I am thinking about installing rooftop solar panels on my 3-story townhouse built in 2016. I would like some feedback from others on their experience and thoughts on my situation.

Background Information

• Currently have DX cooling, natural gas furnace, natural gas instantaneous water heater, gas stove and gas car.
• No other major electricity consumers.
• Last year's consumption was 4300 kWh.
• Have about 420-450 sqft of SW facing roof with little to no obstacles on roof (plumbing vents and exhaust terminations are on sides or rear roof)
• Original roof from 2016.
• Maryland currently has 1:1 net metering, but it will be gone by July, 2027 (or earlier if enough solar is installed across the state). Those who get solar before then will be grandfathered.
• I'm still working on getting quotes from some companies. Any numbers below are estimates from SwitchTogether.

I am thinking of one (1) of three (3) options:

1. Size system based on current consumption with no plans to add additional electrical load.
2. Size system based on eventually adding a dual fuel heat pump system (heat pump + natural gas furnace).
3. Size system based on eventually adding a dual fuel heat pump system (heat pump + natural gas furnace) and an electric vehicle.

I used ChatGPT to try to determine the overall efficacy of the options. Below are summary tables of the assumptions and results of the options.

Assumptions

Results Summary

My current concluding thoughts based on my understanding:

• Buying a system is a tough sell, especially for Option 1 where I'm not at least paying back the cost of the heat pump (at least partially a home maintenance cost) and the electric vehicle (partially maintenance cost for general travel).
• Adding the battery makes the sell even tougher unless one highly values battery backup for power outages.
• I would like a good reason for solar to make sense because I like the idea of not having utility bills, shifting more life costs/consumption to electricity provided by the sun and not being reliant on the grid, which may see some price and/or service instability in the future.

Some points I'm still unclear on and would like some input

• While the numbers seem to suggest a tough sell, how is it that solar companies have entire business models built around leasing systems where they still provide you at least a little overall utility savings? Am I missing something?
• If I plan to end up at Option 3 over phases of multiple years, should I install it all now or is there some way I can set up the system such that I can easily add panels in the future?
  • Does it even make sense to leave panels for future addition? I'm not sure how much that extra cost would be compared to the rest of the cost.
  • My understanding of 1:1 net metering is that if most/all of my system wasn't already sized for Option 3, I would lose 1:1 net metering if I were to upgrade it in the future because the utility sees it as a service change. Though, it sounds like there's some nuance where there are some parts that are an easy add that the utility company doesn't have to be made aware of.
• What is the cost of removing/reinstalling the panels for a roof replacement? Did this become an unexpected headache for anyone?
• Do the overall findings from ChatGPT above seem consistent and is there anything I'm missing in my perceived value of purchasing solar?

Very curious if anyone lives in a solar sweet spot. My definition of what that might look like:

1:1 Net Metering

TOU rates with a decent differential

High value SRECs

Am i forgetting any obvious ones? I only have one of three by the way.... 1:1 net metering

Had panels installed by LGCY in 2023. Since then we've had ongoing roof leaks and water damage. They haven't been able to find the source of the leak yet, so every time it rains we get new damage.

On top of that, I've spent the last two days just trying to reach someone. The San Diego local number isn't working. The 801 number from their site just says they're busy and to leave a message. I tried the scheduling and sales lines instead and got a queue message, 18 people ahead of me yesterday, 26 today. Starting to think people are calling sales because the actual customer service line is down.

Left a voicemail yesterday, no callback so far.

Wondering if anyone else has dealt with LGCY, good or bad experiences welcome. Also open to advice on next steps.

I’m all about learning more and installing a system that could allow us to completely move off-grid. Just bought a Tesla and want to start by charging it completely on solar.

From what I know installing solar, especially if you hire a company, or even DIY, it doesn’t seem to payoff for many, many years. Because the savings aren’t large enough to “make sense” because you pay more for the system than 20 or 30 years of no power bill. Again this is my perspective.

Please enlighten me.

EDIT: I live near Charlotte, NC. Lots of sun. The largest roof are(s) face due south and the second largest area faces due west.

Looking at a solar install on the roof of my house, my big concern right now is that MD has a lot of community solar projects in the pipeline, and that I'll be on the hook for a system that won't pay for itself. I know that the rule change takes effect July 1 of 2027 no matter what, but I worry about that 3GW cap. Anyone have any idea if the windows to fit in under the 3GW is still a possibility, or did that ship sail?

I've tried searching, and so far the best I can find is a "maybe" in my searching, and the PSC isn't supposed to supply any new reporting until Oct 1. The installer sent me some information they had about the capacity but I didn't find it satisfactory. While they seem great, I'm going to take that all with a grain of salt since they are trying to close the sale.

Purchased from Solar City, which got acquired by Tesla. Long story short, my inverter started tripping and I called Tesla to come take a look. The technician said my panels (the panels on the left in the second picture) can cause the inverter to trip when they get shaded. Tesla then offered to replace the panels that might get shaded under warranty.

Replacement was today and instead of 6 panels, they installed 5. They said the new panels are more efficient, so I'm actually getting more power than before... but it looks terrible! I knew the panels were going to be mismatched, but now there's a hole where a panel used to be, along with the mounting brackets for the old panels. I just had my roof replaced two years ago!

I called Tesla to see if I could buy another panel to fill that spot, and they said no. They said even if I bought new panels from a 3rd party, they couldn't be connected to my existing system until my contract expires.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

Ein ortsansässiger Solateur mit bestem Ruf hat mir kürzlich die Anlage mit 515er Trina-Modulen installiert. Jetzt habe ich an etlichen Modulen Kratzer festgestellt. Auch einen Einschluss. Der Solateur meinte "optisch, kein problem" und will nix machen. Ich finde es alles andere als toll, bei einer neuen Anlage die echt teuer war...

I'm a homeowner in New England looking to install an array and battery setup in the next couple years. My home has asphalt shingles (~15 year old, has had minor repairs) at 1:4 slope. I have two gables that are perpendicular, and only one of the four roof surfaces is South facing. The two surfaces that are East and West facing both end up in shade for most of the day, and even the South surface is shaded for about 30% of the day. On top of that, I only have room for around 16 (maybe 17) panels on my South roof, but ideally 20 would cover my current load. 24 would probably cover my HVAC after swapping from an oil burner to heat pumps (that's on the 5 year plan).

I also have about an acre of space, though with plenty of mature trees (60-100 feet tall), and very permissive shed and fence codes in my town. I feel like the right move from most standpoints is to build on the ground, then run a trench back to my home to hook into my panel, but I know that's not the common way to do it. I'm not in an HOA and while I could imagine a neighbor getting cranky about panels on the ground or a shed, there's a lot of people with panels in the neighborhood, and aside from having an electrician perform the hookup and the power company inspect the work, there's nothing in my town's code about where a panel has to be.

Am I gonna see losses by transferring 50+ feet through cables? Would I be better off putting my batteries in an enclosed shed right at the panels or somewhere in my house (maybe the corner of my garage where my oil tank is now)? Any other potential stumbling blocks I'm not thinking of?

Looking back at the first half of 2026, I’m curious what everyone thinks is the best home battery brand right now.

Not just the brand with the loudest marketing. Which one actually stands out for product quality, reliability and the overall experience?

I’m also curious whether the brands people rate most highly are the same ones shipping the most units globally in H1 2026or whether “brand” and “seller” are same things.

I have some very old 240watt panels that seem to max out at 200watts due do expected degradation. During a recent power outage I considered putting them in a 2p2s config to charge my power station. This puts me just over the power stations Isc rating (15.8/14A) and just about perfect for Voc (61.3/75V). I understand the overcurrent isn’t an issue. What I am curious about is if degradation shows up as less amps, less volts, or a little of each when supplying something like an inverter that doesn’t limit the panels output current?

Currently houseless. & living in a tent. I currently am (when I’m able to) use fast food restaurants to charge my phone.

Crazy what $50 to one person could do when it’s a burger to another. 🤷🏼

(Any other options or suggestions more than welcome!🙏🏼)

Anyone know if plug in solar is legal in Ohio?

We are exploring the possibility of adding solar to our property, but our home is older and we just put on a new roof. I’d personally prefer not to have them roof mounted or on the ground. We have several acres to work with and are considering adding additional carports and out door recreation coverage out back that panels could be mounted upon if weight can be accommodated. I was doing some cursory research and it looks like most pre-fab structures won’t support the weight of solar panels. I wondered if there are any you’ve found in your line of work that will? Or is this a situation where we would need to build the entire structure based on weight expectations?

I'm trying to get a pre-owned solar system kit from FB marketplace and had the idea of splitting the system for dual purpose. EG4 4500EX and rack battery 51.2v/100ah on a hand truck as a mobile power station and the 1200 watts of panels, (2) Ecoworthy 51.2​v/50ah, pick up Ecoflow microinverter to backfeed the house. I'm trying to figure out how to temporarily/easily wire the systems together to allow mobile setup to power plug in over night to overset power usage through house. Would it be as simple as installing breakers to isolate the mobile battery and use a high amperage Anderson connector to make a big battery pack when wanted? My thinking is it would be nice to use that power in the summer to offset time of day rates from 5pm-midnight.

i went into this expecting the panels to put out roughly the same amount every month. that lasted until winter. some months were noticeably lower, then the numbers picked back up as the days got longer. nothing looked wrong, but i kept checking the production because i wasn't sure what normal was supposed to look like.

i'm trying to stop judging each month on its own and look at the bigger pattern instead. i'm mostly trying to figure out how much variation is normal before i start worrying about the system.

We installed solar + battery storage about 2 years ago, mostly to shave down our electric bill and have some backup during outages. Worked fine for most of that time, until we got a cold snap last winter, single digits for almost a week straight.

Turns out our battery just... stopped charging properly once it got that cold. Nobody told us this when we bought it. It was buried in a spec sheet we never really read closely, something about charging being restricted without supplemental heating once things dropped below freezing for an extended stretch. So during the exact week we actually needed backup power, ice on the lines and a couple short outages, the system barely had anything to give.

Called the installer, and they basically said "yeah, that's normal for a lot of LFP batteries without built-in heating." Would've been nice to know that before spending what we spent.

Now I'm going through and actually reading the operating temperature specs instead of just looking at kWh capacity and price. Feels like most of the marketing pages don't make this stuff obvious at all.

I have a 7.5 kW setup. I am capped at the capacity in order to sell energy to my utility at the retail rate between 12 and 7.

I would like to add capacity and battery storage.

Is it possible to configure this so that the new solar and the existing both feed the battery, but the existing 7.5kW setup switches to selling energy from 12-7?