Harmon Solar Podcast
The solar energy sector in Arizona is currently oversaturated, which has led to a scarcity of transparency. In response, we've created a podcast to provide an honest perspective on going solar in the state. Join us as we explore the intricacies of utilities, equipment, processes, and more. Our primary objective is to educate and empower you to make informed decisions on your solar journey.
Harmon Solar Podcast
Let's Give You a Solar Industry Update
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With federal tax credit deadlines fast approaching, the Harmon Solar team delivers honest insights on what homeowners can realistically expect when it comes to installation timelines. We also dive into the supply chain crunch on domestic panels, major shifts in solar financing, and the comeback of leasing — with fixed rates as low as 9¢ per kilowatt hour, nearly half the cost of today’s utility power. Plus, Ralph and Ben introduce new active monitoring services designed to protect homeowners by detecting issues before they impact monthly bills.
The solar energy market has become increasingly saturated, leading to widespread misinformation and a lack of transparency. Welcome to the Harman Solar Podcast, offering a straightforward, honest perspective on going solar. Each episode dives into key topics to help you better understand the industry. Our goal is to educate and empower you to make informed decisions about solar energy. While solar may not be the right fit for everyone, we believe everyone should take the time to explore it. Our mission is to increase your knowledge, not your bills.
SPEAKER_02Welcome to another edition of the Harmon Solar Podcast. I'm Rob Fromano, VP of Sales and Marketing at Harman Solar. With me, as always, my co-host, Ben Walshlager. You guys know him as Mr. Everything. Mr. Everything, how are you?
SPEAKER_01Good, good, good.
SPEAKER_02You actually kind of are now, Mr. Everything. You're doing more stuff again. I know. They're just keep adding stuff to my plate. You were Mr. Everything, then you became Mr. Somethings, and now you're actually back to Mr.
SPEAKER_01Everything. I was Mr. Somethings, Mr. One Thing for a little bit brief period, and then now Mr. Everything might be Mr. Nothing for a period. Mr. Nothing for a period. Now my business card is a uh It's big again. It's a yeah, billboard.
SPEAKER_02Billboard. All right. Well, today we wanted to come to you. We're sitting here, it's mid-September of 2025, and there's a lot going on.
SPEAKER_01It's an interesting time right now.
SPEAKER_02It is. I mean, there's a lot going on. Um,
RE+
SPEAKER_02I just got back from RE Plus, which is a huge solar convention out in Las Vegas that was done last week. Um, just kind of getting a feel for the industry where things are at, uh um, what's going on. And uh, we're gonna share some of that with you. We're gonna share how things look right now in Phoenix and where we're going with everything because there's like I said, there's just a ton of moving parts right now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Have you been to RE Plus before?
SPEAKER_02No, I've never been to RE Plus.
SPEAKER_01That was my first time. I know it's uh it's grown because the industry has grown. It was huge. It's in what two hotels, right? Two conventions.
SPEAKER_02It was at the Venetian and the Caesars convention center.
SPEAKER_01Kind of give you an idea of the industry. I remember, I don't know, probably like 10 years ago, it was at one convention. It was like maybe a two-day thing. It was probably not a whole lot of vendors, but now it's this huge thing.
SPEAKER_02So I'll um maybe I'll share some b-roll of some of the stuff that I did there. Uh it was funny when the the day that it opened, I was walking down the hall in Venetian and it looked like a bunch of cattle, you know, going into the pins. Yeah, there were so many people. Oh my god, it was ridiculous.
SPEAKER_01How do you think it's gonna be next year? Just as big, you know, smaller?
SPEAKER_02It's it's a good question. I I think I I think um it'll be just as big. Yeah. I do. I I don't think the industry is going anywhere, it's just changing, you know. Yeah, I I think people that are in the industry right now at certain levels will still be there next year at a limited capacity, and then it'll change the year after that. And we'll get into what I mean by that. Um, but yeah, I mean it's there was so much going on. There's so much focus on domestic content going forward. If you don't know what that means, I mean that's basically using American-made panels, American-made racking, American-made reverters. Those are the things that are gonna be needed for the leases in order for the lease company to qualify for the tax credits um to be able to give you good lease pricing, which some of the lease pricing is wow, it's really good. Yeah, it's really good. So a lot of focus on
Domestic Content Product Availability
SPEAKER_02domestic content. Um, there's so much focus on it that there's nothing available.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_01You actually predicted this, and I'm gonna give, you know, I'll give you your flowers. Uh we had a podcast a long time ago, and you said this was about before all this stuff happened that you predicted that you know there's gonna be scarcity and supply and things like that. And yeah, here we are. Here we are in September, and guess what? We have scarcity and supply.
SPEAKER_02We're definitely seeing that, it's especially on domestic content stuff. Yeah, it's not available. Um, the earliest that we're gonna be able to see any domestic content panels at this point, December. Yeah. And we're sitting in September. Yeah. So and there's other companies now doing the things that are required to become domestic content um so that the leasing companies will use them. Right. So that's going on too. Like we talked to JA, and JA is gonna have a nice domestic content panel, but they're just beginning the process of getting approved by different leasing companies. You're looking at late first quarter, early second quarter to even see their products for that. So yeah, it's gonna be really weird. I think what we're gonna see is there'll be a lot of there right now, there's only a set amount of products available to sell that we should hopefully have in December. And then I think we'll see that product um list grow a little bit as we get into the middle of next year and stuff.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's gonna be an interesting time for homeowners because we live in a society of buy it now, get it tomorrow. Yeah. And that's not the case anymore.
SPEAKER_02No, no. So that that's the the go for we'll talk more about the go forward in a little bit. Let's talk about what's going on right now as far as if you're trying to get the tax credit. Um, and a lot of you are trying to get a tax credit. I know that because our phone is ringing off the hook. Yep. Um, and the same question every time I've got cash, I want to get the tax credit. Can you guarantee you're gonna install it by the end of the year?
SPEAKER_01Well, I can't guarantee anything. I mean, we cannot guarantee anything. We are not tax professionals. Right.
SPEAKER_02I don't know how many times we've
25D change
SPEAKER_02said it, but so we've been taking a hard look at the language in the Big Beautiful bill that amended 25D of the tax code. Um, and the big thing that I see is they took out the words placed in service and they exchanged them for more of um basically the system being paid for by the end of the year, right? It's kind of the way it looks now. Um I I'm not gonna sit here and interpret that. I I have no idea.
SPEAKER_01You're not taxing.
SPEAKER_02I've seen people come out and say that it has to be installed, commissioned, and turned on by the end of the year. I've seen people come out and say it needs to be installed and paid for by the end of the year. It doesn't need to be turned on.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I kind of lean that way with the language that I've looked at, but again, I'm not a tax accountant. Right. And I don't think half of them know themselves.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I know. Right? We don't know. No, I mean, no one knows. Only you have to defer to your tax professional for that because it's up it's up in the air.
SPEAKER_02We have to see what's going on with that. But anyway, so we've we've kind of seen that, and we said, okay, we know that we can get it on the roof pretty quick, right? I don't think we can get it turned on pretty quick because that's going to require some different things, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's outside of our realm because it's there's other there's other aspects that we cannot control, right? No matter how hard we try and phone calls and emails and stuff, it's just out of our control as far as getting your system turned on.
SPEAKER_02Right. And we're not the utility, we're not the jurisdictions, we don't control those. The things
Our Process Adjustments
SPEAKER_02that we control as far as getting it designed, uh getting it on the roof, those are we can, I think that's not gonna be an issue.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I've told many of my customers, you know, if we had it our way, we'd get this thing installed tomorrow. Yeah. But we don't have it our way, right? So we have to do it the right way.
SPEAKER_02Right. So we're we're gonna do things quicker for the rest of this year to make sure that we're helping you get what you need to get with your tax guy and figure that out. Our process is quicker. Yes. Not the not the whole process, but our process. Our process is gonna be quicker. We're gonna get it on the roof. Yes, it's gonna get on your roof. It's gonna get on your roof. Um, it ain't gonna be turned on right away, but it's gonna get on your roof. Yeah. Um, but again, it all depends on how you and your accountant determine how you look at the code and determine what it is. I think one of the key factors is not only being on the roof, but you need to pay for it 100% by the end of the year.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And that's that's another thing,
Your cooperation matters
SPEAKER_01too, that's important for people to know. Like when a homeowner signs a contract and they pay their deposit and all that stuff. Some of the holdups are not us. It's not the utility, it's not the jurisdiction. Right. It's you. You are the holdup. When we say, well, you know, when we contact you and say, Hey, we need this, do you approve of that? And they're like, Oh, I'm gonna get back to you next week. Like, okay, well, math this goes into a holding pattern. It's you know, yeah. So we're not gonna allow that. We need a responses ASAP. We need to get this thing moving.
SPEAKER_02So we're gonna be more aggressive with you. Um it's funny. We just had an operations meeting this morning, and it was some of the things we're talking about is you know, there's all these jobs lined up right now, and um talking to the project managers, and they're like, Yeah, we're waiting on the customer for this. And I'm like, no, we we don't wait. Yeah, we get on the phone with the customer and we force decisions right now. We can't wait for them to think about something. We've got to make things happen. Did they get the HOA stuff submitted? If they haven't, why? They need we need to push them to do it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, we need to make sure that they're doing everything we need them to do to make this job move forward because otherwise, it's not gonna happen. And then I know it's gonna happen at the end. You're gonna come back to us and say, why didn't you get it on in time? Well, you play a huge role in that. You slowed us down. So we're gonna we're gonna be a little, a little pushy with you to try to help you get to the finish line. It's a tough love thing, you know. And it is, it's tough love. And when it's all said and done, it comes down to you and your tax guy sitting down with what you have and figuring out how you're gonna do this and if you qualify. We're gonna do everything that we think you need to do, but on top of that, it's between you guys. Right. Right. Um, so that that's really key and that's important. So you need to understand that. So that's kind of our plan. I I think honestly, that as for the cash deals, um, I think we may be good into selling them into November, like middle of November, saying we can probably get this on the roof for you pretty quickly. Are we going on the record with that? I I know, but I think that's what we're thinking.
SPEAKER_01This is the record.
SPEAKER_02This is it's the record, but I that's where we're thinking right now. It's all gonna here's what it's gonna depend on. So I talked about this last time we did a podcast. Every day that passes, there's somebody else in line in front of you. Yep. So every day that passes, there's another slot that's taken up for install. Yep. I've only got so many days and so many slots, right? Yep. We are going to work weekends if we need to as far as installations, uh, use additional crews if we need to to try to make more slots. Right. But there's only so many slots you can make. Right. So it's it's gonna come down to every day that passes, that's another slot that's taken taken away. And every day I see more and more sales are coming in, which means I haven't seen sales and and appointments at this level since 2017.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And that was when APS got rid of the net metering. Right, right. This is what that is on steroids. Yeah. So you need to move. So I I know I'm talking to a couple of people right now that we're going through it, and my my one thing that I'm saying to them is hey, Harman's not that company that ever tries to push you. You know, we talk about that all the time. We are the anti-pushy company. But in this scenario, we're being really honest and looking at you and saying, you need to move if you want to do this by a certain date. If you don't care about that, then take your time.
SPEAKER_01Sure. Yeah. I I I do have a a couple customers who they don't care about the tax credits. That's fine. That's fine. It's you and your decision, but I do know that there's other people who do. So there's a lot of people that do.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So if you're a cash customer, move. Yeah. If you're a finance customer, you better really move. Right. Because again, when you read the code the way I read it, it to me it states being paid for by the end of the year. I don't control when the finance company pays me. Right. But I know they have their milestones and they can take all the time they want.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. A lot of people don't realize when you sign the loan documents or the install contract that funds aren't automatically just available to us. We don't get paid that day. No, we don't. You know, there's there's steps, there's processes to it. So it's not actually funded and paid for until we go through those processes.
SPEAKER_02So
Tax Credit Timeline Challenges
SPEAKER_02again, we're going to defer to you and your accountant to figure out what that means and how you work it on the finance jobs. We're actually having people now sign a um a document that we've developed that basically says, hey, we recognize the craziness right now. We're going to do everything we can to get this on your roof as quickly as possible. Um, we're going to ask for your cooperation in that. And by the way, if you financed, just understand that if the code does say this, if this is how you interpret it, we don't control when the finance company pays us. Right. So you have to figure that out on your own. We don't, we can't guarantee things for that. Doesn't mean you can't go it and do it, but I'm just telling you, it's just a little, little rocky there. So you got to figure it out. The key thing
Cash, Finance, Leasing
SPEAKER_02for me is if you're a cash customer, move now. I think you'll be okay. Sure. Finance customers, I think you're living on the edge. Um about leasing? So leasing has changed, right? So leasing changed a few weeks ago. Actually, we changed it about a month ago. Is so the leasing, here's how leasing works. Let's break this up. It's considered commercial, right? Because a third-party ownership is a commercial business that can take advantage of, I think it's the 45D um tax credit for commercial businesses, right? So they qualify for that, and I think that's through 27, if I remember right. Um, there's safe harboring rules around that. Safe harboring mean there has to be equipment that's bought at us before a certain time period, construction needs to be started at a certain time. There's all these rules around it. But for today, what it means is you can go ahead and lease with domestic content. It has to be domestic content. Um, and that leasing company, the TPO, as we call them, third party um organization, they qualify for the tax credit by doing that. So they're incentivized by domestic content and everything else to get that 30%. And uh that's going to be available for a while. So you can go ahead and lease now.
Leasing looks GOOD!
SPEAKER_02And I got to tell you, uh, some of the rates that we've seen with the leasing, because we're part of a huge organization nationally of about 90 companies like us in this country that install solar. So we are part of that group, and as we get that group rate, um, our leasing rates are phenomenal. I'm talking, if you understand kilowatt hour rates, nine cents. That's pretty good. That's really good. Nine cents. I haven't seen nine cent kilowatt hour rates since probably 2017-18.
SPEAKER_01So you mentioned because we are part of the you know the organization of 90 other companies, so if you're not part of it, what would they be paying for a kilowatt hour rate? We're paying nine cents or probably nine cents.
SPEAKER_02Eleven or twelve. Yeah. I mean pretty significant. It's huge. Yeah. Um it's uh it's a difference between uh it's forty dollars in your payment, maybe more.
SPEAKER_01For the same size system, for the same thing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's like with no escalator. So it's your payment doesn't change for 20 years, yeah, 25 years.
SPEAKER_01And that just goes to prove what I know we mentioned it before. You know, some people get so caught up on like, oh, leasing is bad. I don't want to do leasing, I'm gonna do purchasing. The market is uh as a solar coaster. Sometimes leasing is bad, and you know, purchasing do or financing is better, and sometimes financing is not as good and leasing is good, and here we are on that stage again. You know, that's why it's important, I think, to have all those different tools for homeowners. Like, hey, what is what what's your unique situation? What what do you need? Right is a lease, does a lease make sense to you? Does it purchase? Does it cash? What makes sense to you? Because we can offer everything.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I I think once we get into the leasing world, and that's where we were about to 2017, we were 90% leasing. Right. Right. We didn't start doing a lot of cash business until 2018. And now that was that's been probably, you know, 70% of our business. Yeah, maybe 80% of our business. And now it's gonna do the exact flip.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Financing's gonna change a little bit, and it's gonna be not as attractive. And now leasing's gonna be attractive.
SPEAKER_02And interesting. So I when I was at so I want to make the point, leasing looks phenomenal going forward. So don't worry, we got you with leasing. We got the best leasing program in Arizona by far. There's no one that's gonna match this. You want to come to us. Um, nine cent power, and I'm even talking to them about the ability to get it down to eight. Ooh, you heard it here first. That's what I have. I have an eight cent fixed lease on my house, and I got that 10 years ago.
SPEAKER_01Imagine that.
SPEAKER_02So, yeah, that's like getting gas for 99 cents for the next 20, 25 years. That's insane. That's pretty good. Especially when you think that APS right now averages about 16, 17 cents. You're talking about locking in power at nine or eight cents. Yeah, that's a big deal. That's a big deal.
Our Finance Partner
SPEAKER_02Um, so talk to us about leasing. But one of the things I did at RE Plus yesterday is I went around and I talked to some of the finance companies. So and you'll see that on the video that I'm gonna release. I talked to one of our partners, Credit Human, um, who great partner. Um, they're they probably have the best finance program that we've had for the last few years. Because they don't have all the big fees and stuff, and they've kind of stayed away from the the re-amortization payment changes where people start real low for 18 months and then they go high after month 19. They they don't do that, they always start it at the highest possible point, and you could bring it lower.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I liked that approach because it it keeps shady sales reps in check. You know, the shady sales reps go, hey, this is your monthly payment, it'll never change, all that stuff. And then 18 months down the road, their payment goes up and they go, What the heck? What happened? Credit humans backwards. It goes, yep. It starts out the high, like this is the worst it'll ever be. It can only go lower after that.
SPEAKER_02And what make no makes no sense, and and they got this data from them, only seven percent of the population of the people that do the um solar loans um actually take advantage of the credit, the tax credit.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02Seven percent.
SPEAKER_01That's crazy.
SPEAKER_02That's crazy, that's nuts. Yeah, yeah. So do we care about tax credit?
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_01The tax credit's going away. Well, seven percent. Only seven percent of you use them, so it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_02So, I mean it is what it is. But so I I talked to credit human, met with one, and I have a little interview with him that I'll post. Um, great guy, great organization. They gave me a little son figure. I was playing with it on your shoulder. It was kind of funny. You'll see.
SPEAKER_01I can't wait to see this video.
SPEAKER_02He didn't he didn't move when I it was funny. He's he's really good on camera. He I tried to distract him, he wouldn't do it.
SPEAKER_01I don't know, it's like a puppet, like a ventriloquist.
SPEAKER_02It's it's like one of those little sockets, it's not a sock thing, but it's like a little doll or something. I don't know, I can't explain it, but it's kind of cool. All right, anyway, I got it and played with it. I gave it to my dog when I got home. Um and she tore it apart. Yeah, but anyway, so and he said Credit Human is coming out with a new product next year that we're gonna love. Yeah, wouldn't tell me anything else. He goes, You you and your customers are gonna love it. Okay, and I believe him because the product they have now we love. Yeah, so it's even gonna be better than that. So I was like, that's cool. Um, so that's that's coming. I talked to them. I talked to a couple other organizations. We talked, we talked, we talked to Lightreach, who a Palmetto, who was our lease company. Um, Erin, I interviewed her. Um, Erin's great. Uh so for leasing, she's our rep. And we're gonna try to bring her on. She's local rep, so we'll try to bring her to the podcast to talk more about leasing probably as we go forward so we can get more people more and more uh engaged and informed on leasing and how it works. I really want to hit on that hard because I I want to dispel the myth of how bad leasing is going forward and actually how good it is and what it does for you. Yeah. So we'll bring her on and we'll do a podcast about that. So I talked to her a little bit, talked to a couple other companies like uh Sun Gage and Dividend and all them. So Sun Gage is not somebody we use right now, but they're coming out with some new products they're pretty excited about. So we'll see what they have to offer. Um, dividend is
Solar Loans are Changing
SPEAKER_02they ended most of the finance companies are as of right now or in the next week or two, are ending their solar loans as we know them with the re-amortization in them where the payment changes at 19 months and going to a more traditional type loan.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, this is your payment, right?
SPEAKER_02So those are all changing in the next week or two.
SPEAKER_01So I mean So if you want solar, finance it, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's a big deal. But we still have credit human for now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, so those are all the big changes
Equipment Shortages for Domestic Content
SPEAKER_02happening with that. Um, talk to uh the panel manufacturers, uh, a few of them. Uh we're big with Q cell. Uh, like I said, the the domestic content Q cell stuff is not gonna be available until at least December at the minimum. Um, they're just going through their issues right now with getting sales in from China and everything else. It's again, it's supply and demand.
SPEAKER_01Supply and demand. Demand's really high right now.
SPEAKER_02We do have our amazing Jenko panels, and we got plenty of them. So that's the good news is on the non-domestic content side, the Jenko panel is 430 watt, highly efficient. It's our primary go-to panel. We have a ton of them. So we're not, we don't have we don't have a shortage because of what we did to secure so many of them. Right. So yeah, we planned ahead and we've taken care of that. So we're not gonna hurt for that. We've got our end phase, we've got our Tesla. Um, we're in good shape with that equipment. So because we took advantage of it, we we we thought about it early and went ahead and got stock. So we're good. Good. The domestic content stuff, no one's good. Right. So if anyone's out there telling you they can give you a domestic content lease or something right now that they're gonna be able to install in the next month or two, I'd question it. Yeah, because the equipment's not there. Um, and there's only certain manufacturers available on the lease. I know the three of them, and all three of them have told me that's that's not there. And I know a big installer in this location in a Phoenix that highly is dependent on Hanwan Q cell, and they're having the same issue. So, and that's all they do is sell that. So same stuff.
SPEAKER_01It's all the same thing. Yeah, I feel like you're gonna have a lot of sales tactics and gimmicks and all that stuff here in the next couple months trying to get you to sign. Scare tactics mainly.
There is no Guarantee
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the big thing I'm hearing is a lot of people are gonna stop not guaranteed, no one's guaranteeing you anything. They can tell you they are, but they're not. Unless they write it on paper and say they're gonna give you the 30% back if they don't get it in time, right? It's not a guarantee, it's just lip service. Um, and I'm not stupid enough to do that because I know there's other factors that I can't control. So I'm not gonna guarantee a darn thing. Right. Do I think I can get it on? Absolutely. Am I gonna guarantee it? Heck no, I don't control it. Exactly. So I just not gonna that's bad business.
SPEAKER_01So read your paperwork before you sign it.
SPEAKER_02It's bad business. Yeah. So but I know that a lot of the companies are actually getting ready to stop doing their lip service guarantees here in the next few weeks because even they recognize that they're not gonna probably be able to do it. So we're getting close to the finish line, but like I said, we're gonna be we're gonna offer something a little different to kind of get it on the roof quicker. So we're gonna we're gonna be out there until I would say at least the beginning of November doing that. More to come. More and more to come. More and more. Okay, so I mean, that's that's kind of where we're at right now. That's the stage. Leasing is where we're going forward. Um, what what else do we want to hit on? I know there was more.
SPEAKER_01There's always more. We talk about a lot of things that we should do on the podcast, but we always forget when we're actually in here.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, I mean, and that that was the key stuff we really wanted to share with you guys. The RE Plus was was a great show. There's a lot of optimism for the future. I'm looking forward to where we're going next.
SPEAKER_01Any cool new technology coming down the pipeline that you can share?
SPEAKER_02Not that I can share right now that I, you know, I can tell you that um I've actually sold a few, I don't typically do sales. Um that's not my job, but I've I've helped some people and I've done some sales. And one of the things that I'm actively doing is I know what else I want to talk about. I'm I'm I'm giving people what's called active monitoring on their systems.
Active Monitoring Now Available
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you can talk about active monitoring because you kind of brought it to the forefront. That's my baby. Yeah. So go ahead and talk about what active monitoring is.
SPEAKER_01So a lot of times people will call in and say, hey, my solar system's not working because my bills are high. Well, then I tell them, well, there's really only two reasons why your bills would be high. Either your solar system is, in fact, not working or your usage has gone up. And probably 90% of the time it's because their usage has gone up. And if we look into it and spend all this time and resource and resource and go, hey, your you know, usage has gone up, you know, 40% in the summer. Why is that? Like, oh, well, I had a house guest move in, I got an electric car. Like, okay, well, that's gonna make your usage up. So your solar's working fine, but your usage has gone up, which made your bill go up. So um, and then another aspect that we have that you know, I always call it like your check engine light with your with your car. When your check engine light comes on, the dealer doesn't just magically call you and say, hey, by the way, I noticed your check engine light came on. You have to call the dealer and say, My check engine light is on. Same thing with your solar system. If something goes down, you get notified. But a lot of times people don't pay attention to those notifications. They delete that email or the text, they ignore it, and then you know, three, four months go down the road and go, hey, my solar system hasn't hasn't been working. In fact, it's showing zero production for the past couple months. Like, well, we can get out there, you know, this week to fix it, but you you're just now contacting us. So we have this um active monitoring um report that kind of alleviates a lot of those pain and suffering. So, what it is is every month you'll get a report that shows, hey, this is your consumption. This is how much you've used. Is it on par with what you were doing last year or last month? Has your usage gone up or or down? Um, is it within that range? So that'll help alleviate those calls of saying, hey, my bill is high because my usage has gone up. And they get that report every month. Every single month, yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's kind of cool. It is, yeah. And if there's an issue with their system, it pings us instantly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So what happens is if the grid notices that your system hasn't been producing in two days, you get pinged and I get pinged. Yeah, not Harmon, but me. I get pinged. So I can I can take a look at and go, hey, your system is in fact down. So back to my check engine light scenario, it is like the dealership calling you saying, hey, your your check engine light is on. So I'll get a notification that your system is uh malfunctioning. So I'll we'll reach out to you and say, hey, guess what? Your system's you know not working when do you want us to come out? Yeah. And I'm sure there's gonna be a lot of times where homeowners are like, oh, I didn't even know. Because usually people don't pay attention to their solar system until after the fact, until they get that high bill. No one's really actively monitoring it every day or every week or you know, things like that because they got other stuff to do. But this program, this system, actually will do that active monitoring for you.
SPEAKER_02This is a big deal. Yeah, um, everyone out there will tell you that, oh, yeah, your system has monitoring.
SPEAKER_01It does. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Every system has monitoring. Yes. It doesn't mean that it's monitored unless you're monitoring it. Right. Right. Even us before we had this, we would tell you the system has monitoring, but we weren't monitoring it. Right. So nobody monitors it.
SPEAKER_01No one goes in and logs into your account every single day and says, Who, this is what your system is producing.
SPEAKER_02You have people that like to do that on their own, God bless you. Um, but you're very few people that do that. Yeah. Mostly your engineers and people like that like to do that. Right. There's very few people that do that. So this gives you the ability to rest and not have to worry about it because it's being taken care of. It's being monitored. This is awesome. So I'm we're actually all the Hartman salespeople are giving this away for free. We're just putting it on the system.
SPEAKER_01Just included.
SPEAKER_02It's for you. We're giving it to you.
SPEAKER_01It's a peace of mind thing.
SPEAKER_02It's for one year, we give it to you. If you decide after a year there's something that you like and you want to keep getting that, you know, that report every month and have it active monitored, then it'll be like a subscription fee. Uh I don't like it's like 10 bucks a month or whatever. I don't know what it'll be in a year, but yeah, it's cheap. It's worth every penny.
SPEAKER_01It's peace of mind. It's insurance basically for your system.
SPEAKER_02It's worth every every penny. So you're getting it for free for the first year from us. And then after that, if you decide you really do like it, you can continue it. It's up to you. Uh, but I love that product. And then one of the other things I'm doing for some people is I'll give them like a free credit to do um panel cleaning for the first year. Yeah. Which that's kind of cool. We we partnered with um our guy Sun Bros. That's right. Um, they do all our panel cleanings for us, they're great. Yeah, we love them. And uh, so we've been I've been doing that anyway. I'm gonna I'm letting people have that because I think it's cool.
SPEAKER_01It is cool, it's it's useful when you know, when it's when it's needed.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, when it's needed. And like my neighborhood, it's needed. It depends on the neighborhood, but yeah, your new. I'm gonna give it to you anyway for a year. I was like, that's it gonna hurt to have it for free. No, not for free. No, yeah. So um, that's what we're doing. We have those kind of things, and um, so excited about that stuff. Those are really good ads that we're doing, and we're looking at adding other things as well. And a cool thing that's coming here soon, and
Service Department Expansion
SPEAKER_02we'll we'll get really into that when we get close, is we're gonna launch um our new service website. Oh, that's right. For harm and service, right? So we have a pretty good size harm and service business. We've never really gone out there as Harman Service and pushed it, and we're gonna really start doing that because we're really gonna blow that department up as well. Sure. So we have such a huge customer base that we take care of, and then we do a lot of business for other companies because they're out of business. Um, so we we do a lot of business for those customers as well. And so we're growing our service side of our business even more and we're launching a brand new website that's dedicated to the service side of our business.
SPEAKER_01I think we average like three or four calls or emails, inquiries per day of customers that say my solar company is out of business. Yeah, I need help. Every day. Every single day, yeah. Yeah, it's it's crazy.
SPEAKER_02So we decided, hey, let's put ourselves out there more. Let's have a let's have a website out there to have let people know, hey, we're here. Yeah. Right? Because our our current website's not really, it has that, but it's not a focus of it. Uh, but we're definitely gonna put that out there and make a big deal out of it. So look forward for that. That we'll get more into that as we get close to it. We'll bring our service department in here and and we'll do a podcast. We love having Larry in here.
SPEAKER_01Larry coming here again.
SPEAKER_02We'll have Beth come in here and we we can kind of talk to them about service and stuff. We'll get that down the road in a couple months. So that's exciting. Um, what else? I mean, that's everything going on right now. I mean, we'll talk about our new offerings after we get on the other side of what's going on right now. We're gonna have some um new pricing options, some new tier options as we get into next year. Um, maybe more like a good, better best or a good best or a better best or something like that for solar. Because if you're gonna buy cash solar or finance solar, it doesn't need to be the best of content, right? So there's different things we can play around with to make it very inexpensive. Um, we'll have to look at that and we're we're putting all that together for next year. Uh, we'll talk, like I said, about the leases more. There's so much that's going on. There's gonna be so much to talk about after we get through this uh next three months. It's just gonna be rough. Yeah. I'm glad I'm not on operations.
SPEAKER_01Ooh, maybe I should add that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So that that's all we have today. Um we do have some guests that I've lined up from RE Plus that we'll bring in here soon. Um, I definitely want to bring Juan in from Credit Human. We might have to do a zoom cast for that. Okay. Um, and there's some other people we've lined up. So we'll have some more episodes. I know we took a little bit of a break um about a month or so. It's been really busy with everything going on. And so there's a lot of moving parts right now. And so it takes up a lot of our time. But we didn't forget you. We know you're there. Um we and you know what? We appreciate all the feedback we're getting because there's so many customers that are calling in, that are meeting with our reps, um, that are even talking to installers, talking to our PMs that say that they love our podcast. They've watched every episode, which wow. Um, it's a big reason as why they're they're going to be in business with us because they really trust us. And and I we appreciate that. We've been nothing but honest. From day one about things, whether they're good or bad.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02We are we are putting it out there. This is who we are, this is what we believe.
SPEAKER_01Full transparency, right?
SPEAKER_02We're very transparent. I'm a company, a very transparent organization, and we try to relay that. And it seems like it's worked, and we appreciate the fact of all the love we get back. I know we hit uh a milestone on followers on Instagram and other places. So we keep growing and growing, and we're gonna continue to do that. Um, so we appreciate the support, we appreciate all that that you guys bring to us, and we'll keep doing this, we'll keep fighting the fight because solar's going nowhere.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_02But I guarantee you the people that are scamming you, they're not going anywhere either.
SPEAKER_01So make sure you like and subscribe and all those fun stuff so you get you know notifications on when when some new stuff comes out.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, thanks for supporting us, and we'll see you next time. Bye.
SPEAKER_00You've been listening to the Harman Solar podcast with Ben and Ralph, bringing clarity to the intersection of solar power and smart home ownership. If you found this episode helpful, don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe, and also share the show with others navigating the solar journey. For questions and topic suggestions, call 800 281 3189 or visit harmonsolar.com. You can also connect with the team on social media. See you next episode.
