Yes! Solar works in Washington state. There are three primary incentives that help residential solar projects reach break even and actually save homeowners thousands in electricity bills: 30% Federal Tax Credit, No Sales Tax, and Net Metering.

While we may not have as much solar access as say California, we do have LONG summer days up here in the northwest. Coupling our long days with the state’s Net Metering law, we’re able to use the summer to effectively pay down usage in the winter. To learn more, check out our page "Does Solar Work in Washington?"

First, our Sales & Design Consultants will ask you if you have any design concerns or considerations. Then they’ll examine your historical electricity usage (kWh) and ask if you foresee any changes in your usage in the near future, like if you are planning on purchasing an electric vehicle. Next, they get to work in our design software by creating a 3D model of the home and any nearby obstructions (trees or other homes) using satellite imagery and LIDAR. The design software will take that information and create a heatmap on the roof to indicate the best areas to place solar panels. Once the panels are placed on the roof, we’re able to simulate the annual energy production (kWh). Our goal is to offset as much of the expected annual electricity needs as possible unless otherwise directed by our customers.

We use microinverters for our residential solar panel installations as well as most of our commercial projects. We’re currently installing the Enphase IQ8 line of microinverters. To better understand the many benefits to using microinverters, check out our blog post “Microinverters or String Inverters?”.

There are three incentives available to Washington state homeowners: 30% Federal Tax Credit, Net Metering, and No Sales Tax.

The 30% federal tax credit is a dollar-for-dollar reduction in your federal tax bill. To ensure eligibility, please consult your tax professional, but as long as you pay as much or more in taxes you should be able to claim this credit.

Net Metering is the ability to backfeed excess energy from your solar system back to your utility and receive a credit in a 1:1 ratio. We leverage our long summer days to create a bank of credits to pay your bill down in the winter.

And no sales tax means the price we present in our proposal is the final price - no sales tax added.

To learn more about these "Washington State Solar Incentives."

If you do not have a backup battery system and an outage occurs, your solar system is required to shutdown. This is due to the system’s ability to backfeed energy to grid. If your solar system were to remain active during an outage without a battery system, your solar energy could injure workers repairing downed power lines. So, if you only have solar, your system is set to shut off during an outage.

If you have a backup battery system, the battery system senses when the grid goes down and automatically disconnects the home from the grid/utility and creates a microgrid for your home, communicating to your solar inverter(s) that it is safe to continue to generate energy from the sun.

So if you want your solar system to continue to generate energy during an outage and you want to keep the lights on, a home battery is the way to go.

Unfortunately, there is no single price for everyone. There are four main factors that go into pricing out a solar panel system. First, everyone uses a different amount of energy. We wouldn’t want to build a system that was too big or too small for a home with the expectation that it was going to be within the range of 100% energy offset. Second, every home has a different set of obstructions that may or may not be present (trees, other homes or buildings, etc). Third, roof faces are oriented differently to the sun. South facing roofs are best for solar, but western and eastern facing roofs also work, but the exact orientation is obviously going to vary greatly. Finally, where you’re located in the state can impact solar access quite a bit.

We price out every system individually, meaning every customer pays for their system and is not subsidizing anyone else’s project. The best way to get an accurate and fair quote is to work with one of our Sales & Design Consultants to build a free proposal today. Fill out our Get Quote form to get the ball rolling.

In short, the amount of savings will vary by project (houehold). Everyone uses a different amount of energy, homes have varying areas of usable roof space (orientation to the sun, nearby obstructions, and physical area), and electricity rates vary by utility as well (including the rate at which the utility increases the per kWh cost over time). Savings are not guaranteed. With that said, since utlities have raised rates over time and if they continue to do so, it’s safe to say that if you have enough roof space with good access to the sun, you’ll be able to save a substantial amount of money over the life of the system.

Get a proper evaluation to see what you can save!

Typical installations take about two days. Installation duration varies due to the size and layout of the system. To more panels and the more arrays there are, the long it will take. Your Sales & Design Consultant should be able to give you an accurate estimate for the duration of your project.