract that benefits Sunrun far more than you?

Either purchase outright or don't go solar. My MIL put a solar lease on one home and a month later pre-paid solar on another. She thought she was well informed about the choices but now regrets both deals after truly understanding the freedom of purchasing and not being tied to a lease. Sad thing is, she had the cash to do both homes but the salesman scared her about the high cost of caring for the system if she owned it.

**johnny4791** · 12-02-2019, 10:05 PM

Originally posted by noxiouscloud

johnny4791, seeing that you are in San Jose. I was able to get a SolarEdge system with 14 of the REC TP2 290 panels (4.06kw) installed for $11,600 before tax incentives at the end of 2017 by a shop located in Campbell. I own the system outright. You can do much better than the quote you got from SunRun.

Excellent info @noxioscloud.. that's what forum meant for.. I'll explore more with this info..

Sunrun Prepaid lease quote - Bay area, CA

Sunrun Prepaid lease quote - Bay area, CA

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