Home Solar Energy Pros and Cons

Kenny Coogan: Good day, everyone, and we appreciate you for joining us on another exciting Mother Earth News and Friends podcast. I am Kenny Coogan, and joining me today is Hoss Boyd, [00:01:00] an off the grid energy expert. Today, we are going to discuss solar. Hoss Boyd is the president and CEO of TeraVolt Energy, an established commercial solar energy storage and manufactured energy system company that has been in continuous operation since 2002. He is a sought after writer and speaker with many articles and books in publication. He also is a regular contributor to the Mother Earth News Magazine and speaker at our Mother Earth News Fairs. Welcome to the podcast, Hoss.

[00:01:39] How Does Solar Energy Work?

Hoss Boyd: Thank you for inviting me. I’m looking forward to the conversation.

Kenny Coogan: I think the first question I have to ask is, how does one capture energy from the sun?

Hoss Boyd: Well it’s pretty straightforward.

In today’s world, it’s done most commonly with solar panels. There’s other ways to do [00:02:00] it. But if we want to capture this solar from the sun, the very first thing we need to do is find out do we have any sun? There’s a lot of places in the country that are mountainous, hilly, or highly congested with tall buildings. You can’t put solar arrays in the shade.

So, what do you do? Well, the first thing you do is you try to do a satellite image of where you want to put the solar and see if you’ve got a location that you believe will fit. Then what you do is check for shading. This is one of the first steps that you would want to do and decide, do I want to put it on a rooftop? Do I want to put it on the ground? Where do I want to put my solar array?

There are a lot of places that are heavily treed, like where I live. I have a forest in my backyard. I’m not going to cut [00:03:00] down my trees so that I can get solar for my electricity. So, my next best bet is to look at my rooftop. And when I look at the rooftop, there are other things I have to consider.

I have a chimney. I have pipes sticking up. Anything that shades it is going to cause you some issues with your solar. You look for the sunniest place you could find, and you want solar to be available, the sun to shine on your solar panels, preferably from nine o’clock in the morning till three o’clock in the afternoon. That’s your solar day. And if you do everything right, then you’ll find out that it’s probably gonna rain most of the time that you want your solar.

But there is some good information out there that will give you a good idea how many days a year you should get good solar coverage. [00:04:00] And yes, it comes from solar panels. There’s a variety of those available out there right now. And frankly, they’re getting bigger and heavier. And it’s becoming less and less of a do it yourself kind of a project. We recommend that you know how your system is supposed to work. So when you hire somebody to install it, you know as much about it as they do.

Kenny Coogan: Very good. I’ve been to many fairs and events where there’s people kind of barking with their solar and saying, hey, come over here, type in your address. We can put solar wherever, you know, anywhere, any condition. And the first couple of times we did it, they Googled my house. And I live in a forest and they said, Oh, no, nevermind. Keep, keep moving along, because I have all these huge oak trees. And I told them, yeah, I’m not willing to cut [00:05:00] them down.

All right. Hoss, you have served as a solar energy expert for the Energy Reliability Council of Texas and to CPS Energy, one of the largest municipally owned electric utility companies in the U. S. For those interested in solar, other than sun and shade considerations, what level should we start looking at in regards to if we can install solar? I’m assuming HOAs have their own laws, but should we be looking at the county level first or the state or the federal?

Hoss Boyd: Start at the lowest level first, and that is your HOA.

And in Texas, they passed a law that HOAs cannot prohibit you from putting solar on your house. However, they can tell you whether or not it is attractive enough to qualify. They can have some restrictions. They don’t want it [00:06:00] becoming an eyesore. And as a rule of thumb, if you’re in an HOA, the best place to put your solar array is on the backside of your house.

The other stipulation is if you’re backside of your house faces north, you’re just out of luck. And so there are a lot of people that do put their solar panels on the front of their houses and that’s attracting probably more attention than they care to get.

So if you can pass the HOA test, a lot of local communities, and that’s usually through the utility companies, have incentives for installing your solar. Plus they also have restrictions. In most cases you have to have a permit. And if you hire somebody, they must be licensed in some respect. In Texas, you must be a Texas licensed electrical contractor. In California, it was a very big debate item when they first brought [00:07:00] solar in because on one hand, the electrical contractors union was saying these should be installed by licensed electricians only.

Then you have the other case where the licensed electricians don’t know how to install it as well as the solar installers do. So, what’s the answer? In California, they’ve got a kind of a mixed bag of how they do that from my understanding, and it’s probably gotten stricter over the years.

But in Texas, you must be a licensed electrical contractor to even offer to put in a solar project. They usually take care of your permitting with the local authorities. At the state level we don’t see a lot of that here in Texas, but there are some states that are more friendly to solar than others, such as California and New York.

And the reason for that is because they have a shortage of electricity. Their grids are suffering from overpopulation. [00:08:00] In Texas we have our own grid. The ERCOT grid is independent of the national grid. Yet, it is approaching saturation as well.

And solar has become a large part of that. At the federal level, you now have what’s called the Inflation Reduction Act. I won’t go into whether or not that’s properly named or not, but it does offer significant incentives to put solar energy on your rooftops or on your homesteads. That is gets more into the dollars and cents part of it than it does the restrictions on how exactly you should be putting in your solar array.

Kenny Coogan: Other than California and New York, are there any standout states that have really fantastic programs?

Hoss Boyd: As far as states go, actually, Texas has one of the largest portfolios of solar in the country [00:09:00] because of its location. We have a lot of sun. But most of the solar in Texas is incentivized by the utility companies and not by the state itself.

If you’ll remember, Texas is a natural gas and petroleum state. So when you get the politics, in the state level the oil companies would prefer we did not have solar. They would rather we have more gas fire generators.

Kenny Coogan: Are there any other hurdles that homeowners find when wanting to add solar other than laws and…?

Hoss Boyd: One big argument is the utility companies make the rules and they can change the rules after you’ve paid the price of putting in your solar.

So what happens is you have all this money and time invested in your solar energy [00:10:00] project based on a set of numbers that you were given by the fast talking salesman that says you should produce this much electricity, which is a great amount, and your costs are going to go way down. Then they change the rules.

And in one case, for example the utility companies say from now on. We’re not going to let you use us as a battery, where you send us electricity, and then you get to take it back, kilowatt hour for kilowatt hour. Utility companies buy electricity at wholesale, they sell it to you at retail, plus all the fees and everything added in.

So, what you end up with is a set up where they pay you for your electricity, possibly, at two cents, and then they sell it back to you at 15, and it’s your own electricity that they’re selling [00:11:00] back. That’s one of the reasons why there’s a lot of interest today in battery storage. The more battery storage you have on your side of the meter, the less opportunity the utility has for stealing your, excuse me, I didn’t say that, for borrowing your electricity.

[00:11:20] Battery Backups for Grid-Tied and Off-Grid Systems

Kenny Coogan: That was my next question. So energy storage is important. It’s one of your three aspects of your business. For those rainy days that you mentioned earlier, I’m assuming we should talk about batteries.

Hoss Boyd: Well, before we get into that, we need to understand where batteries fit in to the whole scheme of things.

See, batteries are not needed if you’re grid tied. “Grid tied” means you’re syncing up with the utility company, and as long as the power’s up, everybody’s happy. You’re probably not as happy as you could be if they were paying you [00:12:00] more, but it is the system will work day in, day out until nighttime. And then you’ve got the power company to deliver your electricity at night. Basically what you’re doing with a grid tied system is reducing the costs of your energy over a period of a month at a time.

The next step up is grid tied with battery backup. And what that does is that you could set up a hierarchy in your system where the excess energy is stored in the batteries and used from the batteries.

Then you go to the power company and then they provide you power when the batteries are down and you don’t have any reserves left. So they also provide you power when the power company lines go down, like in a storm. That is the next step. And actually, this is the same hierarchy as the hierarchy of costs, [00:13:00] getting more expensive as you go.

Now, if you want greater off grid or battery backup, you add more batteries, more solar. To be totally off the grid, you should probably also add a backup generator. Because when you cut the cord, you are totally on your own. And that means you have to invest a lot more in batteries, a lot more in solar, and then you need the battery backup. That is the most expensive approach.

I had a customer who lived in town, got his bill for his electric bill, and it was excessively high. And he got mad and said, I’ve had it, I’m gonna cut the cord, I’m not gonna be on the grid anymore. Now, he had a house with a hot tub, a swimming pool, all electric, a deep freeze, you can go on and on and on. It was a, a fully decked out house with all the bells and whistles.

[00:14:00] But I did exactly what he asked. I did an estimate of how much it would cost for him to go off the grid. And it was something like $400,000. And at the time, his house was worth about $200,000. Economics plays into the scheme of things. And there’s a lot of things that we talk about at the Fair’s talks and, and the articles with Mother Earth News about: How do you go solar and use batteries effectively? And the actual very first thing you want to do is learn how to conserve the energy you already are using and get your electric consumption down.

And it makes sense that if your consumption lowers, then you don’t need as big a system, if you can learn to live without so much electricity. You really need the hot tub, the jacuzzi? Well, once you got it you can do like one old rancher [00:15:00] did. He didn’t like the swimming pool in the house he bought when he moved to town. So he just put fresh water in it and fish. He used it for a pond. You can always do that, I suppose. But I think you get the point.

[00:15:15] Grid-Tied vs Off-Grid Solar Systems

Kenny Coogan: So there’s probably a lot of variables, but can you talk a little bit about what determines if somebody is going to be grid tied or grid tied with the battery backup?

Hoss Boyd: “Grid tied” means that you’ve got an electric meter. And “grid tied with battery backup” means that you still have that electric meter. The difference is on your side of the meter, you’ve got storage so that if you do produce excess electricity, then the batteries will capture that electricity so you can use it and it doesn’t go into the grid to be resold back to you later at a higher cost.

Now, there’s[00:16:00] a couple of things that are probably worth mentioning. The batteries, when they store electricity, they will store more at certain times of the year than they will at others. If you look at the available solar, and there’s some interesting charts out there and numbers on how much electricity you can produce from solar in a given year. In Texas, obviously our greatest production is in the summertime. Which also happens to be when our electric bills are the highest. So it’s great for Texas. The lowest time of the year, obviously, is when the sun doesn’t shine as much. That’s in January, February, the winter months. And if you have a all electric heater, then that’s not so good.

You have times of the year where you’re going to overproduce, then there’s other times of the year you’re going to underproduce. And [00:17:00] this is something you just need to be conscious of. When you size your battery system and your solar array, look at the dollars as opposed to the kilowatt hours. See, the old adage was: We’ll design the system based on the kilowatt hour production, but it’s the dollars that are probably more important. That’s why in Texas, we design our systems so that they produce the best in the summertime.

Kenny Coogan: So the homesteader can determine if they’re going to be grid tied or have a battery backup. And do the municipalities or the counties, do they care if, you live in, an block and you’re just like, all right, I’m no longer participating in the local energy source.

Hoss Boyd: Well, let’s first of all define what a homesteader is. In the Mother Earth News concept of a homesteader, we’re talking about somebody that [00:18:00] is living outside of the city limits, in most cases. Doesn’t mean they have to. In my case, I have an acre. I bought the house when it was in the county, and then by default, I got sucked into the city. So, I didn’t have a choice.

But let’s just talk about the homesteader in the situation where you’re living outside the city, and of course, the farther away from the city you get a lot of us believe that’s the best way to be. Get as far away from the city as you can. So, there are places in Texas and other states where the electric lines aren’t anywhere near where you want to live. What enters into your decision to go off the grid is how much would it cost me to bring in power lines to have as a backup source of energy?

Case in point: one of my customers [00:19:00] was a mile from the power lines. And he put in a, well at first it was a barn and then it became a commercial warehouse, but it was going to cost him over $100,000 to bring in electricity to just put in lights.

We found out that he could save about $60,000 by putting in a battery system. It wasn’t a very big one, with solar panels. And it’s done quite nicely being totally off the grid, and he’s got a generator for backup. How far off the grid you are, that’s one consideration.

The other consideration is how independent do you want to be? Because when you go off the grid, you’re not talking about just dollars and cents, you’re talking about a lifestyle change. You have to be able to manage your electricity from one day to the next. You have to plan such things as, [00:20:00] well, do I wash today? Well, no, because it’s raining and I need to dry the clothes outside. So that’s one consideration. Another consideration is, do I do a lot of heavy work in the shop today? Today might be fine, but tonight it might not be a good idea. You may have to shut the lights off, turn off the saws, and go in the house. And just manage without doing work after dark.

So, lifestyle change. If you do decide to hook up to the grid, which, by the way, is a lower cost option, because you don’t have to have the generator back up, you don’t have to have so many batteries and solar panels. That does not mean you can’t size your system to zero out your electric bill. I have another customer that I’ve done five solar projects for on his ranch, and the electric company [00:21:00] pays him every month for a little excess electricity. It’s not much, it’s about 15 to 20 dollars, but otherwise his electric bill would be over a thousand. That’s the next step, is plan the economics of it if you are on the grid.

[00:21:17] More Considerations for Solar Power Systems

Kenny Coogan: So we’ve talked about batteries and we talked about the solar panels briefly. What other things do we need to consider? What all goes into the system?

Hoss Boyd: There’s two things I’d like to talk about here. First of all, what’s involved in a system? Well, there’s not a whole lot involved in the equipment. It doesn’t mean it’s cheap. It just means that there’s not that many moving parts. And that’s the beauty of solar is that it does its thing day in, day out, quietly, without any fuss or muss.

You’ve got your solar panels that are obviously in the sun. Then you have your inverters, which convert [00:22:00] the DC current, which is just like what your flashlights use, only a little bit higher voltage. Converts it from DC to alternating current that we typically use in our in our homes or businesses.

And then you have what’s called the “balance of systems,” which is the wiring, the conduits, the electrical control boxes and so forth. And then if you have batteries, this is another misconception. You can’t just add batteries. You have to have a special inverter that uses battery power. So with the batteries, you have the backup capability. The inverters typically charge the batteries and draw from them when the power goes down.

Kenny Coogan: All right. So battery, solar powers, inverters, meters, anything else?

Hoss Boyd: In modern inverters, they can tie into the internet. So like [00:23:00] everything else, you can monitor what’s going on via the internet. Now, one of the problems we ran into at one of our Mother Earth News Fairs, was we were telling everybody about all this great information we had on our website, and they said, we don’t have a computer. We don’t have Internet. So, the alternative is, you can get a data receiver and sender unit that works off of radio waves. And that’s done internally, and as long as you’re not too far away, then you can still monitor your system from a distance from wherever it’s located.

[00:23:39]Can You Set Up Your Own Solar Power System?

Kenny Coogan: Now, Hoss, in October 2010, you were awarded the Certified PV Professional Installer National Certification by the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners. At the time, you were only one of less than ten Texas licensed master [00:24:00] electricians who received this National Solar Certificate.

So that, was a lot of words and a lot of credentials. I know in the beginning you said this might not really be the best DIY, but what skill level do you think somebody would need in order to install solar, maybe for their house or maybe just for a workshop? I’m assuming not a novice or an advanced beginner, but do you think like a competent electrician or do they need to be proficient or do they need to be an expert?

Hoss Boyd: What I was going to mention earlier , and it totally blew past me, was the manufactured energy systems. Let’s go into this first. There needs to be enough of a skill level that you don’t kill yourself. If you open up the first pages to an inverter manual, you’ll see a lot of red flags: voltage can kill you cuts can hurt you, and it goes on and on.

When you’re dealing with solar [00:25:00] panels, if you’re putting them on a rooftop, you have to worry about falling off. There was a young solar installation company here in Texas, where the owner was a hands- on installer. He was out there with his crew, and they were all working together to put the solar panels up. He fell off the roof, broke his back, and it put him out of business. It is dangerous to be on a rooftop.

The other thing is solar panels now they typically produce about 50 volts of electricity, which in itself isn’t a whole lot. I mean, it won’t kill you, but it could burn you a little bit. But when you put the system together, all the solar panels together can produce as much as a thousand volts, and you can weld with that. Not only can it burn you severely, it can kill you. When it is transformed into alternating current, it has to be [00:26:00] installed in such a way that you don’t have loose wires, shorts, and so forth.

These are the kind of precautions that a qualified electrician would make. You have to have some knowledge of electrical installations. There’s a lot of backyard electricians out there. I’ve seen their work, and they may be able to make a light bulb burn, but you got to decide, do you want your house to burn with that light bulb?

So you do have to have a certain skill level, and that’s something that you really can’t get out of a book. You have to be out there hands on. In the solar industry it was really questionable in the early days of how good those solar installers were. Because I went through a class where there was a retired school teacher and [00:27:00] he absolutely knew nothing about solar energy, solar installations, electricity, but he read an article and decided he was going to start a company. And there was a lot of really bad installations. They’ve gotten better over the years because the municipalities, utility companies have gotten really strict on what is needed.

What we advise people to do is don’t do it yourself. Do what you can do. I mean, it doesn’t take any great skill to dig a trench. And there’s a lot of ground based systems that use trenches. It doesn’t take any skill to set pipes in concrete. You could do that. There are some things you can do, some things you probably should do to save you some money. And frankly, those of us that are in the business, we don’t like digging ditches, okay? So do what you can, but know what the solar [00:28:00] company should be doing. Know what the standards are, so when they do something that looks a little odd, then you can call them to task on it.

For example, in the early days, they didn’t understand the concept in some of these solar companies that solar panels don’t shrink or stretch. And so they would do all sorts of creative things to make sure they got on the rooftop. In one case, the amount of solar panels they had to have was much bigger of a space than what the rooftop was. So they just extended them up over the top and past the sides of the roof. Then the first windstorm that came along blew the roof off with the solar panels. It just became a big kite.

We found out when you get outside of the I-35 corridor, which is the Denison or, well, North Texas all the way down to Laredo now, but basically Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, [00:29:00] that’s where your concentration of solar installation companies are. You get 50 miles outside of that corridor, and it starts becoming very thin on who you can find to actually install them. The companies don’t want to travel that far. They don’t want to take that much time. So, what do you do? We came up with our manufactured system so that all of those technical things can be designed into a shippable format that can be delivered to your location, and then a standard ordinary electrician could just plug it in and you’re good to go.

That was our solution to the labor problem, the technical problem, and that’s also an option to those that don’t want to do their own system.

[00:29:51] What to Ask Solar Installation Companies

Kenny Coogan: For listeners who don’t want to be hoodwinked by retired school teachers, what are their specific questions that we [00:30:00] should be asking the installers? And I don’t know if this is related, but my father is very concerned about them adding holes to the roof when they add the solar.

Hoss Boyd: Again, there are some things that a good solar installation company needs to know how to do. And one of them is to mount solar panels on a rooftop without causing leaks. And here’s the dilemma: if your roof is over 10 years old, you probably need to replace your roof first. And now you have to decide, do I really want holes in my brand new roof?

If done correctly, the roof will not leak. I’m going to give away one of my secrets here. I won’t go into too much detail. What we would do is bolt the mounts into a structural member that’s underneath the roof and you can’t see it. You have a good idea how far apart they are. [00:31:00] You got to find that first one. So I would take a finishing nail, lift up a shingle, because the shingles lap over the holes that you made, and then I would make test holes with a finishing nail that’d be really tiny and seal back up after you pull the nail out. And that’s how I would find the structural member.

When I would mount the what we call “L feed,” it’s the mounting brackets, we would then drill the hole into the structural member, fill it full of 50 year sealer that never cracks, never goes bad. put The sealer all over the bottom of the bracket. And then when we got done, the hole was sealed better than the shingle was sealing the roof.

If you have a metal roof, now you have a real issue, because if you bolt through the metal roof, the roof is constantly vibrating and moving, and you’ll end [00:32:00] up with a big walled out spot that leaks in your roof, in your metal roof. So they actually have a new system out with brackets that have a stick on backing that’s sealable, and it bolts to the structure of the metal roof sheets, the ridge, if you will, as opposed to going through the metal roof. And so it’s above the high water lines and they don’t leak.

Leaky roofs. One of my customers called me after we went through all of that to make sure the roof didn’t leak. They said, we think we got a roof leak. We don’t know where else it could be coming from. So I went out to their house. This particular couple had been in a severe car accident and he had lost a leg . He couldn’t climb up in the attic to look for the leak, so I got to. And I looked, I could not see any evidence of a leak, but yet there was that spot on [00:33:00] their porch roof ceiling. And then the wife remembered the bee’s nest that she had sprayed all of the beespray on that was in that exact spot.

So we do take extra precautions. But the problem you’re going to run into , if you do not hire a reliable installation company, what do you do if you do have a leak and nobody answers the phone anymore? See, that’s really the crux of the problem. A lot of solar companies are startups. And startups, by definition, are out of business after the first year. And very few last over five years. So, how good is your 10 year inverter warranty and your 25 year solar panel warranty if they’re out of business and can’t service you?

[00:33:51] Problems with Solar Panels on Roofs

Kenny Coogan: I just thought about 10 more questions.

When you’re asking the solar installers, you know, [00:34:00] oh, how are you going to attach it to the roof? And then you’re okay with that answer. But what happens when you’re supposed to get a new roof every 10 to 30 years? What’s the longevity? What’s the lifespan of a solar panel? And then if you’re saying that the solar companies, there’s could be a high turnover. What do the listeners do?

Hoss Boyd: Well, the first thing you want to make sure of is that you put a 30 year roof on your house instead of a 15 year. Now, in Texas a roof of any kind lasts only as long as our next hailstorm, and this is one of the things that’s come out of the experience of the solar industry in the San Antonio area.

A few years ago, we had potatoes falling out of the sky, and it was knocking out solar panels all over the place. There was millions in damages. But it was not only to the solar panels, it was to the roof [00:35:00] itself. So, not only do you have to replace the solar panels, you have to replace your roof.

Now what happens if the solar panels are fine? You don’t get potatoes falling out of the sky. You get marbles that don’t hurt the solar panel, but wipes out the roof where you do not have solar panels. You still have to replace the roof, and that means you’ve got to dismantle your solar array and rebuild it.

There went the economic benefit of your solar panels, unless you can get the insurance company to pay for the removal and replacement. And by the way, they never pay enough. You always end up out of pocket. So, putting it on a roof is not my first choice. I would put it on a ground based system, if at all possible.

If you have a homestead, that’s ideal. Now, there’s another option that we haven’t even talked about, and that’s a pre standing structure, such as a carport. [00:36:00] They have what’s called a solar shade structure or a solar canopy, and we build a number of those. And what they are is it’s just a frame, a heavy steel frame that has a roof on it and you can use it for other purposes. It’s higher off the ground. That’s, the main thing. And it has a little bit lower slope to it so it doesn’t look like it an outdoor motion picture theater. I’m dating myself. A lot of people don’t know what that is.

By using that, you don’t have to deal with the issues of the house roof. You don’t have to worry about leaks. You don’t have to worry about other things. If the canopy leaks, you really don’t have any big issues. It shouldn’t if it’s done right. If it’s a shade structure, it’s guaranteed to leak because there’s no roof under it. The solar panels just create a shade, and they have gaps in between them. Using that metal roof system, [00:37:00] you can have a really nice outdoor area that could be used for a carport, it could be used for, in one case, in one customer, their rooftop it wasn’t a square or rectangular rooftop, everything was triangles. Solar panels are rectangular. They don’t cut in half to fit. Okay, so where could we put solar? Plus he had all these trees. In the backyard, he , had a very good space out in the sun, and we built him an outdoor cabana complete with ceiling fans, lights, plug ins, and then he put in some hand laid brick, made a patio out of it, and it became a really nice outdoor space. And at the same time, the electricity paid for the savings in the electricity. So, there are other options than putting it on your roof.

Kenny Coogan: I was also [00:38:00] thinking, when you were mentioning the ground based systems, about having livestock graze underneath certain solar structures.

Hoss Boyd: Again, one of my customers has rodeo bulls roaming around his solar array.

So far, they haven’t caused any issues. The, the wiring and everything that could get hung up in, say, a set of longhorn steer horns they are tucked away, strapped down, enclosed, protected. And that’s basically what you have to do if you’re going to put a ground based system in or put a fence around it.

A ground based system uses uprights that are heavy gauge steel pipes. And these pipes could also double as a chain link fence pipe or post. So that’s one thing you can do. I read a Zane Gray novel, when [00:39:00] they were putting in the telegraph lines from east to west , through the wilderness, the biggest problem they had was the buffaloes rubbing on the poles and knocking the poles down.

So that’s probably your biggest issue, and that’s why I’d recommend a separate fence to go around your solar array.

[00:39:20] Solar Panel Warranties and Documentation

Kenny Coogan: All right, Hoss. Let’s do two more questions because of time. So when you are getting an installation, what type of documentation or warranty should you be requesting from the solar installers?

Hoss Boyd: Well, there’s probably some even more important questions to ask on top of that, and that is, how long have the manufacturers of the equipment been in business?

I have gone through three solar panel manufacturers that had great warranties. In one case, it was a 30 year warranty, but [00:40:00] they went out of business a year later. So how good was that warranty? There are hundreds of solar panels out there.

A good resource, by the way, California led the way , in the solar industry, and they have what’s called the California Energy Commission, CEC, list of authorized equipment. And that covers inverters, and it covers solar panels, and it also gives what they believe is the true production capability of the solar panels. Because you have a rated capability, and then you have the actual capability that may be less and usually is. So, go to the CEC, and you can Google it, the California Energy Commission Solar Energy list, and find out, first of all, is the equipment your contractor is selling you on that list?

And the next [00:41:00] question is, how long has that company or those companies been around? I’ve had inverter companies go out of business. And you don’t think about the big equipment having a company that doesn’t have a long life expectancy. So, whenever we install equipment, we require that our manufacturers be not only stable, but financially sound and have been around a while. And I won’t list any of those companies because it’ll get into proprietary issues. But those are the questions you want to ask.

Also, you want to make sure you’re not getting surplus or used solar equipment, unless you intend to get surplus or excess solar equipment used. Which you can do. You can go online, and you can buy out of warehouses at a really cheap price, but they come with no [00:42:00] warranties. So you need to be aware of that. And there are a lot of solar panels, and let’s talk about a case in point, where we have a hailstorm. The hailstorm does obvious damage to some solar panels, but may not provide you with obvious damage to others. You may have micro cracks and other problems with solar panels. Those are the kind of panels that could end up in the surplus market or the used market. Because they look good, they work today, but over time they’ll fail. You need to know what kind of equipment am I getting. And the best way to find out is require your contractor to give you what we call in the industry a cut sheet or a specification sheet. That describes exactly what you’re getting. Then, make sure that what he said you’re getting, you actually get. Because there are some contractors that will say, [00:43:00] well, we’ll give you something that we believe is just as good. And then you end up with lower quality panels.

Little old lady in San Antonio, one of the first ones to get a solar installation. She was told one set of panels that she would get that were a name brand. And when the solar panels were put on, she thought that’s what she got. But when the inspector came, he said, do you realize that not only did you not get the solar panel manufacturer that you thought you were going to get, but these are lower rated panels. You’re not even going to get as much electricity as you thought you were going to get.

[00:43:38] The Future of Solar

Kenny Coogan: So Hoss you’ve been doing solar capture for 20 years, and in today’s episode, we’ve had many words of caution, but are you optimistic? Should listeners go for solar? Is this a good time? Have you seen enough positive changes in the past 20 years to [00:44:00] say, go for it?

Hoss Boyd: Training has become a lot more intense.

The electrical industry has included solar installations in their training programs. The National Electric Code has been greatly expanded now, because in the past, there was maybe a paragraph that came close to covering solar energy. And that really didn’t say a whole lot. And now there’s some very strict requirements on what and how you should be installing solar.

If I was going to hire somebody else to install my solar project and I didn’t know anything about it, the first thing I would do is, remember that long, drawn out name that you listed at the front?

Kenny Coogan: North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners?

Hoss Boyd: Yes. NABCEP, N A B C E P, is what I like to remember because I can never say the rest [00:45:00] of it in one sentence without stuttering. They publish a list of certified installation professionals. And what you wanna look for is the solar installation professional certification. They have other certifications. They have solar sales certifications. They’ve got technicians certifications, but the ultimate certification is the certified professional solar installer, or the solar installation professional. And every solar installer that has that certification in the United States is listed in their directory.

To get that certification, I had to have three qualifying installations. I had to have not only experience in the industry and proof that I did those installations, but I also [00:46:00] had to have, oh, I think over the years, I’ve paid about $10, 000 for training and recurring training to keep the certification.

So I had to have the classroom instruction specific to solar installations. And then I had to pass a test that you almost had to have a degree in nuclear engineering to be able to pass. The pass rate was at that time 10%. So it was an extremely difficult test, which, by the way, NABCEP grew out of the scientists at Sandia National Laboratory, who were energy scientists.

And so the technical side was geared a lot towards the science of solar energy. And over the years, it’s become a little bit more practical, I would say, than the theory side of it. I don’t know if it’s any easier to pass the [00:47:00] test because I have to take, I think it’s now up to 30 hours of recurring training, which is not cheap, to keep the certification.

So if you’re on that list, you had to pay the price to get the certification. And oh, by the way, I also had to have three years of experience. So there’s a lot to be considered. And I think my electrical contracting experience kind of helped there.

After you’ve done that, the utility companies usually have a list of authorized, not necessarily approved, but authorized solar installers that qualify for their rebate program. Doesn’t mean they’re good. It just means that they’ve met the requirements, which is they’re licensed and they have the NABCEP certification or are getting the certification. If they’re really bad and they get a lot of complaints, they’ll take them off the list. But, the utility company can’t recommend anybody, [00:48:00] but if they’re on the list, that’s a good sign.

The last, best thing to do, require them to provide you with references. And talk to people that have had their solar array up for three or four years. If they haven’t been in business very long, they can’t provide you that kind of information. But if they do, ask them, what kind of service do you get now that they’ve installed it? Or did they just build it, disappear, and send you a Dear John letter and say, we’re never going to see you again.

Kenny Coogan: Well, thank you so much, Hoss, for speaking with us. I thoroughly enjoyed it. And for all of our listeners, those resources along with additional reading material will be in the show notes for this episode.

And I hope everyone enjoyed our conversation on solar, because it has been very informative. Thank you again, Hoss.

Jessica Mitchell: Thanks for joining us for this episode of Mother Earth News and Friends. To listen to more podcasts and get [00:49:00] connected on our social media, visit our website, www.MotherEarthNews.com/P odcast. You can also email us at Podcast@OgdenPubs.com with any questions or suggestions.

Our podcast production team includes Jessica Mitchell, Kenny Coogan, John Moore, Carla Tilghman, and Alyssa Warner.

Music for this episode is “Travel Light” by Jason Shaw. The Mother Earth News and Friends podcast is a production of Ogden Publications.

Until next time, don’t forget to love your mother.

Meet Hoss Boyd

Hoss Boyd is founder, president, and CEO of TeraVolt Energy and is a recognized solar and energy-storage expert.

Additional Resources on Solar Energy Pros and Cons

The Aggie ‘n Arkie OTG Energy Guide: The Go-To Energy Guide for Planning, Building, & Living Off-The-Grid with Solar & Energy Storage

California Energy Commission Solar Equipment Lists Program

Gone Off-Grid Green Energy Column

 Our Podcast Team

Jessica Anderson, John Moore, Kenny Coogan, and Alyssa Warner
Music: “Travel Light” by Jason Shaw

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The Mother Earth News and Friends podcasts are a production of Ogden Publications.

Ogden Publications strives to inspire “can-do communities,” which may have different locations, backgrounds, beliefs, and ideals. The viewpoints and lifestyles expressed within Ogden Publications articles are not necessarily shared by the editorial staff or policies but represent the authors’ unique experiences.