- The demand for solar energy systems has increased dramatically in light of the energy crisis.
- Enpal is a clean energy startup that aims to make solar energy accessible to all consumers.
- Insider's Stephen Boss parents tried it out.
This is a translated and edited version of an article originally published on October 5, 2022 .
The demand for solar panels has increased due to the current energy crisis.
Solar panels are difficult to test before committing due to their significant cost and infrastructure. So when my parents decided to turn to solar energy, I asked them to document their experience.
Their home had a solar power system installed by German green energy company Unicorn, a startup backed by the SoftBank Vision Fund and HV Capital.
The startup aims to make solar energy a viable option for everyone through its solar panel rental model. Customers pay Enpal a monthly fee that covers painting, installation, and maintenance costs until customers pay for the panels.
Although the startup is currently only operating in Germany, Enpal executives are planning to expand outside the country, Enpal CEO Mario Cole told TechCrunch in a recent interview.
I took my parents' experience with the company and asked them to do a first-hand review of their products and services.
"We wanted to be more independent," my father said. He told me about his decision to buy solar panels, climate protection, a potential transition to electric cars, as well as rising home prices played a role in his decision.
My parents got a quote from npal on July 1
The company's website asked my parents to create an account and answer a few basic questions to get started, such as whether it had a pitched or flat roof, whether it had skylights, how many residents there were, and what my parents thought their shopping behavior was. .
"Congratulations," the site says, adding that the solar system can save between €22,000 and €27,000 in electricity costs, although the duration of these savings is not specified.
In the next step, my parents were asked to upload pictures of their house and decide exactly what they wanted. They really wanted to have boards, a battery system and a wall box - a charging station for an electric car.
The sale included a series of video calls after automatically sending a picture and a detailed inquiry.
The first call was with a sales consultant who took my parents through a PowerPoint presentation.
The presentation included AI-generated images of what my parents' house would look like after they installed Enpal's solar panels so they could see the final product.
The consultancy suggested that NPAL could install 20 solar panels that would provide a total of 7.6 kilowatts per peak, which is the rate at which the solar panels produce electricity at their maximum capacity.
They offered to install transformers, an energy-saving device from Huawei and an 11kW wall box from StarCharge.
My parents said that despite the usual procedures at the startup, they felt they were advised and cared for individually.
Then the sales representative of Inbal sent some contracts that my parents demanded to read before signing anything.
"We've never felt so stressed or torn apart," my mother said.
However, they found a disturbing point in the draft agreement.
They said that there was a line in it that as part of the contract they agreed to switch to Enpal as an electricity supplier. So if the solar panels don't produce enough and the store is empty, they will draw electricity from the grid as per Enpal's tariff.
At 51 cents a kilowatt-hour in the first year, the price will be about six cents higher than the domestic primary supplier. But they said they could rule out another meeting.
At the end of July, an employee of the "Inbal" company visited his house. The employee inspected the entire house, measuring and calculating everything from the roof tiles to the basement space where the inverter and batteries were supposed to be stored.
Enpal confirmed that it could go ahead with the installation but with two minor changes: 18 instead of 20 solar panels with a maximum capacity of 6.84 kW and a larger storage unit with a capacity of 10 kWh.
My parents canceled their contract with NPAL in August, a month after the operation began.
They signed the contract with Enpal on August 9, and all signatures were done digitally and through video recognition using IDNow, which my parents said wasn't easy for them.
The installation date was set for September 14th and my parents let me go the next day as well. All in all, everything went well and surprisingly fast.
Then they had to wait for an electrician to connect the system, which took a week, as well as confirmation from the network operator that everything was fine, which he said could take three to twelve weeks. According to Enpal.
It may seem time consuming, but the advantage of Enpal is that it takes care of the paperwork for you with both network operators and regulators.
The consultation process was completely free and my parents didn't start paying the rent until I had everything set up.
My parents now pay about 188 euros a month
After the first 30 months, this amount will drop to less than 230 euros per month. With a typical lease term from Enpal of 20 years, the total cost is just under €54,000.
After 20 years, customers will have the opportunity to purchase the system for 1 euro.
Enpal offers cheaper options, but the cheapest prices start at 49 euros per month.
It would also be a lot cheaper for my parents to buy from another seller, and they said they had seen similar systems in the $25,000 to $35,000 range.
“We didn’t want to buy from the start,” my dad said, because they would be fully responsible for the technology once it was installed.
The entire process takes less than three months.
They can now use the vendor's app to check the current system output and battery level at any time, then schedule the use of major appliances such as dishwashers, washing machines, and clothes dryers.
"It's not about when the car is full, and it's not about when the storage is full," my mother said.
To date, the system produced more than 45 kWh and supplied it to the grid, but my parents also had to buy about 12 kWh.
They said they still need to save money because they pay regular rates for their energy supplier in addition to the rental rates they pay NPAL.
But they still say they are satisfied with the system. Even on cloudy and rainy days, it kicks in and fills up to 40% of storage space, they say.
