KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Go Solar with Confidence with Carol Cole-Lewis

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

Hello, this is Izumi Tamaka with Home Green Homes podcast. We are talking about solar today. Because I am a green realtor, I hear from many solar companies to promote solar panels for homeowners. And honestly, I've always had some misgivings about pushing solar. Especially in California, there is a rush to install solar panels because of the transition from net energy metering 2, also known as NEM-2 to Net Energy Metering 3 in mid-April 2023. Carol Cole-Louis is an independent solar consultant and is socially conscious-valued focus professional

with sales, marketing, and training experiences obtained through working with individual customers and companies of all shapes and sizes and stages from startups to nonprofits to Fortune 100 corporations. Carol became an independent solar consultant in 2016 in order to inspire homeowners to gain energy independence and to reduce their energy cost. I invited Carol to explain the state of solar today

and share all the things homeowners should be aware of when considering rooftop solar. Thank you so much, Carol, today for being with me. I am honored to have you. I've had so many people that I've talked to who are solo consultant, but as we made the connection, I felt the kindred soul. And with your background, I really feel like you are a very good person for me to have on my podcast to talk about solar panels and everything related. So Carol, first of all, tell me just a little bit about where you are today as a solo consultant.

in the climate. Well, climate literally figuratively of where we are, where, you know, we have a lot of incentives out there, especially with the Infration Reduction Act, the government signed last year. And so I think a lot of homeowners are currently bombarded with advertisement from solar companies.

So can you tell us where we are in the solar world? Wow. Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me on your podcast. It was a delightful meeting with you a while ago. and just sharing our conversation for it. And I'm so happy to be here for your listeners, too, to help educate them, hopefully educate them to so that they can enable themselves to go solo with confidence. So anyway, so where are we today?

March the 29th, 2020, just to date this podcast, we find ourselves about 16th, April 14th, which is here in the state of California. It's when we're actually going to be transferring over from Net Interest, metering 2 to a new net energy metering rate plan. Now, what does that mean for homeowners and why all this big hullabaloo right now? Well, first of all, net energy metering 2 is the rate plan that we've been on for the last 10 or 15 years. What net energy metering does, and I'm going to oversimplify this. But what energy metering does is it allows you to use the grid as a battery. What's happening with NEN Energy metering 3 is that is going away. So it means you will have to buy a battery in order to save all that juicy electricity you're generating during the day. You store it locally on your property and you use it at night.

Wow, this was the best explanation, Carol, of that. NAM 2 and 3. This is the best simplified explanation. Thank you so much. I can go into the nitty-gritty details if you want to, but it's really not worth it. That's the main thing. So really, in terms of homeowners and what does that mean for a homeowner right now? So I do know that there are a lot of installers right now who say, you've got to go net three,

because if you go, if you sign with me today, you're going to be grandfathered in for the next 20 years into NEM2. Well, the thing is, is that really a lot of this is not in our control. It's the once, what has to happen is you have to have assigned into connection agreement that's correct, without major deficiencies. And what that means is that that has to be submitted and accepted by the utility before April 14th. Okay, so for a lot of installers, first of all, gearing up to submit those interconnection applications correctly is going to be a challenge. I do know the platform that I work for, Power, POWUR, they have hired 100 people to basically cope with the influx in business. So we are able to process the interconnection applications quickly, and we are pretty confident that we'll be able to process these up to the deadline.

at least we're giving ourselves an internal deadline of April the second to get the interconnection application submitted. So anybody, but still, we're not making any promises because this is a new world when we're trying the best we can and we will do it. So most people can feel reasonably secure if they sign a contract now, especially with us or with any power representative, you will be okay, okay. But that's what anyone ever hears is, I'm going to be okay, but you don't know. We don't know.

So I always say a caveat there. So we'll do the best we can. Right. Now, so then what's the big deal about NEM3, like you said, after April, whoever puts on the solar, they don't get the kind of the credit from the utilities. But is it that bad? I mean, if we can put in the storage, which is already, I think it's a good idea anyway, especially for areas like where we are when we may get some power outages, you know, by the climate conditions, or some of the, other reasons, I think it would be a good idea to put the storage. Obviously, that's a little bit more of an investment. You know, personally between you and I, I guess the audience, too, between us, what I'm seeing, the way I feel about this, personally, this whole rush about, got to go solar before an M2 goes away. It's like somebody's telling me to buy something on sale. I personally, I like, you know what, if I don't need it right now, why should I buy it on sale just because you're telling me? So to be, to have to be pushed by your, by your human instinct of missing out, I think is doing yourself a disservice. So the way I see the way this works is, and I think it's unfair the way that marketing has been done on this NM2 and NM3.

Yeah, granted, of course, there is a deal to be had if you go now. But having said that, given the cost of energy going forward and especially the move to electrification, and from what I'm seeing now in terms of NM3, deals on batteries and things like that, there's, you're still going to be fine because those utility rates are already PG&E territory. We've had a 19% increase in solar and electricity rates this year alone. So those rates aren't going to slow up anytime soon. So the more you can be bad, and I agree with you. You know about having the battery?

Personally, I see this is a direction for climate change. If we're going to solve this climate change problem, this is where all the money is going towards batteries and to solve this energy storage problem. So you can bet in the next five years or so, we're going to see some really excellent. solutions that are cost effective for the homeowner. So you can retrofit that solar system with a cheap battery. Maybe from Home Depot, right?

Right now, it's a big deal. So who knows? The prices are down, everything. So I see NM3. I'm looking forward to it because I think this is a direction we have to go. I see. So besides NM2 and NM3 issues, one of the things that homeowners should be looking at for?

I mean, how do we shift through all the bombardment of advertisement right now for the homeowners? What can they be looking at for? out, what should they be looking for when they're actually considering a solar panels? Well, that is a very good question and a very long question. And you could see over my shoulder here, you can see the red books that I have on the table over there. That's my book called Go Solar with Confidence. And the reason I wrote that was specifically to answer the question that you just asked me, which is how do I know who to trust? And what the book does is it's designed

to when you read it and when somebody knocks on your door, you will be prepared to have a cogent, coherent conversation with them, confidently to know whether or not they are good for you and you are good for them. So all the information's in the book. In fact, I even priced the book at the cheapest price I could make it on Amazon so that I wouldn't have to pay them for you buying my book. So you can go on to Amazon. You can look it up, go solo with confidence, go to Amazon and buy it.

It was number one for a while there at the beginning. But, you know, it's hard to stay number one on Amazon. So I'm really thrilled to have it available for you. So it's there. It's there for you and read it and good luck. So would you like me to go into some details? Yes. If you can give maybe some bullet points of, you know, key points that homeowners should be aware of. Yes. I think the first one that comes to my mind right now is that if you know you have a reputable installer, do not worry about the equipment so much. because they will provide you with the best equipment for your job. The way that solar is right now, the panels,

the panels have been around for over 50 years. So you're not going to see a lot of improvement in that technology. It's just not going to happen. The improvement will be on maybe the inverter side, which actually converts the electricity from the panel and turns that into electricity. There might be stuff there. But really what you're looking for, and most people are most people that come to me are looking for the cost savings.

So really what solar is, it's not so much of a technical decision. Don't get bogged down. And here's a good example, right? Do you care about what motor your car has? You really don't care what engine it is, right? But what you want to be able to do is to get from point A to point B. Now, if you're a young man, you might want a Lamborghini or somebody that wants an image. But there's no need to do that for solar because all you're doing is you want something that works.

And most installers provide you with premium equipment. So that would now, of course, now that begs the question, who's a reputable installer, right? Right. So you probably want to check your Better Business Bureau and you might want to check Yelp reviews. Now, here's a word of warning with any of those is that you should expect some bad reviews no matter what the installer is, who the installer is. Because a good installer, any installer should see some bad reviews because I don't know about you. When I go to a restaurant, the only people that say anything, usually complaining about the service of the food, right? So usually people that write on better business or Yelp or whatever, they're complaining about something, right?

So I'm saying if you get good service, do me a favor. Go to somebody you got good service from and write a positive review for them. So that way, because you know how you like to see them. So anyway, take that with a grain of salt in terms of the reviews. And there's some other things too. I mean, what else would make a reputable, you know, the number of years that they've been doing the job, what their financials look like, you're going to want to make sure they're going to be around. I cannot begin to tell you, the number of phone calls I get from people whose installers have

gone out of business because they sold the system so cheap and their business model, they love putting solar on roofs, but they're really not good at scaling a business. So they go bankrupt and then the homeowners are like calling around, who's supporting my system? Who can support my system? So the question I have then, Carol, is, is there a difference between installers and the vendors or solar companies? We have many companies that approach us. And, and, and Are they, the installers are representative of the solar companies or the installers are independent contractors? Very good question. And it depends. Right. Currently right now, you have your son runs, you have your son powers. And they have different business models. And the business model that most installers have, right, the companies, let's start with the big names that you might know of right now.

They have trucks, they have offices, they have employees. So a lot of times their installers directly represent the company and they are employed by the company. There is a movement away from that. I do know Sunpower has dealers, which are independent companies that are certified to be Sunpower dealers. So that's another type of relationships. And Sunpower provides all of their equipment, their panels, the inverters, everything is provided by Sunpower financing. I know Sunpower provided in the past. Now, what I belong to is something different than both of the.

those. And it's the new business model that was made very, it's been very acceptable. And so it's everyone's moving to because it's, it actually helps to provide more benefit from the home for the homeowner for buyers is this new what's called platform technology. Like basically Uber put taxi companies out of business because Uber doesn't own any cars. Right. But they have independent drivers that drive for them. Right. You know about EXP Realty. EXP Realty. Which I am. Right. Which you are. And so what you have is you're an independent realtor. And you're not, you don't, you don't work for EXP. You work for yourself. You're independent. And I'm the same way. I'm an

independent solar consultant with a, with a platform called Power, P-O-W-U-R. And now basically what power does for me is allows me to be an independent consultant and help homeowners. They provide me with the proposal tools. They provide me with support, education, everything I need to support my business. And then they also have a team of installers, which also have to qualify to be on the power platform, which are throughout Powers, 27 states. So what Power serves as is the general contractor. And they also are the buyer of the equipment. So they don't, they don't own anything, right? So they're a platform. They're basically software. And they're combining and making relationships. And they have project managers. I love it because I have a project

manager with Power who takes care of all of my jobs after. And so they get to handhold my customers after they've met with me and got their system. I see. I see. I see. It's a new model, new world out there, right? Yes, of course, there will always be there, some more innovative companies that might show up and provide some innovative, innovative solutions. Now, so homeowners, when they're considering of putting on solar, should they be looking to go net zero or should they just simply reduce the energy bill?

And obviously, we are in California, or you and now are both in California. In California, since 2021, I believe, any new construct, single-family home has to be net zero. But I think the big market is the existing homes. Like I have a home that I would love to eventually put solar on. So should we be shooting to be net zero or should we just simply be reducing energy? Well, that's the first question actually is that why would you want to go net zero? And you and I both know it's a, a lot of it is a philosophy,

your belief as to what you believe is right and good for the world and for yourself. the world and for yourself and for your family and whatever. So sometimes shooting for net energy zero, which means your house is not using more energy. It provides all of its electricity and energy that it needs. Right. It doesn't need to go outside of the, it's zero net. Zero net is what that means. So I know that right now you're right. A lot of people are retrofitting their homes with solar and they haven't even taken the first step to looking whether or not. They haven't even taken weather stripping and putting it around the windows. Right. Exactly. That's so cheap, right?

Why would you spend $30,000 on a system when you can just put weather stripping? And the other thing, too, is I think a lot of people aren't even aware of how they are using electricity. I had a new customer that I was talking to last week. And he was shot by over the last four months, how much his electricity bill went up. I said, well, what have you done differently? He goes, well, I got a hot tub. Does I do that much? And it added like $600 to his electricity bill.

And it's like, you know, simple little things, if you don't realize how your home is you using electricity. So if you have like a lot of old appliances, those are going to suck power. Right. So you might want to consider trading those out. So what I am telling customers it's to me is that if you go solar now, be aware of how you're using electricity now. And the way I look at it is that your energy electricity need usage will increase over the next five years because everything is going electric. So right now your cushion is the fact that you don't have your weather stripping. You have not done some very basic. You put, you install the hot tub and you're using it every day of the week, whatever.

So just know that you're going to have to cut back on those things or actually make some changes in your energy usage over the next 10 years in order to basically not have an electricity bill when you go solar. So I use that like kind of like an energy savings account right now, I guess you can say. I kind of look at it that way. Yeah. It's just another way to look at it. This is very interesting because as I told you before,

that it has always been a pet peeve of mine over the last five. years or so of that I've been doing this. You know, I always said to the solar vendors or solar sells people, like, you know, you guys only sell, try to sell the solar panels as, you know, as many panels as you can put on based on the current bill, electricity bill. And I always said to people like, you know, the first thing you should do is to get energy audit done, to understand how your energy usage is, and then do all the things like you were mentioning, weather stripping, and replace your appliance with more energy efficient ones and insulation and that type of thing before you put solar because otherwise you're going to be wasting a lot of energy that you're generating

but you totally converted me actually that it is so true because as we as we electrify and decarbonize our homes in the coming years you know there would be more electric consumption and so we should have a little room to accommodate that and people you know you may you may buy a or acquire an EV or, you know, like we have, we have one EV right now, but we may get another EV. So we need to have a cushion to accommodate those future usage of the solar. So you, you did a great job of converting me. Oh my, not intentional, but maybe it was, I don't know. Now, so can you talk about what kind of options that homeowners have these days in terms of how

to pay for the solar unless you know you're lucky enough to have enough cash in the bank so that you can just put you know pay the whole system in cash but there are so many vendors who would approach you with the financing and you know options and and there's also incentives so if you could give us a little bit of a rundown on some of the options homeowners have sure in fact I like to say that solar is more of a financial decision than it is a technology decision and I see myself more as a financial consultant than I see myself as a technical consultant. And what do I mean by that? The thing is, is that what you would want to sit down with a person like me and together we're going to discuss your financial situation, what you're looking for, how much money

you have, where is your savings, whatever. And then we're going to craft the best solution for you, which would be different than somebody else. You know that even as in real estate, right? There's certain ways in which you buy at home, you have to make sure that you're doing the right job for your customers. So having said that, yes, there are a variety of ways. You know as well as I do. Cash is always the best return on your investment, like anything, right? Now, the cool thing about solar with respect to paying cash for it is that you are adding value to your home. The minute you buy a solar system and install it. Why is that? Well, it's because you're printing money on your roof, basically, right? Because you're using electricity. It's producing electricity, which otherwise would be an expense.

you're actually adding, and you're adding value to your home as well. I know there have been studies done that show how much money is actually adding value to your home. You might be able to answer that question more than I can. In terms of how are you seeing solar adding value to a home purchase? Yes, there is statistics. It may not be just the solar. There are definitely data that, you know, is adding value. But, you know, just to encompass the solar and the high performing homes, definitely

I have seen statistics statistics where it says almost 5% premium on home values. And do they sell faster too with solar? Does it matter how they're financed? Carol, that's a great question. It really depends on how good of a job that listing agents do. Because we have, we as an agent, it's our responsibility to talk about why, you know, solar panels are, you know, adding values. why some of the other high-performing benefits, the high-performing features have benefits.

And unless you can talk about the benefits, why these adding values, you can just say, well, here's solar panel, here's smart technology, but it won't likely add that values instantaneously like that. Well, so this actually brings us back to the original question that you talked about, which actually has to be the type of ways

in which you can finance a solar purchase. Right. So right now, what we're seeing the loans, would you want to go and buy SELA with a loan? Well, this was great last year, right, when we were seeing loans at about, what, 0.99%? Yeah. Yeah. Right. And now the interest rates are 10, 11, and the feds keep raising the interest rates. So loans are not as attractive as they used to be. Right. Now, one thing that I found is that loans, you can get, I think your best loans personally, come from, credit unions. I live in England for so long. I don't know whether to call them credit unions a building society. So they're credit unions here. They're credit unions. And credit unions can usually have solar loans that you can get and they're usually a very competitive rate. So check out a credit union for your, and they usually don't have a fee attached to them too. Like I know a lot of

solar providers, solar companies will provide you with solar loans and those have fees attached to them. Sometimes that's a dealership. Yes. Yes. And they're high. If you're high, if you're you're going to need like if you if you want that lower interest rate you're going to have the higher dealer fee because these are unsecured loans so they're going to have to pay for them they have to make their money somewhere so they make it up front and plus there's no prepayment penalty so you get to pay these loans off fast it's great for someone who is paying an electricity bill of two or three hundred dollars you can go with a solar loan that's 20 year loan and instead of paying two hundred dollars a month you might be paying a hundred dollars fixed cost for the next 25 years

now i just pull that out of the air i have no idea whether or not that's true and it It depends on what it is for you. And I don't know how that would be for you. But you can normally either at least match your electricity bill or lower it at a fixed cost. And even matching what you're currently paying is going to be a better thing to do than just watch your bill go like a roller coaster. Right. Up and down and higher and higher. That's scary.

Just go to an amusement park to get scared. Don't open your electricity bill and get scared. Exactly. Yes, the utility bills tend to be on the upswing. So by locking down your utility car. by having that, even if you have a payment, it still gives you the stability of your payment, your expenses. Can I say one more thing on this topic, though, before we move on?

Because we talked about cash and we talked about loans, the return of the lease. Now, what I am seeing is a lot more customers are willing and ready to go with a lease. And they do make sense for a lot of homeowners. Number one, first of all, people like yourself understand. better now because the industry has moved on. The real estate market isn't as confused by these leases that appear on homes and how do we get them transferred over. Plus the companies that provide them know how to do this too. So it's a little bit easier than it was in the past. The other thing and the good thing about a lease is that it's a no worry situation. No worry situation. What I mean by

that. Can I tell you a story? Yes, please. We have a lease. We decided I live on an 11-acre organic walnut farm in Northern California. I can't believe it. It's beautiful. I turn my camera and show it to you, but it's, let me just tell the story. The story is interesting. We have four electric meters on the property, serviced by one ground mount. It's a 24 panel ground mount that we have a lease on. And we don't own the system. So everyone's, and there's not a lot of maintenance to it. So I go out there sometimes to look at it just to make sure it's still alive. But I know it's still working because I have an app and I can see in my app. Oh yeah, that's great. Okay, well good. But here's the story. About two years ago, three years ago, three years ago, I live in the area with all the wildfires here in Northern California.

And we were evacuated for two weeks. And we were at my friend's house staying. We used to call it disaster porn that we were looking and checking to see, is everything okay with my house? Is everything okay with my house? At one point, the fire was 200 yards from our house. Oh, wow. But the only way that we knew our system.

But I didn't care because like the solar, we didn't own the solar, not my solar. I didn't even need it on my insurance policy, right? the company that owned the solar you know owned the owned by panels had the insurance on it so i'm sitting pretty but the only way i knew my house was still there was that the panels was still reporting so they were still i was still getting notification that they were working yeah so it's like oh we're still there we're still there so yeah so anyway having said that leases are not a bad thing yeah you'll still see cost savings and here's the here's what you're looking for when you

go with the lease right now here and i know where i am in pgne territory we're paying uh the lowest is 32 cents a kilowatt hour on average. That's like a gallon of gas. You know how much you pay for a gallon gas. Well, I have no idea. Actually, you're paying kilowattatt hour. Well, now have a look and check. And you'll have to calculate it. Anyway, that's another story. There's tons of numbers on there that just tell you about, buy my book. It tells you how to do the calculation. It's not hard. But the thing is, is that right now we're paying 32, 33, some areas I saw a bill recently, 37 cents on average a kilowatt hour. That's really expensive because my solar rate that I'm locked in at with my lease is 15 cents a kilowatt hour, half the price, right? So I'm paying half the price of my

electricity than people today. And then that is, that kilowatt hour rate is going up and up and up. Like I said, recently 19% here in PG&E territory this year. So what you want to pay attention to if you decide to look at a lease or a power purchase agreement, which is fairly similar to a lease, you want to look at the cost per kilowatt hour. What do you buy your electricity? And if you can get that down to where it is today or lower, you're setting yourself, you're setting up really well for getting cheap electricity. Now, are there still other payment options available such as power purchase agreement or how about the PACE? I can't remember what PACE stands for, but it's kind of like your payment is rolled into your property tax, correct?

And that had a little bit rep for a while. So if you can dissect those options a little bit, just so we have an idea. Right. Well, looking at the power purchase agreement very quickly, I mean, I mentioned it in the same breath as leasing. And the difference between the two, it's very similar, although the difference is with a lease, you are leasing the equipment and you get access to the electricity that that equipment provides. And you can use that electricity. What a power purchase agreement is, is that are buying the electricity that is being produced by your system that someone else owns on your roof. So it's almost the same thing, not exactly. And in fact, what I'm seeing is that the price.

pricing comes back almost the same for a power purchase agreement or a lease. But there's that subtlety of your, the nice thing about a lease is that if your system overproduces and you get a production guarantee with a lease. If your system overproduces, you get the rest of the electricity for free. And if it underproduces, they credit you for electricity in subsequent years. For PPAs, you are just buying the electricity. Some of them are at fixed rate throughout the year. Many of them might vary depending on how much you're buying from your own system. So you want to watch to see what kind of a power purchase agreement you enter into. One of that's basically a fixed payment.

And then there's also this thing called escalators on them, too, that you want to watch out for. An escalator means how much your fixed costs lease. Usually they'll set the cost for the year. And at the end of the year, if you have a zero escalator, your cost is not going to go up. But now the cheaper, usually 2.9, 3.9% escalator is not uncommon. And you can see that if you're buying a home

and you're going to be in it for 12 years, getting a 2.9 or 3.9 will be cheaper for you, as the homeowner for the next 12 years or so, because those rates are going to be lower than they wouldn't be for a 0% escalator. However, when it comes time to sell the home, people will, a lot of, sometimes, I don't know, I find it's easier

to describe a 0% escalator than explain what an escalator is. Right, it's just like, you know, and the thing is that when people buy a home, they'll still be happy to be paying maybe 20 cents a kilowatt hour when the kilowatt hour rates are now up around 50, 60 cents. So it doesn't matter, but even now, 2.9, 3.9, And that's lower than the inflation rate right now.

So most people are quite happy to pay that. So that's that. And then you also asked about PACE, right? So yes, you're correct. Pace is, I think they call themselves home run finance right now. They renamed the company. And Pace is really good if you have a tax appetite.

You're looking for tax credits. I think that's the way it works. I must admit, I'm not an expert in PACE because personally, the homeowners in which I serve, I don't use Pace financing. But it's really good if you're, if you're if you basically have a, if you're more well to do and you're looking for tax writeoffs and credits, considering pace is a good thing to do. If you're a low, and it has to be approved county

by county, whether or not, because it's a property tax thing, right? So basically what you're doing is the cost of your solar is rolled into your property tax. So yes, it creates a lien on your property. And that is the main reason why here in certain counties in California, they do not have pace. I see. Because if homeowners should default on their, on their property tax payments, they could lose their house. So it's good to be aware of that. And if you're paying your property taxes and you're not worried about that, and you're a well-to-do homeowner that has a tax appetite,

you might want to consider pay financing. I see. I see. So what are the most typical way other than paying cash that people choose to make those payments in your experience? Well, I'm seeing a lot of cash buyers now over the last three months right now because of the interest rate changes. And then the other thing I've seen is an uptick in leases and PPAs. I've also noticed more people are more interested in that. The loan is not so much unless

they can put, unless you're ready to put a really hefty down payment. And we can use a loan, which has a low to no dealer fee. We have five-year loans, which have practically no dealer fee on them. And then you can pay that off quickly. And in fact, in some cases, you can pay it off. And the way these loans work is that you have like the first 18 months of a loan, the payments are lower because they're expecting you're going to put your tax credit back into the loan by month 19. So sometimes you can even get the loan paid off even before you're ready to, before they even start charging for it. I know that was very simple. There's a lot more details to talk about exactly how that works.

You just mentioned the magic word of tax credit. So as we mentioned in the beginning, the Inflation Reduction Act has come out with a whole new set of incentives in terms of tax credit. So can we discuss that a little bit? Like we have had the tax incentive of tax credit up to last year, but now that includes other things like storage and EV charger, I think, or upgrading the electric panels. So if you can tell me a little bit about that, that'd be great. Well, I think you did a good job getting it started with that.

That's true. And one of the things that we found is that the current tax credit, before this came along at the end of last year, it just came out of the blue. It was such a surprise because the whole solar industry starting to get a little bit nervous because the current tax credit was only for 26%. Right. And it was due to drop down to 22% this year.

Yeah. Right. But then with the new, the inflation reduction act, it's like, we're going to have this 30% tax credit for the next 10 years to 233. And it's like, whoa, this is great. So what does that mean, actually? What is a tax credit? And what does it mean for the homeowner?

The tax credit actually is if you are paying taxes to the government instead of, and you know you get that bottom line at the end. of the, you get that bottom line as to how much taxes you owe to the government, right? That number, that number there. Well, think about your tax credit, the tax credit, actually, if, let's just say you bought a solar system for $10,000 and your tax credit would be $3,000, right? So that tax credit, so that little number that you see at the bottom of your tax bill, if it says there that your, the total taxes you owe is $3,000.

But you can just take that little tax credit that you got from your solar system and you apply it directly to that number. And it's a form you fill out. And so you end up not having to pay taxes on that money. It is a tax credit based on the taxes you owe. Now, I always preface everything saying, I am not an accountant. There are some good documents. I usually forward the tax credit.

There is a good document you can get off the government website that explains it further. Read that because everybody's, how it applies to everybody is different. And also, especially if you're a senior or whatever, and you're not paying taxes, how can you take advantage of this tax credit? Well, that's why you want to go with a legal. or a PPA where you don't own equipment because the who are going to be investing in your solar equipment on your roof, they have a tax appetite. Right.

What they get is they get that tax credit and you get the benefit with lower kilowatt hour rates. So it's really good for seniors. So you still get to take advantage of it. And as I said, it's not just the solar panels up to last year. It was just the solar panels. Right? So do you know what? That is correct.

What other things are. I am not an expert in that yet. Now here's, I have heard, heat pumps are included on it as well and heat water pumps. Could be included on. Yes, I do. You'd be more of an expert than I would. Yeah, so what else? Tell us, what else?

No, there's, there are other things for a tax credit. Like, you can get new windows. You can get new door for your home and get those tax credit is not that high, but still for for doors and windows, I think you can get up to like $200 for one door. And you can also get tax incentives for getting an energy audit done. You get $150 tax credit. That's great. Yes, thank you.

Thank you. So is it the homeowners can expect the solar installers to provide the documentation to verify that in order to get the credit acknowledged? Yes, usually with solar. If you're just looking for the tax credit for solar, all it requires is your invoice. And then you file, I'm terrible with remembering the numbers. It's one form.

It's like one sheet of paper that gets filed with your tax return. If you buy your solar this year, you will file that with your 2023 tax. I see, I see. One piece of paper. Now, one thing, you mentioned something that I want to just raise, that we were talking about tax credits and incentives. There is a website that you can go to to see the incentives available in your area. And it's called desire. And it's not, it's spelled D-S-I-R-E-R.

D-S-I-R-E dot org. And you could just look up your state and look up your area. There's all sorts of incentive programs there for all types of energy purchases that you might be considering. So all of the things that we've just been talking about, you can see them at a statewide level on that website. I am so glad you mentioned that, Carol. Thank you so much. You're welcome.

I love resources. I'm a resource junkie, a tool junkie. Yes. Between you and I, I think we can create an encyclopedia for energy. Oh, there you go. Well, do you have anything else that you would like to disseminate for the audience about some wisdom around solar panels and renewable energy? Well, my, yes, I would love to say that actually, I don't know if any of you have read the book Drawdown, Project Drawdown. But it contains, right, exactly.

It contains, the first version of this book contains 100 things that can be done right now that are available right now to reverse global warming and to reverse. atmospheric CO2 in the atmosphere. In that book, Rooftop Solar is number 10 on his list. Wow. So it is one of the most effective things you can do as a homeowner to make a difference to the world with respect to climate is by going solar. So please do not delay because our planet can, well, our planet will be fine. We'll just get it. But you can, you know what, we need to make a difference if we want to make this planet a planet where our children and grandchildren are going exactly enjoy. So make that decision now to go solar. It's not only a great decision from a cost-effective perspective, but your grandchildren and their children are going to thank you for

the decision you make today. Well, I thank you for being the advocate and promoter of doing the good thing for our environment. Thank you so much, Carol. I would make sure to put a link to your book to some of the other resources you mentioned on the show note. And you can find Carol online, Where can we find you, Carol? Upstartenergy.com. Upstartenergy.com. Thank you so much. It's been delightful.

Thank you so much for the opportunity. Thank you so much. This was Izimitonaka with Home Green Home Podcast. Thank you so much, Carol.