Chatting with a solar guy made me rethink my whole take on battery installs

I was having coffee with a solar installer named Dave from the next town over, and he said something that stuck with me. He told me, 'We're putting in so many backup systems now, the real cost isn't the battery, it's the panel upgrade to feed it.' He showed me a job from last month where the 200 amp service upgrade added almost $3,000 to the total bill. I always figured the battery unit itself was the big ticket item, but he's right. It's making me look at load calculations for these jobs in a whole new way before I even give a quote. Has anyone else run into this and started quoting the service work separately first?

3 comments

3 Comments

logan5255d ago

So you're checking panel capacity first now?

susan_adams4d ago

That panel upgrade cost is no joke. My neighbor had a similar surprise last year when his old 100 amp service couldn't handle the new battery setup. @logan525 asking about checking capacity first is smart, because it changes the whole price picture. They ended up having to do a full service mast and meter base replacement before the battery even showed up. It added weeks to the project timeline and a big chunk to the loan he took out. Makes you wonder how many quotes are missing that key first step.

nathan1004d ago

Honestly, my cousin had to replace his whole underground service line after a tree root crushed it. That was a whole other level of expensive surprise.