The nationwide companies are horrible when is comes to support and have the poorest install quality in my opinion. Go with a local, quality installer with good reviews on solarreviews.com

Thanks for feedback Solarix. I am skeptical of reviews online because they typically seem to be easy to fake and of course then you have the bias of satisfied customers hardly ever posting reviews so I was hoping to get genuine insight and feedback from unbiased knowledgeable folks like those on this site. Based on components and or installers any recommendations? I am in S California.

1.) Do not lease or PPA - Ever - or under any circumstances. They are traps. You will regret such a decision. Especially Vivant and Sunrun who were both bottom feeders before they combined, along with SolarCity that got incestually swallowed by Tesla.
2.) Learn about energy conservation first and PV second before you do anything else. Then, estimate use reduction from those efforts before sizing any future PV.
Not using energy is far and away more cost effective than throwing expensive PV at an electric bill that can easily be made lower (and the PV smaller = less $$ BTW) by lifestyle adjustmants and energy conservation measures before any PV installation.
3.) If you truly want unbiased knowledge, buy a copy of "Solar Power Your Home for Dummies" and read it before you commit to spending money. ~ $25 - cheap. You need an education. It'll give you the basics. Then, if you want insight and feedback, come back here and fill in knowledge gaps your self education creates. Besides, your questions will then have more meat on them. You'll get out what you put in. Spoonfeeding gets you pablum.
4.) If your thinking about a roof mount - which is common - get your roof inspected and serviced before you commit to any vendor. PV on a roof can last a long time. Chasing a leak is never easy. Under an array it's nearly impossible. Give your roof a high probabilty of lasting as long as the array on it.
5.) After your self education as described in 3 above, if you do commit to PV, go for a quality install, and that means a quality local vendor who's been a licensed, local electrical contractor who's been in business at least as long or preferably as long as PV has been popular. Know that solar vendors are dropping like flies. Established long run electrical contractors who also sell PV are probably your best bet at having a vendor be around in the future.
6.) Spend as much or more time and effort evaluating vendors as you do equipment (which is mostly a commodity these days anyway).
- Have the goal of most bang for the buck with overall quality in mind, not low initial price.
- Buying low buck is the errand of shortsighted fools. Especially with something as expensive and isolated as rooftop PV.
- Negotiate tough but fair - and remember - everything is negotiable.
- Vendors are in business to make money by putting PV on your propery, not necesarily by lowering your electric bill. Still, vendors need to make a profit.
- Don't fall for the price matching game. It's a trap for suckers. You'll only pay more if you fall for it. Think about it from the vendor's perspective and you may understand why.

Welcome to the neighborhood and the forum of fewer illusions.

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

My feedback is to reduce your loan term. 20-25 years is excessive and costly. Is there an early pay-off option for which you could pay more towards the principle? Are there shorter term loans?

A trick I used was to refinance one of my cars with a 2% credit union loan. I used the proceeds from that car loan to pay off the solar system. I then paid off the car loan in four years.

Thanks for the feedback. After over 24 hours of actual time spent evaluating and comparing proposals I have chosen to go with Vivint Solar (aka Sunrun) for the following reasons: I have security through them already and they offered a $25 monthly credit for 25 years which nets their cost out to be the lowest of all proposals. I am financing for 25 years because cash flow is king for me as I will only probably be in this house another 10 years and I want to see savings upfront rather than after that time in which case this house will most likely be another rental property for me and I can share the energy savings with my future tenant like I am doing on my previous house. I got Vivint to use REC Alpha 405W panels instead of the qcells they defaulted to and not charge any more. Yes customer service may be somewhat challenging with the large company but there is peace of mind in knowing that they are unlikely to disappear and I would just have to be persistent in support. The installer they are using is Freedom forever which I have seen a fair amount of negative reviews but they are one of the largest installers for my area so once again as long as I am persistent I should be able to get a good install.

r.i.p.

That may not be the greatest choice based on other member input but let us know how it goes for you.

I hope you don't regret that decision when the time comes to sell that house ....

I don't even recommend using a loan to go solar no matter how good of a deal it seems. As soon as you go into debt for anything that depreciates that much in value, someone else will always have you by the short hairs one way or the other. Are you really thinking that a 20-25 year loan to go solar is a great idea?

The best solar system is the one you can afford. If you have a desired end game, which I believe is 7KW. Maybe you do 3KW today, but do it in a way that is easy to add the extra 4KW and get approval, if grid-tied for the 7KW. As time goes the cost normally goes down thanks to technology, etc. In the current state of the world, who knows what next year will spring.

The panels over time go to zero between degradation and advanced in efficiency. Inverters/MPTT will continue to function but in even 10 years the connectors will change along with compatability, so their value drop. In 20 years the system has value to you because it is paid for, generates power at say 84% of original capacity, and its installed and working. For most places solar doesn't increase the selling value of a property, not because it lacks value but because buyers choose not to value it because they want it for free and because real estate agents aren't sure how to value it.

I've thrown out a lot here, but buy the system you can write a check for, but understand how you will expand it one day into the system you want.

While I agree that panel costs will come down the installation for them may go up. That is based on if companies decide to increase the labor costs like they are doing in stores.

While I feel good that people may get a better wage (>$15/hr) my fear is that labor increase will be passed onto the products and may put a lot of things outside the reach of people that can't afford to purchase those items. Just look at some of the stores that have raised their labor rates. You see a lot less check out people in them now. People are getting paid more but some are getting laid off due to the higher labor rates.

Nor do I, at least not without a very thorough cash flow analysis that uses realistic but still conservative assumptions about the future, and especially for things like long term loans.

The OP seems to be one of the solar ignorant who see what they want to see and are pissed about high electric bills and so he drank the solar peddlars kool-aid and now has his mind made up and doesn't want to be confused by being told the realities of the residential PV game as it's played in CA or what the POCO sand their PUC stooges may have in store just around the corner.

But then, maybe we're all just a bunch of pessimistic nay sayers.

not knowing the size of your house... the size of that system knowing you are going to be adding TWO electric cars in the future, that system is not big enough.

I'd like to learn how you know that a 7kW system will not meet the OP's needs without knowing anything else except the OP plans on 2 EV's.