Solar System Installation in Oakland, CA

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The company you choose to install your solar system is a critical step of you making the switch to solar. It’s vitally important you get it right the first time and especially when you are counting on the system to operate flawlessly for the next 25 years plus. 

You may have ordered the finest solar panels on the market today, but they are only as good as how they operate after they are installed. The main things to look for when considering which installation company is best is:

• Accurate Solar Design and Energy Production Calculations
• High Quality Equipment Options
• Timeline of Installation
• Pricing
• Warranties
• Customer Service after Installation
• Years in Business

Getting a quality solar installation is all about the people that are part of your solar installation process. So what are some clues to find out if you‘re hiring the right person? Let’s dig deeper!

How to Hire the Right Solar Installation Company

If you are going to enjoy the experience of having a solar system installation project completed on your home, it will be because of the team of people involved in your solar project. 

Here are the people you will work with through your solar installation project:

• Sales Representative: Often called a Solar Energy Advisor
• Site Surveyor
• Project Manager
• Solar System Designer
• Solar and Battery Power Storage Installation Crew
• Electrician and Roofer Depending if Upgrades are Needed
• Service Technicians
• Plus the finance company, local city for permits and inspections and your utility company are all involved in the process. 

Your solar project will always start with the Sales Representative. For you to have the best experience possible going solar you will need to have a Sales Representatitve that is both honest and experienced. You could have an honest Sales Rep who is inexperienced and end up with a bad customer experience. Even worse is an experienced sales rep who is dishonest and rips you off taking advantage of your lack of knowledge about solar. 

• Industry wide a Sales Rep with 50+ residential solar projects will have the necessary knowledge to plan well for most solar projects. Once a Sales Rep has completed 100 solar projects they are known as a Centurion Energy Advisor. These are most often the best of the best. 
• Local knowledge is very helpful as an each solar project has local installers and city inspectors involved. A highly experienced Sales Rep will know what installation crews are best in their area and make sure these crews are assigned to their customers solar projects. Working with local city inspectors on numerous projects helps with fulfilling expectations and getting jobs approved quickly. And, an understanding of the local utility company’s rate plans, their rules and regulations will help with planning, approving applications and smooth installations.
• Most highly experienced Sales Reps have also established industry partnerships with high quality electricians and roofers. This helps if you need electrical upgrades or a new roof needs to be done before your have your solar system installed. Companies with established relationships allow you to include roofing and electrical upgrades in the monthly financing option. 
• Sales Representatives who have worked on a lot of projects also know what solar panels, inverters and batteries are of the highest quality, at the best price points. The Sales Rep creates the initial proposal with the available products their company offers. Each system is custom designed for each homeowner’s needs and budget. It’s important to have a Sales Rep who is trustworthy and who’s top priority is to design a system that is best for you and your long term benefit and not what’s best for their commission.  
• Your price is most often determined by your Sales Representative. Sales Reps in the solar industry are commissioned based, so having a Sales Rep who prices fairly is a key to you getting the most financial benefits from your solar system.  

After seeing lots of customer solar proposals, here are the MAIN MISTAKES I see Sales Representatives making when they design and price a solar system:

• Incorrectly figuring out your annual power usage. Either from inexperience or on purpose to make the numbers look better, when a Sales Rep miscalculates the annual electric usage… homeowners end up with large true up bills from their utility company. This because the Sales Rep miscalculated how much annual energy the home owner needed and designed a solar system that does not provide enough annual electric power. An outstanding Sales Rep is going to find out about future electric needs like an electric vehicle and make sure your solar system will provide the necessary annual energy. 
• Misrepresenting the annual offset of electric power your designed solar system is projected to produce. Offset is based on your current kWh of annual usage compared to the solar system’s annual power production. An offset of 100% means that the solar system will produce 100% of the annual kWh of electrical power you currently use on an annual basis. Depending on your utility company’s net energy metering policies, a 100% offset does not always mean your solar system will produce enough electric power to cover all of the electrical expense. Depending on the credits your utility company gives you for the excess energy you export to the grid, will determine what offset is needed to supply 100% of the electric energy you need without having a true up bill at year’s end. Sometimes, a solar system needs to produce 130-150% offset of the annual electric power you use… this is the case if your utility company charges you more for the energy you use at night when your solar system is not producing than the credits you receive for sending excess energy to the grid during the day. 
• Putting low quality equipment in the proposal to lower your price. Often investing more financially for a high quality solar system will save you money in the long run. This is because a quality solar system will be able to produce more energy from the sun everyday and most importantly not degrade in production over the years. A high quality solar system includes the racking system, solar panels, inverters and the batteries used. Lower the quality in any of these items and you will effect the performance of your whole system. It’s not good enough to just install high quality solar panels… you need the other supporting equipment to be of high quality for your solar system to have a high level of performance for 25 years and beyond. 

Working with the right Sales Representative is potentially the most important person you’ll decide to work with because they are the ones who access your needs, design your system, help you choose the equipment, price out your job and schedule your installation crew. Besides your Project Manager, the Sales Rep is also your contact through the entire project and should be there for you after the installation if you need their assistance. 

The Site Surveyor does a site walk of your property and takes measurements and pictures for the final design team. With some companies, the Sales Representative can do the site survey. Other companies offer customers the ability to do their own site survey with a mobile app that gives instructions on the survey steps and what pictures are needed. It is a fairly simple step in the process and takes about one hour to complete.

The Project Manager is definitely an important part of your overall experience. They keep your project on track and work with utility companies, city municipalities and installation crews to make sure things are getting done on schedule. They are also your contact for questions you may have through your solar project. 

Solar System Designer is the one who makes sure the placement of your solar panels are maximizing the proficiency of the system. The most important task they do is to make sure the amount of power your Sales Rep promised you is accurate. Trustworthy solar companies will stop a job if the energy production projections from the original proposal are inaccurate until the customer signs off or the contact has a change order to add enough solar panels to match the electric energy production the original proposal promised. Unfortunately, not all solar installation companies are honest during this step and this causes homeowners to get unexpected, large true up bills from their utility company. 

The Installation Crew is were the “rubber meets the road”. Obviously the amount of experience the crew has plus the installation training and quality standards of the solar company, make all the difference to how happy you’ll be getting solar installed. Some solar installation companies have internal crews made up of employees, other companies use sub-contractors. Also, find out who’s contractors license is being used for your installation.

Some solar projects will need to have electrical upgrades to the main panel or a new roof installed to be able to have solar panels installed. Some solar installation companies have employees that are licensed electricians, other companies will sub all this work out. Most solar companies sub out the roofing. However, working with a roofer that has worked on many projects with the solar company can be very beneficial. Your solar Project Manager can help with scheduling the appointments with the roofer. 

Another advantage is that the roofing partner has been carefully vetted by the solar installation company and you can finance the entire project with solar financing. Solar financing has much better interest rates/terms than the home improvement financing options available to roofing companies. 

There are solar installation projects that go so smooth that there will not need to be any service appointments set for your project’s “loose ends”. However in many cases, there are a few items that need to completed after the installation crew finishes installing your solar panels. This includes passing city inspections, which if not passed promptly can stall you from getting your solar power turned on. The Service Technicians after the solar installation day are often the key to a job that gets permission to operate (PTO) from the utility company as quickly as possible.

The one thing your solar installation company can not control is the timeline and schedule of your utility company and your city/county municipality accomplishing the tasks they are responsible for. It can definitely help the process go quickly if the local utility and city has worked with a local solar installation company on many projects. Expectations have been laid out and relationships are established to help your project go smoothly. 

• Utility companies often are very busy with the application process of solar projects, approving them and if the main panel needs to be upgraded your utility company will need to supply more electrical power to the home which often requires running new power lines to your home. Also, when the solar system is installed, utility companies are not always motivated to quickly give permission to operate (PTO). They are often receiving “free” energy from your solar system until they give final approval and begin giving you credits for the solar power you send to the grid. 
• City municipalities are very different in their timelines. Some cities give permits within a week of receiving applications. Other cities takes as long as five weeks to issue permits to install solar. Getting city permits can often be one of the longest steps of your solar installation project. Scheduling a city inspector to approve the solar installation typically takes a few weeks in most cities. City inspection is the last step before we submit final approval from your utility company to have the solar power turned on. 

Most of the installation steps of getting solar installed are happening behind the scenes. For most solar projects, the only time you need to be home are for the site survey and for the installation day. You can be there for the city inspection but most of the time that is not necessary. 

Start the process today and we will have a Solar Energy Advisor talk with you about your solar project. The first step is to evaluate your utility bill and figure out how much energy your use annually.