Frequently Asked Questions

Your partnership with Sungevity is valid for a full year, and you can renew your contract when the year is up.

You’ll get a check within 30 days of each system's interconnection. For example, if you get Lois Lane to sign up for solar, Sungevity will send a check to your organization 30 days after Lois Lane’s system is installed and connected to the grid.

Nope. You can do whatever you want with it (assuming it’s legal).

Yes. We recommend re-publicizing the promotion once a year or sooner if you have a sudden influx of new members. Just don’t do it so often that it becomes spammy.

That depends mainly on the size of your organization, how engaged your members and supporters are and how actively you promote the program. Our best performing groups have been able get as many as 1 in 1000 of their members to go solar.

An iQuote gives the homeowner a firm price on an appropriately-sized solar system for their home. The iQuote shows them the cost of buying vs. leasing a system and shows how much they’ll save on electricity over a 10-20 year period.

Anyone who links to Sungevity’s iQuote page from your website or e-mail will be automatically “tagged” as affiliated with your organization. Otherwise, if they visit Sungevity.com independently, they’ll be prompted to enter a referral code and, at that point, can enter the unique referral code assigned to your group.

This is one of the quickest and easiest ways to raise money and, best of all, you don’t owe us any grant reports down the road.  Basically, you’ll just spend a few minutes tweaking the outreach materials we provide you and then blasting it out to your list.

We install in California, Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts. Publicize the program to your members in these states only.

Yes. As long as they plug in your group’s referral code, you’ll get the referral fee. But please be careful not to send out any mass unsolicited e-mails to non-members (which could be perceived as spam and will make us all very unpopular).

Sungevity earned Diamond Certification from the prestigious American Ratings Corporation. We are also certified by the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners and have a perfect record with the Better Business Bureau. To learn more about Sungevity’s awards and accreditations, visit our website.

Step one is to register your organization. After you do that, we’ll e-mail you a contract and, after the contract is signed, you can download the other materials you’ll need to start publicizing this promotion.

Contact us using our online web form or by calling 877-SUN-4ALL (786-4255).

Yes. Once you join the program, you'll be able to download snazzy postcards, flyers, doorhangers, and email templates you can use to publicize this promotion to your supporters.

No. You won't be providing any information about your supporters to Sungevity, because you'll be the ones publicizing this promotion, not us. Once someone requests an iQuote from us, that person voluntarily provides Sungevity with the information we need to create an iQuote for their home. Sungevity does not share this information with any other party.

Your options include:

• Assigning the Sungevity Solar Lease to the new homeowner (subject to credit check).
• Prepaying the remaining lease payments and assigning the benefits and non-financial obligations (e.g., roof access) to the new owner.
• Purchasing the Sungevity solar home system at fair market value. *
• Terminating the lease and asking us to remove the system. *

* Subject to renewable energy incentive holding periods and recapture payments.

Sungevity's service area is growing fast.  We currently serve most parts of California, Colorado, Arizona, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Connecticut and Delaware.  

Utilities typically don’t charge the same price for every unit of energy they sell.  In some places, utilities charge more for energy consumed at certain times of day or in certain months of the year.  In other places, utilities gives customers a certain allocation of cheap energy, and once you’ve surpassed that allocation, you must pay higher rates for your remaining energy.

Our goal is to give you access to the best savings possible.  That means knowing how much expensive energy you have and how much cheap energy.  Once we know that, we can design the system that maximizes your savings.

Yes. Sungevity will monitor your system’s power output and, in the unlikely event that falls short, we will either add more panels or pay you the difference every year.

For most homeowners, the $0 down lease will be the best option because they can go solar with no out-of-pocket expense. For homeowners with money to put towards solar, or someone considering purchasing a system, the fully prepaid lease can help increase savings while at the same time enable the homeowner to get a complete home solar system as well as complimentary monitoring, maintenance, repairs, and insurance.

Shade reduces the amount of electricity your system can produce. Our remote solar design team will work to position your panels where they can get maximum sun exposure but, on occasion, a roof may be too shady to make solar feasible.

An iQuote gives the homeowner a firm price on an appropriately-sized solar system for their home.  The iQuote shows them the cost of buying vs. leasing a system and shows how much they’ll save on electricity over a 20 year period.

The Sungevity Solar Lease is a 20 year commitment to solar-powered living and financial savings. After 20 years, you can choose to renew for additional 5 year periods (up to 25 years) or have us remove the system from your roof.

Home solar systems generally require very little maintenance. Spraying them down with water once or twice a year to remove excessive dirt and debris is typically all that is needed.

No catch, but we can give you an explanation of how we can offer this great deal:

As part of the American Recovery and Reinvest Act (a.k.a. the Stimulus Package) the government extended its tax credit on renewable energy systems.  When you lease a system, about 1/3 of the cost is covered by Uncle Sam, with state governments kicking in another 10-30%.  So, we get paid by the incentives in addition to your lease payments, you get low cost energy, and the world gets a cleaner future.  Everyone wins - no catches.

If your system generates more power than your home uses during one billing cycle, you’ll get credit for that excess juice during another billing cycle. For example, if you generate more power than you use in July, you can use the credit toward your December bill. But, at the end of the year, if you’ve generated more than you’ve used, some utilities will not compensate you. Beginning in 2011, all California utilities except LADWP are required to pay you for all of your surplus electricity. Please check with your utility to find out how the Net Metering or Solar Bank program in your area works.

You can go solar with no down payment and you’ll save money from Day 1. With the Sungevity Solar Lease, the reduction in your monthly energy bill will usually be greater than your Solar Lease payment and on top of the financial benefits, we guarantee the performance of the system, provide proactive monitoring and maintenance, and insure your system against accidental damage.

Savings will vary depending on how much energy you use, where you live and your utility company. A typical customer will save about 15% on electricity in their first year, and the savings will increase every year as grid electricity rates rise. Your iQuote will tell you what savings you can expect based on your historic energy usage and custom-designed home solar system.

Because we believe that the Sungevity Solar Lease can bring the power of the sun to everyone. Purchasing a solar home system, out of pocket, simply isn’t a reality for many homeowners who want the benefits of solar energy.