Solar PV

The financial incentives available today for solar are significant, and there’s no better time to lock-in your electric rates with renewable, clean energy. Most homeowners install solar photovoltaic systems for practical reasons such as lowering their electric bill and green reasons such as reducing their carbon footprint. Our solution at AHE maximizes the impact of both of these benefits by installing a solar system that is sized to your home after energy efficiency measures have been installed. First we lower your electric consumption with energy efficiency measures then we design a solar system that is built for that smaller consumption. This is the most cost-effective way to install solar as energy efficiency is more cost-effective than solar. (For an interesting case study comparison on the payback of solar vs. energy efficiency click here)

The "solar sweet spot". That’s what we call solar system size that is designed for rapid payback and is optimized to take advantage of tax credits, rebates, net metering and PG&E tiered rates. The solar sweet spot takes your consumption out of the higher tier rates where you are paying more per kWh consumed and places you in the baseline tier rate where energy is very cheap. This means that the return on investment looks even better.

Another advantage of installing Solar PV is that the dollar savings will increase over the years. Historically, residential electric rates have increased 6% per year and we expect this to increase to become even greater as the cost of production climbs. That means that by investing in a solar system you can freeze your electricity costs and protect yourself from on-going utility rate hikes.