I started a while ago. Feels like forever. But it was really just last year.
In that time I worked with several different vendors, all of whom had one problem or another. A group from South Carolina got me on the hook for a $250 deposit to come look at our house and send us a quote. But they didn't seem to remember that we would need financing, so they just stopped talking to me when I suggested we needed that. Of course, their rep also tried to convince us to take out a home equity loan to pay for it, which we weren't comfortable doing at the time.
So when the SC group disappeared I got the process started with ADT Solar. They got me a nice quote for solar panels, battery backup, and a decent financing package. Not the best, but we could pay it off early if we wanted and be pretty well off. Then one day they just went out of business and passed us off to Palmetto, who tried to strong arm us into getting a solar only system. We got the process started and then the next day I had second thoughts. The sales guy said if we cancelled we might be on the hook for paying off the loan we had signed up for with ADT Solar, even though all they had done was apply for permits.
Not cool.
So a couple weeks ago I engaged with Energy Sage to get some quotes of solar + battery systems. The conversation with the various vendors was going well when one of them (Custom Solar Solutions) suggested I could pay cash for just a battery system and then add solar panels on later. Hilariously, Energy Sage just cut off our conversation and reset my entire marketplace just as we were getting to a final quote. Geeze!
We could probably actually make the battery-only thing happen! And they are right here in the Atlanta area, which is super helpful. We can maybe do a bit of time of use shifting with emergency backup for just in case. And of course, just yesterday we had a fairly inconvenient power outage, reminding me that Georgia Power is just awful.
Oh, and did I mention that, despite several times asking for a different rate package on their website, Georgia Power never cut us over? May not be a huge deal anyway. I'll just work with what we've got and time shift the hell out of it with our batteries.
Assuming they approve our permits for interconnecting.
So painful!
Update at 10:00AM Eastern: Energy Sage interpreted my question about whether I can run battery-only quotes through their system as a request to shut down my quotes since they don't support that. They have since reopened my quotes so I can complete conversations with folks and move the process off their platform. So crazy.