We did a prepaid lease option through the Solarize Massachusetts bulk purchase program. Our town qualified for the most favorable pricing tier. It was about $8K out of pocket for a 17 panel system. It generated $980 worth of electricity last year and SRECs that we sold for $1200. As I crunched the numbers this appeared to be the best deal assuming the price of the SRECs stayed moderately high for ~3 years from installation. We anticipated a 6-7 year payback and are in pretty good shape to hit that target. If the price of SRECs falls faster than anticipated we could fall short of that.

Tax credits were rolled into the pricing scheme, I don't recall, there might have been a small deduction available from the feds.

In the zero cost option the solar company retained the SRECs, which they valued at what I thought was a pretty low rate in their comparison, so we went with greater risk, but I think a reasonable chance of greater reward.

We considered it briefly however was worried that if we needed to sell our home before the lease ran out we would have a problem. I was not comfortable with the idea of trying to get someone to assume a lease on used solar panels.

@Sunnysmom, so if you leased this solar system and sold house say 5 years later. You can't take the system to your new home? and continue paying the payment??

Ken

We've been with SolarCity for 3 1/2 years. The run down:

- 5K out of pocket up front

- 6K back from the state of Oregon over 3 years

- Almost 2K back from Federal

- We pay 85% of the price we locked when we started for 20 years.

I just got a statement from them, stating we had saved about $840 so far in paying the lower rate.

- So I've got 3K cash back beyond my outlay, and I save $250 a year. And I have a 20 year service contract with guaranteed output. I've got an MBA, so I ran the numbers with a lot scrutiny, and I'm doing well with it. I'm really glad we did it. Also, we did other energy upgrades since and we are now basically net-zero.

Here is the view of the install. 10kW system.

We just bought a 18K system. Never considered a lease, and the installer (a local firm in NJ) tells people they will absolutely lose money doing one. He's very honest, and gave a great deal. The big firms push the leases because they make a killing on them, between the fed tax rebate and the SRECs.

2018 many great off the shelf products that are grid quality can be mixed with solar, wind and any alternative electrical energy that can be made to play nicely together in harmony with switching between sources that are so fast that clock or computer resets are not needed. It's an investment that pays for itself with clean, safe, reliable electrical energy. So still a big no to a lease make your own micro grid electrical energy onsite power where allowed and legally back feed utility grid.

Lease vs buy is, as always, purely a financial decision and the answer will be different in different circumstances. Run the numbers both ways and decide. It probably comes down to your cost of capital in large part, as well as the very problematic assumptions about future rates of return on investments. Even if you build it yourself, how you finance it is decision you still have to make. For some a lease may make sense. I don't see how I could have come out better than with the prepaid lease option I described several years ago.