Let's Talk Solar 101.....Part #2

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In Solar 101 part #2 we roll up our sleeves and explore with real-life examples how solar energy could be a game-changer for you. Your hosts, Ralph and Ben break down the nitty-gritty of solar savings, discussing the dynamics of old electric bills, solar bills, and new electric bills. We'll share compelling examples of people whose lives were changed through solar energy and cautionary tales of others whose hasty decisions led to unanticipated burdens. We'll also tackle the often-misunderstood realm of solar financing options, detailing the pros and cons of various purchase methods, from cash to financing to leasing. We aim to provide you with data-backed insights so you can make an informed decision about whether solar energy is a feasible option for you. We look forward to enlightening your journey towards achieving energy independence and financial savings with solar power!

1:55 The Solar Savings Chart

7:29 Not all homes are the same

12:46 Real Life Example of when solar is a great idea

20:12 Real Life Example of when solar is a bad idea

27:06 200% offset, you still have a bill from the utility

34:36 Solar System Purchasing Options

38:33 Going Solar with Cash

40:28 Going Solar with Financing

43:56 Re-amortization with a solar loan

49:23 Understanding Solar Options and Decision-Making

50:23 Going Solar with a Lease

Episode Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to another episode of the Harman solar
podcast.
I'm your host, ralph Romano, vpof sales and marketing at
Harman solar, and alongside meis my co-host, ben Wilkslager.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
We know him as Mr, everything, it's good to be back
.
We don't need to go into my job, tyler, because this is just
part two.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
We're not going to do that, so this is part two.
So we leave that alone.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
My job title has not changed in like 10 minutes.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
So this is episode eight, part two.
This is a continuation of thesolar 101 podcast that we
recently did, and this is now.
We're going to get into thesavings and some other stuff and
we're going to give some reallife examples and show some of
this thing so people can get anidea of number one, how the
savings work.
We're going to talk about howheavy a home isn't the same and
then we're going to show somereal life examples and then

(01:04):
we'll get into the purchasing,the financing and all that kind
of stuff as well.
So the meat and potatoes ofsolar this is the meat and
potatoes of the solar.
We gave you all the equipmentand how that works, and we gave
you all that first, so we setyou up and now we're going to
get you.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
This might be the most important podcast right
here, because everyone wants toknow like what am I going to pay
?
Solar is a scam.
I'm not saving money, all thisstuff.
We have proof of both scenarios, correct?
People saving money and peoplenot saving money who should
never go solar.
I know we talk about a lot onthe podcast, but now we have
shown you actual data.
You know of real life peoplethat have reached out to us of

(01:39):
whether or not they want to gosolar and we took a look at it,
and so here's the data.
Here's all of it for you.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
The proof is in the pudding.
Yeah, all right, so let's getto our wonderful slides.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
What do we got?

Speaker 2 (01:49):
first.
So we're going to talk first iswe're going to show you.
I love this.
We actually I don't know ifwe've invented this, but we did
this a long time ago and wecreated the savings kind of
chart and we put this up at homeshows and different things that
we do and it's a real greatvisual of understanding how the
savings and solar work.
So let's look at it.
So you've got like threedifferent sections in a sense.

(02:09):
So you have your old electricbill.
You can see that in the grayand we start today.
This is where your bill is at.
You see how it's the highestpoint and if you did nothing, if
you didn't go solar, you justlived your life and you paid
your utility bill and you wentthrough the 4% annual increases
on average that we assume forthis chart.
You can see where your electricbill goes.

(02:31):
They call it the cost of doingnothing.
The cost of doing nothing, thecost of it.
Right, or procrastinating for 20years.
This is what it would look likeand it's typical right.
That's what all our with allour bills.
It could probably do this togas everything else that we pay
for 20 years ago to now.
You would look at the see thissame kind of grid.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
And what's funny is is this is not made up Like we
didn't just decide to make alittle graphic that has your
bills going up.
Right, it's public information.
You can go on to your utilitysites and it'll say by the way,
we're increasing rates on thisday.
Right, exactly, and you canlook at the historical increases
of these rates.
It's out there.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yep.
So this is a great visual.
For those of you that I'm veryvisual, I need to see things.
So for me, this is what thiswas my aha when I looked at this
the first time.
I went yeah, this makes a lotof sense.
Yeah, so you see your oldlecture bill we just talked
about, then your solar bill, andyour solar bill is down there
in that orangeish color.
It's a set straight bill.
It does never increase.
That's what you pay for yoursolar yeah, we'll do escalators.

(03:26):
Yeah, well, we can, we can doescalators, but typically we
never do, unless somebody reallywants one.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
But you'll typically see we'll get into that later.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah, that's the least thing.
But so you see, your solar billis flat lined for 20 years, so
not not going to change thepower that you're producing on
your roof.
That's what you're going to payfor it Right, today, tomorrow,
20 years from now done, and thenyou have what's called the new
electric bill.
That's the turquoise part, andwhat that is is you're always
going to pay your solar and thenyou're going to pay a piece to

(03:56):
the utility and of course it'sgoing to go up over time because
utility rates increase, butyou're not going to have that
steep incline that they, thatthey have if they don't do
anything, because you're you'rebuying most of your power,
particularly, hopefully, firstoff from solar and it's a fixed
payment.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah, the bulk of your payment is going.
The bulk of the power thatyou've purchased is from your
solar system.
Right, it's just the extra.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
So look at today and you can see if you, if you add
the solar bill and the newelectric bill, that's where
you're at for what you're payingfor power versus what you would
have been paying or what youwere paying to the utility, and
then over time you can see whereyour bill is, the two combined
versus what you would, what itwould be if you did nothing.
This is the whole premise ofsaving money with solar.

(04:38):
Your bill, your new bill plusyour solar bill together added
together, going against your oldelectric bill, that should be
less than what you were payingbefore.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
Yeah, always.
And it's a funny.
It's a funny thing that wementioned because a lot of
people will say like, oh, Ican't afford solar.
Yeah, you know, like I can'tafford it.
And to me, if it makes sense,if you are a candidate and we
can show savings because, again,like we mentioned before,
there's certain cases where itdoesn't if it makes sense, then
yes, you can, because you can.
Actually, you know if you canpay your current electric bill,

(05:14):
then yes, you can pay for solarbecause it's less.
It's not like buying, you knowcabinets for your home, because
when you buy cabinets for yourhome, you pay that fixed, you
know costs, whether it's youknow cash or finance, and you're
paying for that.
Those cabinets aren't reducinganother bill in your right Good
point, whereas solar, you'rebuying solar.
Yes, you're paying for solar,but that payment is now reducing

(05:37):
another payment because I getit.
You know people are, you know,budget their finances out and
all that stuff, but they'reincluding the cost of their
electricity.
You know like, oh, I'm used topaying $200 a month for my
electricity, but okay, but whenyou get solar, you're no longer
paying that $200 a month.
You're supposed to be payingless.
So it's taking care of that.
So you know, when people saythat I can't afford solar, I'm
like, no, you can't afford notto go solar Right.

(05:59):
Exactly.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Yeah, for the most part.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
Absolutely yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
And so I mean, if you get anything from this, from
this episode, it's this, it'sthis grid.
This is how it works.
Right, this is the idea behindsolar.
This is what's made it sosuccessful, because this is
exactly how it works.
There are going to be scenariosand it just depends on your
situation where maybe your solarbill and your new electric bill
are equal to what you're payingtoday, sure, or maybe they're

(06:23):
even a couple of dollars more,but over a 20 year period, 25
year period, you're going to seethat they're going to separate
and you're going to save money.
Again, it just depends on yourscenario.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
What.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
I'm showing you in this grid is typical.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
Yeah, cause we know there's people that have
different things that they'veadded onto their solar payment.
You know they had to upgradetheir roof or their service
panel or they wanted to get, youknow, batteries and EV chargers
and all that stuff.
So this graphic is more justthe solar right Solar aspect of
it.
All the other stuff added ontoit is hard to visualize, right?

Speaker 2 (06:53):
If you redo your roof and then maybe do a charger and
a battery, so your startingpoint might be a little higher,
right?
But over the 20 year period,you're still getting the savings
Right, right.
So this is.
This is a great thing.
Just to take this screenshot,this do anything you need to do.
Call me and I'll send it to you.
Email me this.
This is the basis of everythingthat we do.
This is how.
This is how solar savings works.

(07:14):
Right Period?
End of story.
Hang it on your refrigerator.
Hang it on your refrigerator.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
We should make magnets of this.
That'd be funny.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
Yeah, but what?

Speaker 1 (07:20):
is this you don't worry about it.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
All right, so that that is how solar savings work.
Now we're going to talk aboutwe've mentioned this a lot of
times over the podcast thatwe've done, episodes we've done.
Not all homes are the same, Iknow.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
What do you mean?
A lot of people think they are,though.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
They think they are and they're just not.
I mean, so me and Ben have thesame exact house.
It doesn't mean we use thingsthe same way, right, right?
So here's an example I'mshowing on these slides I have
two 2000 square foot homes.
They're both red.

Speaker 1 (07:50):
Oh, interesting.
So yeah, that's a hugedifference in solar.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
It is.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
Absolutely More sunlight.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
So this home on the left has a husband and wife and
they got a lot of kids.
You know, they got a lot oftime in their hands.
They keep their energy, theykeep their air conditioning at
72.
Okay, they got a pool.
Okay, because the kids like toswim.
They got an electric car, okay,right, pretty good setup.
That's the average Americanfamily.
Maybe they have a little bitmore kids than most average
family, but whatever, you know,they like kids.

(08:16):
They got one, two, three, four,five, six, seven.
They got a lot of kids, okay,all right.
And then what you got is theneighbor.
That's Ben there, I am.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
When he had hair.
Right, it's a good looking manright there.
Look at that guy.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
He keeps his thermostat at 97.
Oh well, you know, I like it.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
He likes it.
I got really warm in my house.
He likes it.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
He likes it warm, right?
So I mean, just in that exampleyou have two of the exact same
homes.
Yep, they use power completelydifferent, right Right, Ben's
never home.
He's working all the time.
He's out at cigar bars at night.
He doesn't care what his housetemperature is, cause when he
gets home he'll probably turn itdown.
It'll be like nine o'clock atnight cause he's a late guy.
Yeah, these guys are home allday.

(08:54):
You know, the wife's home withthe kids, maybe she home schools
, whatever she's doing, but Imean she's keeping it at 72.
She's.
They're going to use a lot morepower on the left side here
than they were on the right.

Speaker 1 (09:03):
But if you notice the things that are the same, the
house.
So when we have people come upto us and say, mom, it's just
solar for a 2000 square foothome, are you the person on the
left or are you the person onthe right, exactly, or you're
somewhere in between.
Exactly, we don't know, right,we have no idea.
I don't care about your squarefootage, I care about what's
going on in the home.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
Customized solar systems.
Yep Period.
That's how this is done.
So this is a great visualexample just to kind of make our
point.
Yeah Right, so I'm going toshow you some saving examples on
the and these are just actually.
I believe these are both realexamples.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
Real life?
No, they are these are reallife examples that I had pulled.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
So let's go here so that you had pulled interesting
and then we'll get into yourstuff.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
Oh, these are actual these are.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
These are my actuals and we have your actuals.
Ralph did work, ralph did work,okay.
So in this example one they had, they had an electric bill of
$200 a month.
That was their average bill.
So they were spending $2,400 ayear on electricity.
They went solar.
They went with zero down $90per month for solar with their
pan.
Okay, pretty good deal.
This is back when the rateswere really low too.

(10:02):
So this is a.
This is an example from backthen.
So zero down, $90 a month,they're electric bill.
Now they're new bill is $35.
So we just talked about thegrid, right, $90 for solar, $35
is their new bill.
That is, that's the savings.
How much 90 plus 35 equals $125.

(10:23):
$100, he knows math $125 amonth on average, for a new
annual of $1,500 per year.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
That goes back to what I was saying about kitchen
cabinets.
When you buy a kitchen cabinetsit doesn't reduce anything.
Solar reduces in a bill thatyou already are paying.

Speaker 2 (10:40):
Exactly, and so this customer is now saving.
So basically, they're spending$75 per month or $900 per year.
That's what they're saving.
I said that wrong.
They're saving $75 a month onaverage.
$900 per year is what they'resaving.

Speaker 1 (10:56):
Pretty good, pretty good, right, I would like that
next year $900 in the pocket,hey, a year.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
So one more example.
So example number two Oldelectric bill.
This is a bigger house.
$400 per month was what theywere paying on average.
So they're paying $4,800 a yearfor solar I mean for power,
with before solar.
So they go ahead and go solarzero down $150 a month.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
Not bad Bigger system .
It's gonna cost a little bitmore.

Speaker 2 (11:18):
It'll cost a little more.
Their new electric bill $35 amonth.
Okay, pretty good.
So total cost of electricityfor them now $185 per month and
they're gonna spend $2,220 peryear on average.
That's good savings.
And that's again with new bill,solar bill, yep added together,
added together, so we're at 22,20 per year, they're saving an

(11:41):
average of $215 per month, or anannual of $2,580 savings.
Now caveat, provided they usepower the same way they've been
using it before solar Cause theymight decide to use more.
They've got some room now,right, so maybe they're paying
25, they're saving 25, 80.
Maybe they want to put thethermostat a little lower, so

(12:03):
maybe they're gonna cut intothat savings, use a little more
power, but still they've got theroom to do it.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
Yeah, yeah, just like the previous example you saw,
ben's house was at 97 degreesapparently.
If I've talked to my salesconsultant, I said hey, I'm
living at 97 cause I'm trying tosave money, but I would like to
live a little bit morecomfortable.
I want to put my thermostatdown to a reasonable temperature
, so I might need more panels,more power to do so.
So I still want to save money,but I also want to live a little

(12:29):
bit more comfortable, so designa system that can do that for
me.
Great, exactly.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
Though that is an option.
So those are my two.
Those are actual examples.
I've used those examples intraining and stuff just to show
people how it kind of works.
So those are my examples.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
Now we're gonna get into Ben's examples, real life
numbers.
These are his real life numbersNow he's got some really cool
information.

Speaker 2 (12:49):
I'm gonna let you drive this car.
Go ahead, because these areactual customers that you've
dealt with and helped or didwhat you could.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
So what I like to do with my customers is I go into
depth, I probably do more thanwhat's needed with customers and
a lot of them tell me like, wow, you just, you're very
technical, you have a lot ofinformation that you're just,
you know, putting out there andI feel like I need to be
transparent because you know youhave to be.
So what I do is I look at okay,what's your cost before solar?

(13:20):
So usually I get into yourutility count, I pull data, see
how much you're using.
What time of day are you usethe most power?
You know, are you 20% on peakor are you a 10% on peak type
person?
You know what?
Do you set your thermostat out?
What's your future gonna belike?
All these I ask all thosequestions, you know, and it's a

(13:40):
lot of information that I askbecause I need that so I can
customize your system.
So in this example you see atthe top, that's all before solar
.
So these are actual bills fromsomeone paying before solar.
So you know, in January,february, they're paying $222.
And then, as you can see thatbell curve that we've talked
about many times, beforesummertime they were paying, you

(14:01):
know, $700, $600.
Wow, so they're paying $2,000each month and then drops back
down in the winter.
Those were there before solarbills.
Those are big bills.
Yeah, man, they used a lot ofpower, they used a ton of power,
you know, and again, this istheir situation.
So if you're looking at thisand you're like, well, my bills
aren't $700.
Okay, well, that's you, this istheir situation.
Everyone's gonna be different.
So, in their situation, that'show they use power and that's

(14:23):
how they used, or that's howmuch they spent After getting
solar.
They're APS bills.
Oh, I don't know if I shouldhave said that.
Is it APS?
It's okay.
Yeah, so their APS billsdropped down significantly, as
you can see.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
That's insane.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
And this is what I tell people nowadays, when you
get solar just because of howrates are and how the buybacks
and the credits and all thatstuff goes if you are offsetting
a lot of your power via solar,you're probably going to get
negative bills in the earlyspring.
And that's what those creditsthat we always talk about.
You want to build credits.
Credits are like your savingsaccount.
You build up a lot of creditsto carry you over through the

(15:02):
summer because in the summertimeyou're gonna be using a lot
more, as you saw from theirprevious bills.
So you're building creditsbecause your solar system's
producing more than you're usingBecause, as you know, in the
springtime it's bright and sunny, but we're not running our AC
24-7 like we are in the summer.
So where does that extra powergo?
Goes to the grid.
Grid buys it at a certain rateand you get credit for that.

(15:24):
So this is an example ofsomeone who's overproducing, but
not by too much, but justoverproducing enough so that
they build up those credits.
I mean, they have negativebills in the springtime, so
that's kind of nice.
They went from paying $200 and$400 in the spring to not having
a bill.
For what is that?
One, two, three, four, fourmonths out of the year not
having a bill.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
You know what really is cool?
You stand out there.
Low bill before solar was $204.
And that was their I guess thatwas our March bill.
If you look at the March billwith solar, it's a negative 169.
It's pretty good A credit of169.
And then if you look at thesummer, like I looked at July
$737 bill before solar, julywith solar $87.
Now obviously that plus wouldthey have to pay for solar,

(16:06):
which you can talk about in asecond.
That's dramatic, that's a hugedrop.
This person, I guarantee youthey're loving the fact they
were paying $5,000 a year forpower.
They're not anymore.

Speaker 1 (16:16):
This is a great example of what.
I mentioned it a couple oftimes already kitchen cabinets.
When you're buying kitchencabinets, it doesn't reduce
anything in your home.
Solar's reducing these alreadyhigh bills.
So when you say I can't affordsolar, that's when I show people
this and I go well, if you canafford $200 a month, $200 a
month, $500 a month, $700 amonth, $600 a month, then I'm
pretty sure you can afford.

(16:37):
Negative 64, negative 123,negative 70.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
Can't afford to pay $5,000 to their utility, but I
can afford that, but I can'tafford to pay probably about
$2,000 or less.

Speaker 1 (16:48):
I can afford to keep paying them more, but I can't
afford to pay them less.
That's backwards.

Speaker 2 (16:52):
Think about the golf clubs you can buy with the money
you're saving.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
All right, calm down, now calm down.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
And so their loan is right there too, as a 300 month
loan 1.49 APR, so again solar'snot free.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
I know there's a lot of bad information out there.
You have to pay for solar, sothen you have to ask yourself
okay, well, how much is thesolar system then?
How much are they paying forthat?
Are they paying $500 a monthfor that?
No, there's an actualscreenshot right there of their
solar loan.
So it was 300 month loan, 1.49%financing.
This was a few years ago.
Terms have changed, so if youwant to quote an updated one,

(17:23):
let us know.
Their loan payment is $181.65.
So even if you take theirhighest bill, which is what is
that?
1.59, so let's call it 1.60 andyou add on their $181 a month
loan, that's a lot lower thantheir $700 monthly summer
payment before 40% less, yeah,so they're still saving money

(17:45):
even with that loan, and thebeauty of that is, once the loan
is paid off, then they don'thave that loan payment anymore.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
So savings is even great.
You have months where with themoney you're saving, $231,.
You have a negative 231 inApril.
You put that.
I mean that covers your loanpayment.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
That gives you extra money.
Right, that's what I tell a lotof my customers too is just
because you have a 20 year loanor 25 year loan doesn't mean you
have to spend the full 25 yearspaying that loan.
If you notice like, wow, Ididn't have an APS bill this
month and I'm normally payingthem about $200, maybe I'll take
that $200 and just put ittowards my loan.
Pay it off faster.
That would make a lot of sense.

Speaker 2 (18:21):
Yeah, and just to prove to you we're not just
making this up yeah, right,here's the next slide is the
actual before bill.
It's one of the before bills,right?

Speaker 1 (18:28):
Yep, so there's.
If you see the totalelectricity charges before
bottom left-hand corner, they'repaying 600 bucks.
This was for the month of Juneand May.
You can see that in the topright-hand corner.
So next slide after solar 142.
For the same month period theyused about the same amount of
power, but now they only paid$142 for it.
What you're saying is it kindof works it kind?

Speaker 2 (18:50):
of works and again that's 142,000.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
It's just their utility bill plus the 181 for
the solar system is stillsignificantly less than 600.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yeah, this is a great example and maybe we can you
could even kind of see thecredits that are on the bill and
all that stuff.

Speaker 1 (19:04):
Yeah, you can see they have a $143 credit because
that's the extra power that theyproduced.
It went to the grid and theutility company bought it back
from them, so it reduced theirbill because it was going to be
285, but then they had thecredit from the previous month
and rolled over and that'sthat's really cool.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
You know, what's really cool is the comparing the
monthly uses.
When you go to the very bottomon the right, your average daily
cost I think it's 474.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
Oh, yeah, 474 this month, last month 45 cents, that
one 45 cents 45 cents.

Speaker 2 (19:36):
Wow, it's pretty good .
This is very good.
This is a great example of whysolar is such a great
opportunity for everybody.
Now, this is not whateverybody's going to experience,
but this is one example, and Iknow you're going to get into a
bad idea here real soon, butthis is if it works for you.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
This is typically what it looks like.
Again, there's a lot of peopleout there who shouldn't go solar
.
This is one case that they'reglad that they went solar
because they are savingthousands of dollars a year
because of they were spending alot before and now they're
spending a lot less now.

Speaker 2 (20:11):
Right.
So, and one of the things wetalk about is Harman solar will
tell you no.

Speaker 1 (20:15):
And people hate that.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
And people hate that, and we're going to show you an
example of somebody that we saidno.
And what we would have said,what makes the most?
We would have said no to, butthey went solar.

Speaker 1 (20:27):
Yeah, sometimes, um, I think if you Google my name
and solar reviews, I do have abad review out there, because I
told some person, no, theyshouldn't get solar, because I
did all the numbers.
I looked at everything and Isaid, oh yeah, this actually
doesn't make sense and she wasadamant about doing it anyways.
And she decided to do itafterwards.

(20:47):
And me, the type of person thatI am, I decided to follow up
and said so, how's everythinggoing Nice?
And uh, yeah, it turned out itwasn't a good idea.
I'm like see, I told you I'drather make no money and sleep
at night than, uh, you know,then take advantage of someone
just to make a quick buck.
That's not who I am.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
So let's look at this person's case.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
This is so, yeah, this is again before and after
and I color coded and everything.
So before they were paying.
Um, you know APS about, youknow a hundred, some dollars in
the early spring got up to maybeabout $400 in the summertime,
which is when a lot of peoplestart going.
I should probably get solar.
I have a $400 bill.
Will it make sense for me?
So that's why I do all this.

(21:28):
You can't just look at thedollar amount, you can't just
look at the total usage and go,oh yeah, you know you're, you're
paying a lot and you're using alot.
What I do is I take a look atwell, what rate are you paying?
So what I do is so the columnto the far right is the rate I
take, how much they're using andhow much they're paying, and I
divide those two right, justlike your payment at the pump.
If gas is $4 a gallon and I get10 gallons, that's $40.

(21:50):
So same thing with you knowyour utility bill.
If I paid $120 and I used 1,190kilowatt hours, that means I
paid 10 cents per kilowatt hour.
So I take that into accountwhen I'm I'm take a look at it
to see is it going to make sense, because right now in APS, the
average, like we mentionedbefore, is about 16 cents.

(22:10):
This person's paying 11 cents.
It's really good they're waybelow average.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
Yeah, I was just gonna.
I was noticing that going thisperson, their current situation
before solar it's not bad.
Yeah, so they actually wouldtell them no way, yeah, you're
doing good.

Speaker 1 (22:23):
And the reason why I found out because they're not
really home during on peak timesbecause of the work schedule,
they don't pay really theexpensive rates, so they're
mostly paying off peak andbecause they're a home at only
you know late at night andthey're gone throughout the day,
so it it didn't really makesense for them because they were
paying a pretty low rate tobegin with.

Speaker 2 (22:40):
Now the only way I would probably tell this person
it could be a good idea is if Ican give them solar and keep
them pretty much where they'reat.
I know that the future savingswould be there, so that would
make sense.
But you can tell right off thebat when you go to this next
part of this, it's this.
Then this wasn't that way.
No, not, not at all.
No, no.

Speaker 1 (22:57):
So take a look at, okay, once they got solar, yes,
their bills went down.
You're like, cool, I gotnegative bills, things like that
.
But look at my summer bills.
They were pretty high.
And then the account for mysolar loan.
You put them that the it was$184 for their solar loan.
Add those two numbers togetherand you can see the totals that
I've highlighted.

(23:18):
I don't know if you can pointon the screen or whatever, but
before they were going solar,they used 2,000, 400 or 24,623.
After going solar, they used22,522.
So it went down.
So they lowered their usage,which is really odd, which is,
yeah, very strange.
They used less power.
So you would think, if I useless power, I should be paying

(23:40):
less.
But they actually paid $3,598versus 2,700.
Wow, so they used less, butbecause of the solar loan and
because of you know it wasn't agood fit for them they ended up
paying more.

Speaker 2 (23:55):
They went from an 11 cent average to 16 cents.
A 16 cents average man.

Speaker 1 (23:59):
So that's a case where you should not have gone
solar.
That's a bad idea.
Yeah, and we do get thesepeople that call in.
They say, hey, you know thesolar company I went with.
They're out of business.
Can you guys do an analysis,cause I don't think I'm saving
money?
Those calls usually get go tome and I take a look at them and
I you know there's sometimeswhere I have to say I'm sorry to
say this, but I think you gottaken advantage of.

Speaker 2 (24:20):
And this could be a product of a lot of things.
It could be a product of asleazy salesperson who just made
a really nice commission onthis poor person and they're
paying for it Now.
I mean, maybe 10 years from nowthey might start seeing a break
Cause.

Speaker 1 (24:35):
the good part is they are locked in at that rate at
APS Because their solar loan ispaid off.
You know they don't have thatpayment.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
The problem is it's probably about a 20 or 30 year
loan 25 year loan so they'reprobably never going to really
get ahead.
They might reach a point whereit's okay, but you're still
you're going to lose so much toget to that point.
The overall, you know yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
When I'm quoting solar systems for customers, I
need to see savings day, one dayone year one.
I want to see.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
I want to see something yeah, something,
something yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
Not paying almost a thousand dollars more the first
year.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
Yeah, I'm not paying for a single year.
I'm paying for a single year.
So again it's got to be reallyclose or it's got to be
something, because you can't putyourself 10 years behind You're
never going to catch it.

Speaker 1 (25:15):
They will see a savings.
It just won't be right away.
You're 18.
Yeah, we've seen those, rightyeah.

Speaker 2 (25:21):
Yeah, this is a bad sales person that's doing taking
advantage of somebody is what.
I would say this is a consumerthat didn't really dive in to
kind of figure out.
You know what it was going todo for them.
I bet you and I'm looking atthe payments of the.
That's actually a 184 solarloan all the way across, yeah,
so I wonder if it re-amortized,we're going to get into that

(25:41):
stuff.
But that's interesting becausethen it's going to give him
worse.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
Sure, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (25:45):
Yikes.

Speaker 1 (25:46):
Yeah, but I mean, you know, an unexperienced sales
person is just going to look attheir usage.
They're just going to go oh,you use 24,623 kilowatt hours
before solar, so I need todesign a system that produces
that yeah, which, as you can see, they did you know they produce
, you know they have a systemthat produces that.
But it didn't make sense forthem to begin with because they
didn't get the full story, allthe information what was the

(26:08):
rate beforehand and how muchwere they charging for solar and
all that stuff?

Speaker 2 (26:11):
So we're going to talk about how loans work in a
little bit here and you're goingto see that this 184 a month is
going to become probably 270 amonth, yeah, in month 19.
Even worse, and so this poorperson's really they're never,
they're probably never, going tosee savings.
Yikes, that's horrible.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
That's unfortunately how some people in this industry
are, and this is why we'redoing this podcast?

Speaker 2 (26:31):
Yeah, all our podcasts that we do.
We're trying to protect youguys from being caught in this
situation Because unfortunately,we just see this too often.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
And it's a shame, but it happens and you got to
protect yourself.

Speaker 1 (26:42):
I want to know your horror stories.
So in the comment section youtell us your horror story.
I mean, I don't want to hear it, but I feel like it's good to
share it.
Share the good share the badI'd like.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
we'd love to share that with other people, but yeah
this is unfortunate.
I feel sorry for this personbecause there's not a whole lot
they're going to be able to do.
I know they're probably stuck.
You can't even buy out of it.
So, all right, a bad idea.
That's definitely a bad idea.
On to the next, let's talkabout a somebody that we talked
about offsets before.
An offset is basically so ifyou produce 20,000, you use

(27:13):
20,000 kilowatt hours, let's saya year.
If we give you a system thatgives you 20,000 kilowatt hours,
that's a hundred percent offset.
A lot of people in the industrysay well, I'll tell you what.
I'll do one better.
Let me sell you even a biggersystem and give you a 200%
offset, I'll produce.
You can produce 40,000 kilowatthours even though you only use
20, and that utility is going tobuy all that back and you're

(27:34):
going to be loving life.
You're never going to have abill.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
Raise your hand.
If you had a sales prep set,you'll never have a bill with
the APS.

Speaker 2 (27:40):
Ever, ever, you'll never, ever ever, ever have a
bill with the APS.
So here's an example ofsomebody and let you talk about
it.
It's a 200% offset.
You think they ever had a billlet's talk about it.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
Yeah, again, this is what I.
You know, part of what I do atHarmon is I people call in.
They have me analyze theirbills, whether they're our
customers or other.
You know customers from othercompanies that went out of
business or whatever.
I analyze them, so I take alook at okay, what are you
producing, what are you using?
How much are you paying?
What were you paying beforesolar?
What were you paying aftersolar?
So this is somebody that theirsolar production Every month is

(28:12):
way over their usage.
So at the very bottom you cansee that the total usage is
about 10,000 kilowatt hours.
That's how much their home wasactually using, but their solar
system is producing 20,000kilowatt hours, so it's
producing twice.

Speaker 2 (28:23):
You know twice as much as they're using and again
that power has to go somewhere.

Speaker 1 (28:28):
Utility company's gonna buy that.
That's why you see a lot ofthose, all those negative bills
on the right-hand side APS billnegative 75, negative 45, you
know.
So it's great not having a bill, but if you go down to the
summertime because, again, likewe've talked about, in the
summertime you use more than youproduce because we're running
our AC is 24 7, it's 110 degreeseven at middle of the night.
So you're using more thanyou're producing and, as you can

(28:50):
see, they're still.
They still have a bill.
Yeah for about what?
Three, four months.
Three, four months, which isgreat and fantastic.
He's only paying a hundred andfifty two dollars but they have
a year.
But Bob on is if the sales repsays you'll never have a bill
and then all of a sudden you geta bill in the summertime,
you're gonna be upset.
So it's good that a salespersonwill kind of give you all the
information.
Yet Even though it's a 200%offset, which maybe this person

(29:12):
has a lot of room on his rooffor panels, right, they're still
having a bill.

Speaker 2 (29:18):
So you're just spelling that myth?

Speaker 1 (29:19):
Yeah, because it's true.
Well, how about 300%?
Then bed like okay, well, thenmaybe that $60 bill will be $30
or something.

Speaker 2 (29:26):
And you got to remember too, if it's APS, for
instance I don't know if this isor not, but if this is APS,
they're probably locked into abuyback rate for ten years.
Yeah, and then year 11, thebuyback rate is whatever APS is,
buyback rate is that year.
So who, if this, that thisperson got locked in at a eight,
eight cent buyback rate, butten years from now the buyback
rate is two cents?
Yeah, they're gonna lose bigtime in this scenario.

(29:49):
Yeah, because for ten, that thenext ten years, they're only
gonna get two cents.
So they're gonna get you knowwhat, one fifth, one fourth of
what the credit is now.
Yeah so it's not a good scenariofor them.

Speaker 1 (29:59):
Yeah, I didn't put the solar payment on there
because they didn't finance it.
They paid cash on it, so it'skind of irrelevant, but if they
did finance, it, then you got toput that into it as well.
So then you're looking at well,you know, if I go too big, I
still have to pay for thatlarger system.
So now you're paying for asystem that's twice as big as
you need Be aware of the buybackrates.

Speaker 2 (30:19):
Yeah, whatever utility you work with, because
again it's SRP 2.81 cents.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
That's it.
It's tiny.

Speaker 2 (30:24):
You don't want to overproduce an SRP.
No APS, I think it's seven fourright now but it goes down 10%
a year and they're trying toeven get it lower.
You need to understand howthat's gonna fit into your
financial equation, because ifyou go too big, eventually it's
gonna get you.
Yeah, so if you're paying ninecents to produce this, guy's
probably paying about six orseven cents.
Maybe, say six cents, maybelong, maybe lower.

(30:45):
Let's say five cents.
He's probably paying five centsto produce this power because
you paid cash right, buteventually, if he starts paying
the, if the buyback rate goesless than what he's paying, yeah
, then he starts losing.

Speaker 1 (30:56):
He basically he bought power for five cents to
give it away for three.
For give a three, yeah, youdon't want to do that, you're
losing money in that, yeah, soin this case, he bought power
for five cents, please, sellingit for seven, which is great,
right?
But that's gonna change.
That's gonna change in tenyears, right?

Speaker 2 (31:08):
So so that that's a great example.
I think we actually have theactual yeah, so this one this
one's an okay, you know okaythat he has 200%.

Speaker 1 (31:14):
Maybe I don't know what they keep the thermostat in
the home.
Maybe, if you know, want tomake a little bit cooler.
Or if they decide to get anelectric car, you have that
wiggle room right.
You can, you know you, yourbills aren't gonna be affected
that much because that's okay.
You know you have a negative ahundred thirty four dollars in
April and you get decide againlet your car Maybe it's now a
negative eleven, you know makeNegative a hundred and ten

(31:34):
dollars in April.
Right, still negative.
So you have that extra room.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
So when we talked about an episode with Daniel,
when we talked about proposals.
I mean, if you have futureevents coming up or you're gonna
put a pool in, you're gonna doa car or whatever, it's okay.
We're gonna build a systemthat's a hundred twenty five
percent or whatever, because youwant to be ready for that event
.
That's gonna change, right.
This is a little bit ofoverkill.
Yeah, I Mean, but the other itmakes sense.
When I start seeing things like200% or higher, I start

(32:00):
questioning the motivation ofthe salesperson because,
honestly, the bigger system theysell, the more money I make.

Speaker 1 (32:04):
Yeah, the reason why this one came across my desk was
because of, as you can see, Igot it recently.
He was saying the sales guysaid I wouldn't have a bill.
In the past few months I'vegotten bills, of course, like,
okay, you should be happy withyour hundred fifty dollars, a
hundred fifty two dollars a year, which is great, yeah.
But you know, whoever sold itto you was a little bit

(32:25):
misleading, because you still dohave bills in the summer, right
.
So, yeah, I mean he's happybecause he's obviously saving
money and I went through what hewould have paid if he didn't
have solar, but he was just alittle upset that he was kind of
misled that he would.
You know I would never have abill and he saw the first nine
months that he didn't have abill.
But then summer rolls aroundand says guess what?

Speaker 2 (32:45):
you got a bill you got a bill, you got mail.
Yeah, that's a great example.
You don't see that very oftenfor people that yeah.
Kind of show you this in yourface, and there's the actual
bill that he had of.
Where is it 65?
Yeah, 65.

Speaker 1 (32:56):
Yeah, so there's.
There's that highest bill.
So, even though it's a hugesystem, it's.
I Wasn't just making thesenumbers up on the spreadsheet,
it was.
There's his actual bill.
There's his bill, yep.

Speaker 2 (33:06):
There's his credit.
All right, good examples, thankyou.

Speaker 1 (33:09):
That's really good.
I worked hard.

Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yeah, I worked.

Speaker 1 (33:13):
I'm rough, rough was asking me like, oh, do we have
examples of spreadsheets?
And I was like you understand,I have a whole computer full of
just data that I could share.
So if you, if you want, youdon't reach out.
I have tons and tons of data.
I love looking at these numbers.

Speaker 2 (33:26):
All right, so we've showed you savings and how it
works.
I think we've showed you prettyclearly that you can't afford
to not go solar in most cases.
You just need to understandwhere that applies to you, right
?
But you know, if you look atour grid again, you know it's
just it could be crazy what youcan spend.
We're talking about you know 15, 16 cents for a ps.

(33:46):
When we first started in this10 years ago, it was you know
nine ten.
Yeah, so I'm over there and theprojection of the way things are
going that you know, in 20years it could be, you know, 30,
40 could be like Hawaii couldbe right, we could get that high
.
I mean it's very possible, wedon't know.
So I mean you have to protectyourself against that.
So I mean you really need totake a look and see if it makes

(34:07):
sense or not.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
It's, most of the time, what we've preached many,
many times before, that you knowsolar isn't for everyone, but
everyone should take a look,yeah that's.

Speaker 2 (34:14):
We should have a t-shirt made.
Yeah, that's a really good.
I mean, that's exactly whatit's not for it.
We should put that up at thehome shows.
Yeah, it's all ours.
Not for everyone, but everyoneshould take a look.
Yeah, I love that I can, becauseit's true, because it up and we
just showed you why everyoneshould take a look, because some
of yeah works.
That was fantastic.
Some of you run away from it,right?
So all right, perfect.
So now we've gotten.
We've talked about savings.

(34:35):
Now we're gonna talk about howdo you, how do you purchase
solar, what mechanisms are inplace and what types of and what
types of things, that there'spurchases, there's lease, so I
call this purchase versus leasejust like buying a car or house.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
You know there's lots of different ways.
Yeah, you can buy in cash, youcan finance it, you can lease it
.
You know, we don't know to upto two scenarios.

Speaker 2 (34:57):
Right, cash purchase, finance, purchase versus at
least.
Yeah, all, right, so we'll putcash and finance in the same
boat for now, versus a lease,because they're very different.
Right?
So there's ownership youpurchase it, whether it's cash
or finance.
It's your equipment, you own it, there's the warranties on it
and all that stuff.
It's great, you have ownership.
There's tax credits.

(35:17):
We don't want to get too deepinto that, but there's a 30%
federal tax credit and there'sonly.
There's a thousand dollar up toa thousand dollar state tax
credit.
So if you have a tax liability,you pick, which means if you
pay the government money everyyear, you can have this tax
credit to put against that, andthat's awesome.
So you know you spend.
You know $30,000 on a system.
You have $9,000 tax credit plus90, $10,000 because you have

(35:39):
the state one.
So that's $10,000 you can puttowards your liability.
That makes a lot of sense, yeah,right, so a lot of us live in
that situation and that that'swhen I would definitely look at
a purchase versus a lease.
Now, when you talk about alease, you don't pay.
You don't pay taxes right tothe government because you never
owe them money.
They always owe you money orit's zeroes out so you can't
take advantage of the tax credit.

(36:00):
Well then there's a leaseoption, and the lease options
kind of nice because the companythat's giving you the lease,
they take advantage of the taxcredits, they use that tax
credit and then they pass thatsavings on to you because they
own it right because it's theirsystem.

Speaker 1 (36:12):
Yeah, they're the ones who purchased it, it's not
your system.

Speaker 2 (36:15):
It's their system.
They maintain it and theymonitor it.
It's all on them.
They give a productionguarantee, they give warranties.
So if it's not producing theway it should, they're gonna
take care of it, because theyneed it to produce, because
that's part of theirResponsibility to you.
They're gonna get the benefitof the credit, which is good for
their business.
It's basically a set it andforget it kind of system, right?

(36:35):
You basically just put it on theroof.
You buying, you're buying power.
Yeah, you're paying for thepower at a set kilowatt hour
rate and that's it.
It's not your system.
Yep, that's a, that's a lease,in a nutshell, which, in today's
times, is a really good, reallygood thing to have.

Speaker 1 (36:50):
Again, there's pros and cons to both.
We're not going to push you toone or the other.
There are companies who willsay oh no, don't ever do a lease
, leases are bad, like no, justbecause you don't offer leases,
how about that?
Or there's companies who willalso say don't ever do a
purchase, leases are the best,probably because you don't offer
a purchase.

Speaker 2 (37:07):
At Harmon, we offer everything, so I mean that,
again, we always talk about that.
We give you all the options andwhatever makes sense for you.
That's the way you should go.
We're not going to push you oneway or another.
If you want to own it and youwant to take tax credits, maybe
you want to own it.
You don't care about taxcredits?
That's great.
Okay, we'll do it, we'll letyou own it.
You want to pay cash?
That's great.
You want to finance it?
That's great.
Whatever you want to do, we'rejust going to show you what it

(37:30):
looks like in each way.
So I remember back in 2016, Iwant to say 2016, 2017, 98% of
our business was leases.
I mean, that's all we sold.

Speaker 1 (37:42):
It was very rare to see anything but a lease,
because it made a lot of senseback then.

Speaker 2 (37:46):
With the way net metering worked back there and
all that I mean.

Speaker 1 (37:49):
it was a, it was a no-brainer, absolutely
no-brainer Purchases were anoption, but at that time they
were just weren't as good.
It was weren't as good yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:56):
Didn't matter whether you had a credit or not, and
they had prepaid leases whereyou could pay up front that one
time.

Speaker 1 (38:00):
Those were fantastic, those were phenomenal.
They were so good they got ridof them.
Those were too good.
Yeah, those were too good whenpeople started realizing wait a
minute.

Speaker 2 (38:08):
But things change, cycles change.
It all depends on what theutility offering is and
everything else, and then thatdictates how this goes.
But so you have a purchaseoption, a lease option.
We kind of gave you kind of thedifferences around that and I'm
not gonna go into any moreslides.
That's really the end of myslides and we're gonna just talk
about.
We're gonna talk about thedifferent ways to buy a system.
So let's get into that.

(38:28):
It's like I said, there's cash,there's financing and there's
lease.
All right, cash is king.
Sure, cash will always look thebest.
Just like buying a car or ahouse or anything.
That you just you pay cash, youown it.
There's no payments.
So you basically just have yournew bill from your new solar
bill.
So you have, you have no solarbill, you just have a new bill.

(38:50):
You don't even have a solarbill.

Speaker 1 (38:51):
No.

Speaker 2 (38:52):
So that chart that we just talked about, you get rid
of the orange part, yep, and youjust have the new bill.

Speaker 1 (38:56):
And then you have to worry about your return on
investment, which I'm sure we'lltalk about with the financing.
Right, we'll talk about thatBecause with cash, you have now
an investment into it.
So you wanna look at okay, nowI'm saving money, but my APS or
SRP bills are now going down.
What's my return on investmentRight?

Speaker 2 (39:13):
So I'm spending $20,000 on a solar system.
How long is it gonna take me toget that 20,000 back?
Right, and that's gonna bebased on how much do I save each
month, each year?
Each?
I can't talk Each month eachyear and I would say a really
good scenario is five to sixyears.
Yeah, that's typical, yeah, soif you're five, six years and
you're earning your money back.
Yeah, you're loving life.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
If you have a sales representative who's showing you
a 12 year return on investmentor something, maybe ask some
questions Like why is this?
Are we charging too much?

Speaker 2 (39:41):
On cash, on cash.
Yeah Well, we're talking cash,right?

Speaker 1 (39:44):
now?
Well, that's the only way tohave a return on investment.

Speaker 2 (39:46):
Why not?
But people talk about it infinance, which is dumb, I know.
But yeah, so this is a cashconversation.
Right, your return oninvestment should be probably
five to seven years.
Yeah, if it goes higher thanthat, start questioning.
You get a double digit years oncash.
You're getting charged too much.

Speaker 1 (40:01):
You're either getting charged too much or there's
adders that you know about, like, oh I added a roof, or I added
car chargers, or I added thingslike that True, and then they
get that's your decision upfront and you know you're
impacting your return.
Just a solar alone right, A 10year return on investment.
Sorry, I'm asking questions.

Speaker 2 (40:17):
So cash, cash is king .
We love cash, cash, cash, cash.
It's funny, harmon's internalbusiness is probably 80% cash.
Oh yeah, our customer base isvery cash driven, yeah, so just
saying Then there's financing.
There are all sorts of solarfinance companies out there.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
They Go ahead, and boy has the industry changed in
the past year.

Speaker 2 (40:38):
Yeah, I would say that our economy and inflation
and our higher interest rateshave impacted the finance model.
Oh yeah, dramatically.
Oh yeah, fees have gone up,interest rates have gone up.
So, as those things you know,you have your savings here and
as the fees and the interestrates go up, it starts shrinking
your savings.
Yeah, it's gotten to a pointwhere in some cases it's just

(40:59):
flip flopped.
Yeah Right, so but you canfinance solar.
It's typically you can finance.
It's really 10, 12, 15, 20 or25 years.

Speaker 1 (41:09):
Just like buying a car, yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
I mean well, cars, don't think you do 20 or 25.

Speaker 1 (41:12):
Well, I know 15, but there's different options,
different lengths.
Right, there's differentlengths.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
There used to even be a 30 year option.
That one's gone away, yeah so.
But you have those financingoptions and the rates, which
were zero typically.

Speaker 1 (41:26):
Zero, zero four nine.
Zero four nine was the lowestZero nine nine, which was what,
the year and a half two yearsago Just 18 months ago.
Yeah, Crazy.
And then the White House saidlet's go.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
And so now, on the best rate you'll see, you're
about 449 up to 1299.
Depending on your credit, yourcredit drives a lot of that as
well.
Your typical credit score thatyou need is about, I would say,
640, is typical 650 around there.
There are some lenders that'llgo down to 600.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
But then you get what the fees are higher on those
the fees are higher on those.

Speaker 2 (42:01):
So everything is driven by what your credit score
is and the fees that apply withthat and all that stuff, and
those can be pretty high andimpact your savings dramatically
.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
And we're telling you all this to give you that
ammunition for that toolbox, soyou are more prepared than your
solar rep who comes out and sitsdown and talks with you.
You know it's like hey, I'vebeen watching the Harmon Solar
podcast, I know a lot aboutsolar and financing and all that
stuff, so let's get into it.

Speaker 2 (42:30):
Look at the number.
So the one thing that I'll tellyou is, when you're financing
solar, look at the amount you'refinancing.

Speaker 1 (42:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:38):
It's the best way to say it.
Yeah, look at the total amount.
I will tell you that there's anoption out there.
It's a credit union option thatwe have.
It's a national credit unionand in this market today it is
by far the best option out there.
It's pretty good.
There's literally no fees inthis loan.
It's a $249 fee to join thecredit union and do something

(43:00):
else or whatever it was.
Yeah, sign up fee, that's likeyour fee, and then the interest
rates, about 7.99%, and you willsee that that loan option by
far is the best option that wehave and it's the one that nine
out of 10 of our dealers, ourdeals, go with.
It's just a good option.

Speaker 1 (43:21):
But we have other ones.
How many loan options do wehave Not options, but companies.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
One, two, three, four , five right now See buffet of
options.
We have a buffet and some ofthe stuff is really good, so it
just depends on you, depends onwhat you want.
But we have the options to showyou.
We're not gonna guide you downone path.
Me, I would go down the cashpath.
If I had to finance, I'dprobably go down the credit
union path.
It just for me that's whatmakes the most sense.

(43:46):
So, but we can show you allthose different options.
But again to Ben's point whenyou're getting pitched solar,
make sure you look at this stuffand understand what these
options are.
Because here's the thing aboutsolar loans.
This is where they're a littledifferent.
So obviously you're getting a30% tax credit for solar.
A lot of people, when they'reselling you solar, are gonna
give you the number.
They might say, okay, let's sayyour system is $50,000.

(44:08):
They might come to you and say,well, it's not really 50, it's
35 because you have a 30% taxcredit.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
Yeah, oh, yeah, oh, that's not bad.
35 grand, that's pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
It's not 35, it's 50.
It's 50.
Okay, so don't deduct the taxcredit.

Speaker 1 (44:25):
They're making assumptions Because here's what
happens.

Speaker 2 (44:27):
Solar loans typically do something called a
reamortization.
So after 18 months the loanreamortizes.
So what does that mean?
So what that means is you get a$50,000 loan.
That they're saying is 35.
If you take that $15,000 of thetax credit and put it into the
loan, pay the loan company15,000, your new balance is not

(44:49):
20,000.
Your new balance is 35,000.
Which is what your initial loanpayment is based on.
So to keep your payment whereit's at for month 19,.
You've got to put that 15,000,that tax credit into that loan.
That keeps your payment on andyou're good to go.
Let's say you don't do that, ifyou don't do it.
So you get the sales guy andsays hey, it's 15 grand, it's

(45:11):
yours.
Go buy a boat, go buy a car, godo this, go do that.
So don't do it.
Okay, we'll find.
So let's say you don't do it,that $35,000 loan is now a
$50,000 loan and the paymentreflects the change.

Speaker 1 (45:22):
Off of 50,000.

Speaker 2 (45:23):
So that 180 payment is now 270, as an example.
So month 19,.
Your new bill is $270.
You better have accounted forthat $90 increase in month 19,
because that is real and that'swhat happens.
And don't let anyone tell youthat that is not part of a solar
loan, because they're a liar.
It's every solar loan period.

(45:45):
It's how it works.

Speaker 1 (45:46):
Yep, ask your sales rep how it adjusts like that
they better tell you.
Right, it should be in thepaperwork.

Speaker 2 (45:51):
So when you say, well , this $180 payment, that's
perfect, because I was paying200 before, so I'm good, I'm
saving 20 bucks, right.
Now all of a sudden month 19,.
You're $70 behind.
Now I'm paying more.
You're paying more because nowyou get your solar loan at $70
more, plus you're paying yourbill to the utility.
Now you're in that situationthat we were just showing you.
Now imagine that poor personwhen it re-amortizes, when it

(46:13):
re-amortizes at month 19.
Wow, it's gonna go up evenhigher, right?
So re-amortization is real.
Now the one credit union thatwe have.
What they do is the loan amountis the loan amount, and they
charge you the payment on thatloan amount and then they give
you it's flipped.

Speaker 1 (46:28):
It's flipped.
They show it flipped.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
And they give you three options where you can put
into the loan 10% at any time,three different times during the
life of the loan, and if you dothat, it drops the payment.
If you don't do that, thendon't do it and the payment is
what it is.
It never changes.

Speaker 1 (46:44):
Yeah.
So, in summary, a lot of salesreps will show you the fantastic
low payment and they'll kind ofignore the high payment because
they don't want to show youthat this loan options is
perverse.
It shows you, hey, this is thehighest it'll ever be.

Speaker 2 (46:57):
Worst case scenario.

Speaker 1 (46:58):
Worst case scenario, and it's only going to go down
if you decide to put the taxcredits towards it, and if you
don't, then don't.
They don't.
Well, at least you know whatthe highest payment ever was.
So, and even that highestpayment is still pretty good.
Yeah, it is pretty good.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
I was gonna say when you're signing your paperwork or
you're looking at yourpaperwork, look at right below
the payment.
There's typically a sentence ortwo and it's usually in the
proposal as well, and it talksabout this loan will re-amortize
at this amount.
If you don't see that numberanywhere, ask Say what's the
re-amortized amount on this loanif I don't pay the tax credit?
You have to know that numberand use that number to determine

(47:34):
if this is a good thing for youor not.

Speaker 1 (47:36):
Don't use the good number, cause that's going away.
And, if you want, I know thisis not a service that we
publicly advertise.
If you do have quotes fromother companies.
We'll take a look.
I'll take a look.
I'll be honest.
I'm sure Ralph is not gonnalike me saying this right now.
I have looked at other solarproposals from other companies
that are like legitimatecompanies like that we are, and

(47:57):
I would look at their deal andgo that's a good deal, Go with
them.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
Yeah, we've done that more than once.

Speaker 1 (48:02):
I have no problem doing that.
So if you are hesitant aboutyour quote, is it?
If it seems too good to be trueand you think your
salesperson's you know beingdishonest, send it to us.
We'll take an honest look at itand go yeah, you know, here's
the reality of it.
They're not telling you this orthis and that, and we'll give
you an honest opinion on what itreally is.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
Yeah, and I would say that.
Understand what the tax creditis and how it works.
Talk to an accountant yes.
Talk to H&R Block at Walmart.
Do whatever you gotta do, butask the questions not to a solar
sales guy that's trying to sellyour solar and make commission,
but to an actual taxprofessional that can help you
understand what's real andwhat's fake, Because you need to
understand.

(48:41):
Do you even have a liability toqualify?

Speaker 1 (48:43):
for this.
Is this real thing for you,your tax situation, not what
your sales rep is telling youyour sales.
Your tax situation is yours.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
Right, make sure it's gonna work for you, make sure
it makes sense for you, becauseyou did the homework and you
found out, because, again, theguy across the table is trying
to sell you something to makemoney.
So he's got his best interestin mind.

Speaker 1 (49:04):
Yeah, I know you need to have your best interest in
mind.
Yeah, when he comes to yourhouse and says, yeah, you'll get
the tax credit, how do you knowI'll get it?
No, you don't know my taxsituation.

Speaker 2 (49:12):
You're gonna get this , you're gonna get that.
You don't know anything aboutthat If they didn't ask you
remember we've talked about thisin previous episodes is what's
red flags there are for mysalesperson?
Are they asking this?
Are they asking that?
I mean go back and watch that.
You need to understand thosethings because it puts you in
this scenario where you canreally this can really hurt you.

Speaker 1 (49:29):
As you saw, as you saw on the previous slides.

Speaker 2 (49:31):
That person is in a bad situation.
They're not getting out of it.

Speaker 1 (49:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:37):
Unless they get an infusion of cash from somewhere.

Speaker 1 (49:38):
Well, that's the sad reality of it too.
You can't really go to courtwith that one situation.

Speaker 2 (49:44):
Like, you signed everything.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
The court's gonna look at like that's your
signature on every singledocument that you agree to.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
So You're stuck, you're stuck.

Speaker 1 (49:52):
And that's why there's a lot of bad publicity
with Solars, because peopledon't know what they're signing.
They get into it and theyrealize, oh, this was a horrible
decision.
But now I'm stuck for 20 years.

Speaker 2 (50:01):
We'll get that phone call saying hey, can you come
take this off my roof, because Idon't want that.
I'm gonna buy a system from you.
No, it's too late.
It's too late.
There's nothing you can do,yeah, so yeah, that's just a sad
reality.

Speaker 1 (50:13):
I'm not gonna give that money to you.

Speaker 2 (50:14):
It's not going away.

Speaker 1 (50:15):
It's not going away.
So and then?

Speaker 2 (50:18):
so we've talked cash, we've talked financing and last
we've kind of touched on leasesbut leases.
Again, you don't own the system.
A leasing company owns it.
They take the tax credit on itand you basically are just
buying that kilowatt hour orpower from that system from them
.
Maintenance free, worry free.
If something goes wrong, it'stheir system, they take care of
it.
They give you productionguarantees.
If you produce less in a year,then you've got a lot of money.

(50:40):
So You've got to make sure thatyou have in a year than you
should have.
They typically will cut you acheck at the end of the year.

Speaker 1 (50:47):
Or credit your account.
Or credit your account.
If you're paying monthly for it, they credit your account.
Yeah, one or the other.

Speaker 2 (50:51):
I think I give you the option but either way,
you're still getting that money,you're getting that credit.
If it's not producing, they'regonna go and see what's wrong
with it and they're gonna haveus come out and fix it.
I mean, so it's in their bestinterest to monitor that system
to ensure that it's doing whatit needs to do, because if it
doesn't, it costs them money.

Speaker 1 (51:05):
Yeah, that's a major difference between purchases and
leases too, because when aleasing company owns the system
and it underproduces, theycredit you the difference.
When you own the system, youown it, you're not crediting
yourself from the difference.
So if it underproduces, ifsomething goes wrong which it's
gonna happen but if itunderproduces, no one's writing

(51:27):
you the check because you own it.
So you have to be on top ofyour monitoring.
You have to make sure that youmonitor it.
So when something goes wrongyou're like, hey, my bill is
pretty high.
Why is that?
You need to contact us as soonas possible because it's your
system, your responsibility.
No one's writing you a checkfor that loss.
Production like Elise.

Speaker 2 (51:45):
Let me make that really.
I'm gonna say this really clearHarmon does not monitor your
solar system.
We do not monitor them at all.
You are responsible to monitorthat system.
If you don't, and it's notproducing, and then you call us
and say my system has beenproducing for six months, okay,
we'll come fix it and we do thewarranty work, but we're not

(52:07):
paying you anything because it'syour job to monitor it.

Speaker 1 (52:10):
Yeah, those six months.
Why didn't you contact usbefore?

Speaker 2 (52:12):
And if you have Elise , they're monitoring it because
they wanna make sure they fix it, because they don't wanna pay
you.
So that's the difference andhere's my caveat.
Last episode, the last part ofthis episode, we talked about
Tesla inverters.
Here's a cool thing about Teslathey monitor their inverters.
If it's not working, you get anemail and they contact the

(52:33):
installer and they go fix it.
Period, whether you financed it, Elise, whatever they do.
That that's a really cool thingthat Tesla does.
They don't wanna write thecheck.

Speaker 1 (52:43):
They just wanna make sure you're taken care of.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
So they monitor their equipment Pretty cool.
They monitor their batteries,they monitor inverters, but
Harman doesn't.
Harman does not, yeah, but theyact like a leasing company when
you buy equipment from them.
Okay, because they want theirequipment to work.
Yeah, so that's a benefit ofthe Tesla inverter pretty cool,
so just threw that in there.
So there you go cash financingand lease.
Those are your options.
That's how you're getting, sothat there's no other way I can

(53:06):
think you can get it, unless Ijust gives it to you.
Yeah, happy birthday.

Speaker 1 (53:08):
Happy birthday.

Speaker 2 (53:09):
Here's a system or we give one away, we give one away
.
We gave a couple of wayactually in contest previous
years but yeah, we should doanother one.
Those no um, so in summary, soin this part of the episode you
know we've gone through thesavings.
I hope you understand theshort-term, long-term savings
and how they work.
Yep, we've actually looked atsome real bills and showing you
good bad.

(53:31):
Yeah, bad was ugly bad was verybad right, but we gave you an
idea of how that works.
We've gone through how youpurchase systems.

Speaker 1 (53:37):
You know finance, cash purchase, yeah, these and
and, to kind of piggyback offthat if you do want to see
Similar bills, you know, let usknow.
Yeah, because I have again.
I've done Hundreds and hundredsof these for lots of different
customers.
Not necessarily becausecustomers are unhappy.
We do get customers who call inand say hey, I just want to

(53:57):
make sure everything's goinggood.
My bills are low, but I justwant to make sure everything's
fine, so I'll do an analysis forthem.
Go, yep, everything looks good.
Here's your savings, all thatstuff.
So I have a lot of data.
So if I'm if I'm using 15,000kilowatts in my home and I'm
paying this much, do you haveany other homeowners who are in
the same boat that got, so arewhat were their bills?
Afterwards, I can show youthose bills.
I have examples of people whoare in the same situation as you

(54:19):
so we can compare, see what itactually looks like.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
And great point.
And the last thing that I'mgoing to say is, when someone
pitches you solar, make sure youtake your time to make a
decision.
Yes, there's this thing in theindustry called the one-call
close.
I don't recommend that.
Unless it's a really reputablecompany, then in the situation
looks really good and you justyou've done your homework and it
makes a lot of sense.
But we always tell people getmore than one quote.

Speaker 1 (54:42):
Unless it's Harmon.
No, I'm kidding, even harm.
Get more than one quote.
I tell them, get one more.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
Yeah, I would get at least a two minimum.
Get quotes.
Trust your gut.
When you feel like something'swrong, do the homework, ask the
questions and if you're notgetting the answers, move on to
the next person.

Speaker 1 (54:57):
I don't even like the word close.
I don't even use it.
I don't say I close the deal, Iclose.
This is like any hope.
You don't close doors on people.
I open relationships or persondoes I know?
But if you know, if the solarsystem is sold, you know, and I
sold the source of some.
I've opened up a relationship.
Yeah, I didn't close it.

Speaker 2 (55:14):
We're creating partnerships.

Speaker 1 (55:15):
Yeah, now we're.
Now we're together, right?
I agree with you and that'swhat we do is we try to again
Consultative education.

Speaker 2 (55:23):
Yeah, it's why we started this podcast and, you
know, give you the ammunition tomake the right decisions.
I hope you learn something Goodfrom this solar 101 two-part
episode.
There's a lot of greatinformation in here.
I mean, this is, this is themeat and potatoes, this is
really where.
This is where it hits the road.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
Yep, right, so With that, on that note, on that note
.
Ben, what do we got next?

Speaker 2 (55:46):
You know, I even know , I think, I Think we're gonna
do, I think we're gonna bring ina project manager, okay, and
we're gonna go over and.

Speaker 1 (55:54):
I know you're a project manager.
Can I sit over there?

Speaker 2 (55:56):
No, oh, we might bring it.
We might bring in our Oklahomaproject manager, who actually is
starting to do some Stuff overin Arizona now too, between him
and you, to talk about theproject management experience
and how that works and kind ofwhat the customer would expect
as far as interaction with aproject manager will probably go
there next.
Okay, I think that makes sense.
That's good.

Speaker 1 (56:14):
And, like always, if you have other ideas for other
projects.
I mean, we have a whole listbut already.

Speaker 2 (56:18):
But you know, if you want yeah, we're just going down
the path, we're just trying togo down the path we got.
We straight away from it for acouple episodes.
Yeah but we'll probably go backinto it again next time, and I
really want to bring somecustomers in as well.
That.

Speaker 1 (56:28):
I've gone through the experience and kind of talk to
you guys.
If you are a Harman solarcustomer, yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:33):
If you're a customer and you have interest in joining
us on this podcast.
Definitely reach out to us.
Food will be provided week Foodand dogs food and dogs who be
friend.
So thank you for tuning in again.
I hope this.
I hope this was Something.
We learned something.
I hope you got a lot out ofthis.
If you have any questions,comments, please reach out to us
.
You know how to reach us 800281 31 89.

(56:55):
Harman solar calm.
Like subscribe our podcast.
We're doing this for you.
This is why we're doing this.
We love doing this.
This is our eighth episode.
This is part two, so that wasnine episodes.

Speaker 1 (57:08):
There you go.

Speaker 2 (57:10):
So we're just, we're gonna keep going, and going, and
going until there's nothingmore to say.

Speaker 1 (57:14):
It's an ever-evolving industry, so I guess we'll keep
going and you're right, it isever-evolving.

Speaker 2 (57:18):
But like subscribe.
Find us on all the socials allthe socials, all the, all the
places that you listen topodcast.
You know Spotify, itunes we'reall there Harman solar podcast,
or join us, or go to Harmansolar comm slash podcast.
It has a hot podcast cage thatwill link to our YouTube page
and you can see all our episodesthere.
So thanks again for joining usand we'll see you next time.
Thank you.