Argent Solar Electric

We purchased (vs leased) a fairly large 14.28kW system (51 x 280Watt panels) installed by Argent Solar in the summer of 2015. We shopped around a LOT, comparing purchase vs lease, installers, panel manufacturers and configuration options (normal string inverters vs the power optimizers). Argent was up front with us (our rep was Charlie, but he might be retired by now), well-priced and timely in everything they did. No problems getting it approved by APS & turned on. Our power production this last 3.5 years has been exactly as forecasted (clouds are the biggest variable, but that averages out over time). We've been very happy with Argent. While I know the up-front cost to own your system is scary or undoable for most, it is really the better option in the long run if you can swing it. If you do lease, make sure to read the fine print. For example, a lease installation by SolarCity would have saved $ up front, but the price we paid for electricity from the solar panels was automatically going to increase by 3.5% per year. That's insane! You go solar to get AWAY from price increases! 3.5%/year over the 20-year lease means you're paying almost DOUBLE by the end. In countries like Germany that have pushed solar & wind power very hard, the cost of electricity has dropped dramatically, and likely that will happen here, too, once we get enough adoption here down the road. You don't want to be paying a ton MORE down the road while everyone else is paying LESS. Neither will people potentially buying your house when you move. Most leases are a 20-year commitment, regardless of the owner. The wrong solar lease is a liability, not an asset. We ended up getting panels that had black metal edges instead of silver/aluminum, so the panels are black-on-black, which looks very sharp! I did a lot of research on panel manufacturers, to include calling a guy I know in CA that runs a solar install company and settled on SolarWorld panels. There are plenty of other great options (LG, Sunpower, Kyocera) but SolarWorld had the best cost at the time and we wanted to make sure to stay away from cheap Chinese makes for peace of mind. We also went with SolarEdge power optimizers & inverter rather than the more normal string inverters. It's a little more cost up front, but having a power optimizer at each solar panel means each panel will produce as much as it can. Despite being the exact same panel, the power rating is a minimum, as slight manufacturing differences can enable some panels to produce several % higher. (Looking at my current totals for the week, my best panel has produced 8.42kWh (kiloWatt hours) and my worst panel only 7.80kWh. That's almost an 8% difference between best & worst. The average difference is probably 3-4%.) For a normal string inverter setup, a bunch of panels are all connected to the same inverter and all panels are limited by the worst performer on the string, so you'd never get that extra production. If you have a shadow from a tree or something on your panels part of the day, then the panels in the shade are going to limit your production over all. Is it enough of a difference to make up for the extra cost? I don't know, probably. If you have a shade problem, though, I think it DEFINTELY would. Several of the SolarEdge power optimizers have gone bad during the last 3.5 years. I'm not sure if I got a bad lot or what. You have a graphic depiction of your system to monitor via a web page, though, so as soon as you see a "black hole" in your system, you just call your installer and they replace it free of charge. Those power optimizers come with a 20-year warranty, so SolarEdge ships a replacement part and pays the install charge. Argent Solar has been great for this, replacing the part within a couple days usually, as they have replacement parts on hand already. Anyway, I've been thrilled with our setup. When I first ran the numbers, the payback was going to take just short of 8 years (including the state & federal rebates). Then APS put through not one, but two, price increases of nearly 8% each, so that shortened my payback period closer to 7 years (due to the extra cost of electricity that I'm NOT paying). And when you think that the value of my house has surely increased (due to owning the system; not true for a leased system), there's a good chance the system has already completely paid for itself at just 3.5 years. Your numbers will be different, maybe better or worse, but probably an excellent investment if you're going to stay in your house for even just a few years.