I don't follow. You must pay a fee for the electricity you produce with your solar panels? And pay some more when you sell your house with panels?
Sorry, poorly written.
In general, Solar financing companies do a cost/benefit analysis.
1. How much electricity you use and what you pay for it. (On an annual basis)
2. There are a lot of different laws regarding how excess electrical production by you is compensated to you by the utility. Some areas have a straight kWh exchange. Each extra kWh produced by you is banked at the utility to use when you need. Other areas have a valuation system so that excess produced during the day is banked at "day rate" and if need electricity later you pay "evening or night rate". And there are many, many variations on this.
3. In general, Solar companies will design a system that produces 100% (depending on jurisdiction up to 120%) of your current need. Note that this system design will vary based on local laws, but your local installer will know local laws.
(California and Texas have different rules. I'm not certain if every state in Australia is different from each other, but they are different from both California and Texas. And so on)
4. The Solar installer will evaluate the total installed cost of the optimized system.
5. Systems are generally financed at 7 years. Ideally, the monthly payment for this installed system, will be less than your annual average monthly electric bill. (total electric for the year divided by 12).
4a. Solar companies target consumers for whom the system payment will be less than their current electricity costs.
4b. There are more solar companies in areas where the laws in place make it likely to be true.
5. So, in a typical installation,
5a. Short term your total cost for electricity (including system costs) will go down. Generally you will then be making two payments.
5a1. Payment to the solar company for the finance costs.
5a2. A connection fee to the utility based on very specific requirements of the laws where you live.
(California, Texas, New South Wales, etc.)
5b. Long term, after 7 years your total cost for electricity will drop dramatically as you no longer make system payments, though you'll still be making the utility connection fees.
The bet is that Consumer Electrical prices will not drop in the near and long term. --- This is a form of sarcastic cynicism since I, for one, believe electricity prices will continue to go up into the foreseeable future.
Second Part.
If you finance your solar panels for 7 years and sell your house after 4 years then either:
1. The buyer must take over the remaining 3 years of the loan. --- This is unlikely if the buyer purchases your house with a mortgage because this would give the solar company, not the new mortgage company priority lien.
2. You pay off the remaining 3 years of the loan prior to the close of the sale.
__I know two people that sold their homes prior to the end of their solar finance term and paid off the remaining loan on their solar system prior to the close of the property sale. Completing the pay off was more complicated and annoying for each of them than paying off other loans. For some reason the escrow company was either unwilling or unable to manage this payoff.
__If you finance the system through a bank mortgage (2nd mortgage, HELOC, etc.) then you'd pay off the system at the time of the sale as well. In the US, however, bank mortgages of all types are paid off through the escrow company managing the sale.
Good luck everyone!
