Solar energy reviews
from installers and engineers.

Ben installed his first solar array on his parents' garage roof when he was 19 — a janky 2kW system that's still producing power 15 years later and that his dad won't let him upgrade out of spite. He went on to install 500+ residential systems as a NABCEP-certified professional before realizing he could help more homeowners by writing honest reviews than by wiring one roof at a time. Every panel he reviews gets tested on a real rooftop rig he built behind his workshop in Tucson, with irradiance sensors, thermal cameras, and a data logger that's been running continuously since 2020. He can tell you the actual degradation rate of any major panel brand, not the marketing number — the real one.

Claire is the person your solar installer hopes you don't talk to before signing the contract. She spent five years as an energy auditor crunching utility rate structures and incentive programs, and she's built ROI calculators for homeowners in 38 states that account for the stuff salespeople conveniently skip — net metering policy changes, TOU rate shifts, and the actual degradation curve of the panels they're quoting you. She's helped over 100 homeowners evaluate whether solar makes financial sense, and her honest answer is sometimes 'not yet' — which is why solar companies have stopped returning her calls. Her battery storage economics analyses have been cited by three state energy commissions.

Dr. Kumar has published 34 peer-reviewed papers on photovoltaic cell efficiency, which means he can tell you exactly why that '25% efficient' panel in the brochure will deliver 18% in your actual climate conditions on your actual roof angle. He spent eight years at NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) before moving to academia, where he runs a solar testing lab that manufacturers both court and fear. His bifacial panel comparison study — the one that proved three major brands were overstating rear-side energy gains by 40% — got him temporarily uninvited from two industry conferences and permanently invited to three others. He provides the technical depth behind every panel performance analysis on SolarScout.