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by 01100011 424 days ago
So my experience with a leased solar system installed in SoCal in 2011 and owned until 2018(SunRun). The system ended up costing me a fair amount of money although it let me run my AC all day without thinking about it. Sure I could have turned off the AC but the amount I'd have made from selling electricity wouldn't have been much. I hear the situation is even worse now because of the new plans(and now people in the old plans will be forcibly removed). The system also slightly complicated the sale of the home.

I'll say that one goal of the current administration, assuming they're competent enough to accomplish anything, is to dramatically increase US electricity production and I believe them. So with electric costs predicted to drop I suspect it is a bad time to invest in a solar system. China tariffs probably make this even worse as panels should rise in cost.

I would also defer a solar install until I got a new roof since replacing your roof means paying to remove and replace the solar system.

I'll admit that I am biased, generally, against residential rooftop solar for non-off-grid installs since my personal belief is those panels serve society better when they're filling commercial rooftops where economies of scale can make maintenance overhead per watt lower but I'm sure someone will contradict that belief with statistics. Just throwing it out there.