[Gerald Sharp, PRA Treassurer, has published this update to his previous article on the Solar Switch program for Montgomery County].
In 2023 I took advantage of the Solar Switch program for Montgomery County in which companies installing solar panels submit bids to install panels, and the program contracts with the lowest bidder that meets their requirements to get a group rate for solar installations. I wrote up my experience with the program and the company, Lumina Solar in Baltimore, that won the contract that year and installed my panels in December 2023. My article is available on the PRA website and now also on the Solar Switch website.
At the end of 2024, Charlie Keyser, the Lumina Solar representative I had worked with, said that Lumina Solar could come close to meeting the Solar Switch price for 2024 (when they were not the low bidder and official chosen contractor), and Lumina Solar could give the PRA a $1000 referral fee for anyone we referred to them in January 2025. I asked the PRA Executive Committee (EC) if it would be okay to keep just $100 of the referral fees and pay the balance to the residents installing solar panels, and the EC agreed. Later when I started referring residents in Kensington Estates to the program, we decided to give $100 to their neighborhood organization and the balance to their residents who contracted with Lumina Solar. Residents I referred in January 2025 were slated to receive $900; residents I referred before or after January 2025 were slated to receive $400 with the extra $100 going to either the PRA or the Kensington Estates Civic Association (KECA).
So far, I have referred 15 residents of Parkwood and Kensington Estates to Lumina Solar, and 8 of those referrals were in January 2025, qualifying them for the $900 rebate from the PRA. Of those 15 referrals, 6 residents have signed contracts with Lumina Solar (3 qualifying for $900 rebates and 3 qualifying for $400 rebates from the referral fees being paid to the PRA). Two of the residents installing panels live in Kensington Estates, so the PRA will pay one of them $400 and the other one $900 with $200 going to KECA.
Some residents who decided not to install solar panels had houses with too much shade from their trees to make the panels effective, but the most common reason residents had to not go forward was fear that the current 30% federal tax credit would be cancelled by the White House, and thus they would not get that substantial tax credit when they filed their taxes for 2025. This is unlikely to happen, but some people don’t trust the administration not to cancel it.
According to the IRS, the 30% tax credit is available until 2032. The credit is nonrefundable, so the credit amount you receive can’t exceed the amount you owe in tax, but you can carry forward any excess unused credit and apply it to reduce the tax you owe in future years. Congress would have to agree to cancel it, and while this might happen in the future, it would be difficult to make any cancellation retroactive. Thus, solar panels installed this year should qualify for the 30% tax credit when people file their 2025 federal taxes next year.
Maryland previously offered a $1000 rebate to residents installing solar panels, but that program expired last November. The state currently has a program to cover up to $7500 of the installation costs for middle income residents with “middle income” being defined as maximum gross yearly income of $128,430 for 1-person households, $147,715 for 2-, $165,090 for 3-, and $183,373 for 4-person households. Information about this Maryland program is available at this link.
If you own an electric car or plan to buy one, Maryland also offers a rebate program for people who install Level 2 (dryer plug) outlets to charge their car. The program, which currently is out of funds, will pay 50% of outlet installation costs up to $700. Information about the program is here. I had Lumina Solar install a Level 2 outlet when they installed my panels and received a check for $600 from the state.
One Parkwood resident, Marc Goldstein, who decided to contract with Lumina Solar to install his panels, also received estimates from 5 other solar power installation companies. Comparison of the bids he received gives us an opportunity to compare the various installation companies operating here. Table 1 below shows the prices charged by Lumina Solar and the other five companies he contacted, along with other characteristics of the various bids.
Installation costs varied a lot on solar panel systems being installed locally. Integrate Sun had the lowest total cost of $15,674 ($10,971 after the 30% federal tax credit), but their system was the only one using a single inverter for all the panels. (Solar SME had the lowest final cost after their $5,800 rebate reduced it to $9,051.) The other companies used more expensive systems with a microinverter installed for each panel separately. Inverters convert the DC power generated by the sun into AC power. Using microinverters for each panel allows them to operate independently, minimizing the impact of shading and panel failures on overall system output. Nova Solar offered a discount of $6,450 for their installation, comparable to Solar SME’s $5,800 discount.
Because I referred Marc to Lumina in January 2025, he qualified for the $900 PRA rebate from our referral fee. Overall, there was a wider difference in the final cost estimates of each company than I would have expected. Final cost estimates ranged from a low of $9,051 for Solar SME to the highest bid about twice as high for Palmetto at $19,349. Payback periods also differed with the different companies, ranging from 4.4 years for Solar SME to 9.1 years for Palmetto. However, this is an estimated number, because no one knows how much power companies will charge for electricity in the future, and the companies did not use the same rate increase estimates.
You will notice in Table 1 that the cost of installing a battery adds about $10,000 to the cost of the solar panel installations. Marc and I decided not to install batteries when we contracted with Lumina Solar. Maryland is a net metering state, meaning the state requires that when customers put excess power generated by their panels into the grid, they are credited by PEPCO and other power companies at the same price per kilowatt-hour (kWh) that they are charged. This is not true in all states, because in some states the power companies are allowed to pay a lower rate for power put into the grid. With net metering, the grid basically functions as a battery allowing the home owner to put excess power into the grid during the sunshine hours and pull it back out at night. Thus, the $10,000 extra cost is harder to justify here.
The downside is that during a power outage, PEPCO will turn off solar panel installations that lack batteries to avoid electrocuting their linemen. If the home owner has a battery, PEPCO does not do this, thereby allowing solar panels to provide back-up power. I decided that power outages here are too infrequent to justify the extra $10,000 cost. Lumina Solar also offered Marc “critter guards”, basically a fence around the panels to keep animals from getting under them. This was an additional $2000 charge, that I deducted from his cost estimate.
Table 2 shows information about the number of panels and per panel costs, as well as information about the warranties offered by the 6 companies. The companies surprised me in that the number of panels they planned to install differed so much, ranging from 14 to 25 panels. I mean, after all, they were doing solar panel installations on the same house. Solar SME with the lowest final cost of $9,051 planned to install 18 panels and discounted their price by $5,800. Palmetto with the highest bid planned to install the most panels of any company at 25 and did not discount their price. Marc said that Lumina Solar planned to install 21 panels, but they found during the installation that only 20 would fit on his roof, and his cost was decreased. Thus, Palmetto’s plan to install 25 panels was probably not feasible.
I was also surprised by the wide variation in the cost of each panel, which ranged from $503 for Solar SME with their large rebate to $1,130 for Cosmo Solaris. Four of the companies used Rec panels, which are rated higher than the Sun panels offered by the other two companies. Sun panels produce less watts per panel than Rec panels: 405 watts vs. 420-460 watts for Rec panels. That difference and the difference in the numbers of panels being installed helps to explain the variation between companies in the estimated annual electricity production. Cost per panel ranged from $503 to $1,130 for Rec panels and from $609 to $774 for Sun panels.
In terms of warranties, the six companies offered similar plans. Warranties on installations were 25 years for Integrate Sun, Nova Solar, and Palmetto and 30 years for Cosmo Solaris and Solar SME. Warranties on inverters were 25 years for all the companies except Integrate Sun at 10 years, the company that also was the low bidder for final costs.
In summary, the PRA’s program to facilitate adding solar power systems in Parkwood and Kensington Estates by returning most of Lumina Solar’s referral fee to residents here was moderately successful with a third of the people I referred to them opting to install panels. If we had an administration that was more supportive of renewable energy, the PRA program might have been more successful with more people trusting that they would actually receive the current 30% federal tax credit for solar panel installations.
In terms of the costs of solar power installations by companies operating here, there was a surprising difference in the estimates Marc received—both in price, number of panels to be installed, and cost per panel even though the panels being installed were very similar. If you are thinking of installing solar panels, it is probably a smart idea to compare estimates from several companies before choosing a company to contract with, and be sure to ask them for any possible discounts. Also consider taking advantage of the county’s Solar Switch program when it is offered again. The PRA will continue to return most of the referral fees we get for referring people to Lumina Solar, which currently has $400 going to residents and $100 going to the PRA or KECA. If you are interested in getting a free estimate, just let me know.
Gerald’s email: gbs2001@yahoo.com
Parkwood Residents Association 