The Data I Promised Myself I’d Track When my system went live on January 12th of last year, I told myself I’d log every single month’s production numbers. This complements my full…

I Was Dreading the Solar Shopping Process Everything I’d read about buying solar involved the same horror story: a salesperson shows up, won’t leave your house for three hours, and…

The Three Ways to Pay for Solar, Ranked by 25-Year Return When I was shopping for solar, every installer had an opinion on financing. The lease rep told me zero-down leases were the smart move for…

Why I Became Obsessed With Solar Monitoring Fourteen months ago I dropped $28,400 on a 10.2 kW solar system. That’s not a small check. When you write that kind of number, you start caring…

I want to tell you about the conversation I had with my neighbor Dave, eight months after my solar install. There was a grid outage — a utility fault two streets over, about 4 hours in the middle of…

My panels are on my roof. That was the obvious choice for my house — good southern exposure, appropriate pitch, relatively new roof. But during my research phase, I spent time understanding ground…

I paid $26,040 cash for my solar system. No loan, no lease, no PPA. When I tell people that, the reaction is usually either “wow, good for you” or “that seems like a lot of cash to…

Six months after my solar install, I bought a used 2022 Chevy Bolt EV. I want to be clear that I did not buy it to “complete my solar setup” — I needed to replace my aging Civic and the…

Before I found EnergySage, I made the mistake of filling out a “get a free solar quote” form on some random website. Within 48 hours I had received 11 phone calls, 6 texts, and 3 emails…

When I was researching solar, every Ohio skeptic had the same response: “But you live in Columbus. It’s cloudy all the time.” I heard this from neighbors, coworkers, and most…

I filed my taxes two months ago and got a $7,812 federal tax credit from my solar installation. Not a deduction — a credit. That’s a dollar-for-dollar reduction in what I owed the IRS, and…

Solar Panel Maintenance: What You Actually Need to Do (Spoiler: Very Little) When I was in the research phase — after I’d already worked out exactly how many panels I needed and understood my…