Thursday, March 17, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Shopping for System? Here are Real Installation Figures!
Here's some useful information from Steve S., who's slowly supplanting me as the most knowledgeable and helpful solar guy on this blog.
I'm going to paste Steve's email in below. What he's found is a list of every solar installation that has gone through the rebate program. The list includes the name of the installer as well as the cost of the installation (and other information).
This is big! If you're looking around or negotiating a deal, these numbers are for you! Now you can get an idea of what people are paying and what they're getting for it. Although this is all New Jersey information, I would imagine it could apply roughly to other states except for the rebate part.
Great find, Steve! Thanks!
I'm going to paste Steve's email in below. What he's found is a list of every solar installation that has gone through the rebate program. The list includes the name of the installer as well as the cost of the installation (and other information).
This is big! If you're looking around or negotiating a deal, these numbers are for you! Now you can get an idea of what people are paying and what they're getting for it. Although this is all New Jersey information, I would imagine it could apply roughly to other states except for the rebate part.
Great find, Steve! Thanks!
While searching the NJ Clean Energy Program website for information on how to register for the GATS website, I found some information that I thought might be useful to share with people who follow your Going Solar blog. Under their Renewable Energy tab, they have program status reports. The direct link is:
Now, for somebody who is shopping around and getting quotes for a solar system, here's the interesting thing. These excel spreadsheets, specifically the "REIP Paid Projects" and "SREC Registration Program Completed Projects" reports list every single installation in NJ that went through the state rebate process. They list what company did the installation job, what equipment was installed, how much of a rebate was received, and how much the owner paid for the system! I was shocked that all of this information was publicly release, but at the same time I wish I had found this when I was getting quotes...what negotiating power! Now when the guy from XYZ Solar tells you his price and explains that he's giving you the best price he can, you have away of checking that and seeing if he gave another customer a better deal. Or, before even getting a quote you have a some hard data on what price you should be getting, as well as which solar installers are providing the most value for the money.
Just thought I'd share this, as I know that I would have loved to have had this information when I was shopping around.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Sorry for the Lack of Posts
Sorry for seemingly ignoring my blogs. It seems that Google has been making a few changes to permissioning (I made that word up) and generally helping me to death. I've finally learned how to re-associate this blog with the proper email account (from Google help, I should give them credit) and I think I'm back in business now.
By the way, my new book Wrecker has really taken off in the last two weeks. Here's the sales chart!
By the way, my new book Wrecker has really taken off in the last two weeks. Here's the sales chart!
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