Sherry and Michael’s slate roof before adding solar panels
Neighborhood: Brightwood, Washington DC
Photo of Michael and Sherry
Building type: Detached single family home
Square footage: 2,800
Year built: 1939
Yearly solar production: 11.8 MWh (est.)
Projects: solar panels
Products: Revolution Solar Energy Panels
Contractors: Revolution Solar handled everything, including installation on a slate roof.
Incentives: Federal residential solar tax credit.
Successes: Getting the installation done while the Federal incentives were still in effect.
Lessons learned: Installation was easier than we thought but the connection and registration with PEPCO required follow up. Registration to earn renewable energy credits took months and actually selling the SRECs on the market, through an authorized third party, is done quarterly at best. SRECs are Solar Renewable Energy Certificates: financial credits you earn and can trade for every megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity your solar panels produce.
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Installation in-progress!
The Why
We are committed to having as green a footprint as we are able. We wanted to explore solar when we purchased our home in 2020 as a way to reduce our carbon footprint, and it was made even more attractive by the timeliness of federal tax breaks.
We explored installing solar with several sales folks who solicited at our door and called companies we saw on yard signs in the neighborhood. But each said it was either impossible to install on a slate roof, or prohibitively expensive; two installers even suggested we replace our perfectly good slate roof!
But we went to an Electrify DC home event, and there we discovered that there are, indeed, solar system companies with the expertise to install on a slate roof. We followed up right away, and within a few months we were moving forward with our project.
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See a visual estimate with Project Sunroof, a free, low-pressure first step for homeowners who are curious about solar but aren’t ready to call an installer.
- How much usable sunlight your roof receives, accounting for roof shape and orientation, nearby trees/buildings, local weather, and seasonal sun patterns.
- How much rooftop space may be suitable for solar panels and the potential electricity generation from that space.
- Potential financial savings from rooftop solar, including the ability to customize estimates using household electricity costs where available.