Once I completed my evaluation of incentives I turned my focus to understanding exactly what the payback would be if I installed a system. I've had linked on this blog since the beginning a clean and renewable technology blog that I read regularly and still do today. That blog is cleantechnica.com and at the time I was doing my solar research, CleanTechnica was sponsored, and I believe, partially owned by another organization named One Block Off the Grid (1BOG). 1BOG's mission is, as their name suggests, to help communities go solar by organizing group purchasing discounts with installers. Anyone interested can go to 1BOG's site and sign up to see if there is a group purchasing plan available in their area. I would suggest checking out 1BOG's site and signing up as you might be surprised at the number of people around you that have already signed up. There is no obligation to buy anything or to even participate if there is an active program in your area, so it's a good place to test the waters.
Unfortunately for me, there was not yet an active 1BOG program in place in my area, but the site referred me to some installers near me as a place to start, so I checked out the websites of each of the installers that 1BOG recommended. This ended up being a great next step because a few of the installers had some really good tools on their sites where I could input my address, my energy use, and a few other details and the sites would provide a detailed explanation of what incentives were available to me, what the energy producing potential of my property was, and even what my payback interval would be.
I checked the information that each of the installers websites provided me against what I already knew from my incentives research and surprisingly, the information jived. Next, I met with each of the installers to discuss my options further and finally arrived at my decision to go with Astrum Solar as my installer.
I chose Astrum for a number of reasons. My first impression of them was through their website, which was the best I saw in the way of providing tools to show me, with some pretty stunning accuracy, what a potential system was going to cost me and what incentives I would be able to take advantage of. Astrum had a good offering of products and everyone I spoke with there seemed to know their stuff based on the research I did.
To make a long story short, a good installer will make the incentive process as easy for you as possible. They should know their products and why certain products are good in different applications, and lastly, they have the whole process for selection, from financing, to installation, through product support and SREC sale, locked up. My installer had all of this together and verified what I already knew, so I had to peace of mind to know that I wasn't being taken for a ride.
More on the process through installation next time... Happy New Year!
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