Have you had a solar home transaction fall apart? Solar at resale can be a huge pain point for realtors. Our Senior Solar Consultant, Krystal Hosmer, has a new Continuing Education certified class covering all the solar contract basics you need to know as a realtor listing or showing homes with solar on them. Learn how to figure out what kind of contract is in place, when the system was installed, who installed it, what the options are for removal or negotiation, how to value the system, how to work with solar lenders, and so much more!

Our next class is on Zoom on Jan. 22, from 1-3 pm.
This course grants (1) CE General Education credit.

REGISTER HERE:
https://paul-s-site-1dc6.thinkific.com/courses/1-22-25-buying-and-selling-solar-homes-what-licensees-need-to-know-ce-7397000-re

Robco Electric, Inc. (License # 44324) has partnered with Paul Rich to bring Nevada licensed Realtors a new Continuing Education certified class on dealing with solar contracts during resale transactions. The class covers how to determine what type of solar contract is present, how to decipher what is in the Agreement/Contract, how to locate lost records on the system, how to assist clients in obtaining the highest resale value on their solar systems, how to Buy Out Lease/PPA agreements and how to obtain service on a system if the original installer is no longer in business. This timely information will make Realtors more solar-savvy and help Robco solar clients get more value from their solar investments when their homes are sold.

The class was written and is taught by Robco Electric Senior Solar Consultant Krystal Hosmer with assistance from Terry Farr, a Robco solar customer who is a licensed Appraiser. With more than 14 years of experience dealing with all kinds of solar contracts, Krystal is uniquely qualified to assist Realtors in reading these contracts and helping their clients navigate a solar home transaction. This effort is part of Robco’s ongoing mission to provide education about solar wherever it can benefit our community.

The next class is on December 9^th, 2024, and another class is scheduled for January 2025.

Interested Realtors can RSVP for the December class here:
https://paul-s-site-1dc6.thinkific.com/courses/dec-9-2024-buying-and-selling-solar-homes-what-licensees-need-to-know-ce-7397000-re

For more information about Krystal, https://www.robcoelectriclv.com/krystal-hosmer-solar-sales-consultant/

A drizzly rainy day is a free solar panel cleaning! Thanks, Mother Nature! Solar panels are typically installed at an angle, which allows rainwater to clean the surface naturally. You don’t need to get on the roof and risk hurting yourself. If there’s no rain, using a garden hose with a sprayer head is perfectly fine to rinse off your panels. DO NOT USE ANY CLEANING SOLUTIONS, and never when the outside temperature is above 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

If rainwater or homeowner cleaning is insufficient to remove all the dirt and debris, you can schedule an appointment with Robco, and we will clean them for you at our regular service rate.

It’s important to follow the manufacturer’s instructions for cleaning and maintenance and any safety precautions for accessing the solar panels.

We have gotten some variation of this question about 1,000 times in the last 3 summers from customers who have had solar for years and are used to only seeing $15 or so on their NV Energy bill.

WHAT GIVES??????

2019 was the last “normal” year for solar production in the Las Vegas Valley. You can see from the chart in the right the smooth production curve (Blue bars) where solar output peaks during the hot summer months, right as our consumption is also peaking for the year (orange bars).

A parade of Black Swan Solar Events have hit Las Vegas for 3 straight years. As solar pros, we can’t design for these unforeseen extreme events. We can’t even imagine these kind of crazy changes to people’s behavior and the weather patterns happening year after year.

The Black Swan Parade

2020: The Stay-at-Home Year

In 2020, the global pandemic shook our collective world. The widest spread Black Swan event to hit modern civilization since WWII. Starting in March of 2020, the stay-at-home orders spiked power use by about 20% for the average household. Turns out, if people are at home more, they use a lot more power. More TV, more computer, more air conditioning, more vacuuming, more cooking, more everything! Look at the orange bars in the 2020 image compared to 2019. Those measure my house’s total consumption. See the spike in March that lasts all year? My solar system (and all the others in Las Vegas) was making power…but we were all using WAAAAAAAY more power than usual. The systems don’t magically make more power than they were designed to produce, just like the engine in your car doesn’t somehow transform from a 4 cylinder to an 8 cylinder. So, if your power use increased by 20%, you’re going to have an after solar power bill because you’ll be buying that extra power from NV Energy at full retail price.

2021: The Year of Fire Haze and Extreme Heat

In 2021, solar and power use got smacked by a different “Black Swan” event. This one was localized to the Western US and Las Vegas was right next door to the hardest hit region. Most folks had returned to a more usual amount of at home time… but then in the summer of 2021, the west coast was ablaze with out of control wildfires for months on end. The smoky haze from our neighbor’s disaster movie existence settled over the entire Las Vegas valley. Remember those days when the sky was just a glowing orange haze and it looked like we had all moved to Tatooine or Mars? That particulate dense smoke blocked sunlight from hitting the city’s solar panels at the same level it usually does during those cloudless, long sunny days. You can see the noticeable dip in production (blue bars) during the summer of 2021. So, every solar system made less power than usual that year because there was a lot less sunlight to work with. The extreme heat also didn’t help. Power use spiked again over the summer trying to keep folks cool during the hottest summer ever recorded in Las Vegas. So for 2021, you had both LESS POWER being made AND HIGHER POWER DEMAND. Thus, for the second summer
running, we all bought more power from the NV Energy grid to fill the gap.

2022:The Cloudiest Summer in a Decade

Now here in 2022, we have yet another Black Swan event mucking up solar land. This summer had the longest, wettest, cloudiest monsoon season we’ve seen in 10 years! (This here black swan had a silver lining, though, because we sure needed that water desperately!) Again, solar needs clear skies and long sunny days to hit maximum output over the summer and we didn’t get them for most of the summer. Temps were not as extreme as last summer, so we didn’t see quite the same 1-2 punch with reduced production AND higher power demand, but still the effect was enough that yet again a big old dip in the blue production bars over the summer means here we all are buying more power than normal from the grid to fill the gap.

In summary, solar needs clear, sunny skies for maximum power output. The last 3 years haven’t seen that during the summer, so every solar customer in the city is seeing bigger than usual after solar power bills.

If you are concerned about your system’s performance, please get in touch with your Robco Solar Consultant.

If you previously received quotes from installation companies for your solar project and request new ones today, it is likely you’ll see notable price increases or be informed that the company isn’t able to commit to completing your install due to a lack of materials.

With companies facing pinch-points and rising component prices, many have no choice but to pass on these expenses to you, the end customer. Perhaps what makes this shift so abrasive is the fact that people have become accustomed to the trend of solar prices decreasing every year as the industry grows and technology improves. This is the first time that the industry has seen prices increasing quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year across all market segments. Taking it a step further, Rystad Energy analysts estimate that shipping conflicts and rising material costs could result in 56% of 2022 solar projects worldwide being postponed or canceled completely.

So, where in the solar supply chain are these disruptions happening?

There are two main points of disruption in the solar supply chain: port delays and material costs. Both of these issues feed into one another and serve to create a downward spiral for the industry’s supply chain as a whole.

With shipping backlogs at virtually all ports, product shortages and price increases are a given. Currently, shipping a container via a primary U.S. port takes three times as long as normal. At the Port of Los Angeles alone, roughly 200,000 shipping containers are still onboard ships along the coast due to the current gridlock. Additionally, with the peak holiday season in full swing, the situation is set to face even greater pressure as demand increases even more. Current projections predict that port delays, and the resulting product shortages, will continue until mid-2022.

 On top of the increase in shipping prices and related conflicts, there have been drastic increases in material and manufacturing costs for solar panels. These price increases are the result of the bullwhip effect, which was triggered by the halting of production during the pandemic. Prior to manufacturers being shut down, there was a surplus of polysilicon available. However, once restrictions lifted and production began again, the economic bounce-back occurred faster than anticipated. As a result, demand exceeded what manufacturers were prepared to handle and prices skyrocketed.

With an increase in the cost of polysilicon by over 300%, the manufacturing costs for modules have increased by nearly 50% between 2020 and the end of 2021. Other necessary raw materials have also seen price increases that have added pressure to the manufacturing costs and, in turn, increased the prices of panels themselves.

Now that we understand what’s going on, what is Robco doing to serve you despite the disruptions?

Providing concierge style customer service is significant to everything we do, and an aspect of that is anticipating the pain points of our customers before they even have a chance to reach you. Knowing supply disruptions were only set to get worse, we ensured we secured enough inventory to cover our installations for the next six months.

That’s right. When you sign your contract with us, you can rest assured knowing we are more than ready to complete your project.

With that being said, even with our preparedness, we aren’t immune to the inflation of material costs. In response to the increased prices of our manufacturers, you will see our quoted project costs increasing in January.

So, if you know you want solar, don’t wait.

We strive to be forward-thinking and customer focused, we will continue to actively seek out ways to minimize any negative impact on our customers. We hope that this post has provided clarity surrounding the solar supply chain and assurance that we are doing our due diligence.

If you still have questions regarding this topic, or any other, please reach out. We are always here to help!

In the mood to dive deeper into all things solar? Check out the rest of our blog posts here!