The Good

During this time, I had a fear that the Powerwall would not be there when I closed on my home because I’ve been hearing stories about Tesla Powerwall orders that were delayed for months. Fortunately, when I did a walkthrough a few weeks before I closed on my house, it was there! My solar panel’s PTO was also enabled before I closed, so I didn’t have to worry about it. Overall, I am pretty pleased with the buying process.

Additionally, what I really enjoyed with Swell is the customer service. Unlike Tesla, I can email someone and they’ll respond with an actual answer within a day. When you call Tesla for Powerwall support, expect to wait hours on the phone.

For those installing a system in California, Tesla already ran out of its SGIP credits whereas Swell Energy did not when I had my system installed, thus I was able to get the SGIP credits, which was $1,740 for me. Something to consider, but not a deal breaker when selecting a system, and these credits will eventually be depleted.

The Bad

$14,700 was a few grand more than the price Tesla was quoting online for a Tesla Powerwall, so it was definitely more expensive. However, I consider the higher price a way to jump the queue and make sure the Powerwall was installed before I closed. Additionally, the additional cost was partially offset by the SGIP credits I received. I am guessing Tesla prioritizes these third party sellers because either they pay more or prefer not having to worry about installation.

Even though Swell installs the Powerwall, you still have to contact Tesla for many Powerwall issues. For example, Tesla hid the Energy Exports option from me and Swell couldn’t help; they told me to call Tesla, which did in fact solve the problem. Ideally, Swell handled more of the customer service.

When installing the option, Swell did not explain the options to me. I didn’t realize, until I moved in, that my house was only partially backed up. I would’ve paid more to fully back up my house or at least install the system so that I could easily fully back up my home in the future (for example by installing a Span). Instead, I am simply left with sadness as a lot of the calculations and features on the Tesla app do not work properly for partially backed up homes.

As of this writing, my biggest struggle with Swell Energy is that they have an agreement with Tesla to not allow any of their customers to join a Tesla VPP. Because I am not in the Swell service area for their VPP (most likely because my home is new construction), I am currently unable to join any VPP. They have been discussing with Tesla about giving me an exemption to this agreement for weeks, which I have little hope for, as they have just stopped responding to my follow ups.

Would Not Recommend

Overall, I am pretty happy with Swell Energy. If you are getting a Tesla Powerwall from them, make sure you learn my lessons and ask questions about how much of your home is backed up, whether you’d be eligible for SGIP or other credits, and whether you can join their VPP. Perhaps the biggest reason I would use Swell Energy over Tesla is because I am a fan of Enphase Microinverters and have read way too many /r/TeslaSolar posts about Tesla’s inverters failing and their customer support sucking.

However, if I were to get solar again, I would just buy directly from Tesla. It’s cheaper, you can join the VPP, you can get the new Powerwall 3, and Tesla’s inverters are fine. I don’t see the need of going to other solar companies.

If you decide to buy from Tesla, use my referral code! If you’re interested in installing from Swell Energy, let me refer you and I’ll give you a third of my commission!

I have about $450 in credit remaining with them, which they won’t refund me all at once. Instead, they are refunding me $5.17 per month, but are also requiring me to subscribe to their $5/month plan. I have to subscribe to their services for another 87 months or 7 years to get my full refund. This in turn makes the refunds useless except for the additional credit card rewards I receive (since Southern California Edison does not allow automatic credit card payments). These credit card rewards are about $4/month, assuming 2% cash back on an average $200/month electricity bill.

1. To try out investing in solar since I cannot install solar panels in my condo.
2. Hit some credit card minimum spends.

During this time, they promised $600 in savings over 10 years, which is a return of more than 2% annually. This is pretty good considering I would be getting a few percent return from my credit card rewards and also earn minimum sign-up bonus. If you need to manufacture spend, want to invest in renewable energy, and are okay with a long-term returns, Arcadia may be good option for you.

How it works

Arcadia is a middleman for your utilities: you pay Arcadia, who then pays your utility. This is especially a benefit for utilities that do not take utilities - I use Arcadia for my dad’s SCE account as SCE does not support autopay by credit card - I pay it through Arcadia with a Barclays Wyndham Rewards Earner Business Card which earns 5x on utilities. This more than covers the $5/month Arcadia charges to use its service, which essentially just buys Renewable Energy Credits.

On top of just buyin RECs, Arcadia allows investing in community solar in certain areas. I was able to buy community solar in Massachusets last year, but community solar doesn’t seem to be available in California anymore. Previously, I was able to see a nice dashboard of my community solar subscription, but they seem to have removed this dashboard as they no longer allow community solar subscriptions to California residents. Here’s what I see when I login to the community solar page on my account, even though I currently subscribe to community solar:

A benefit of being grandfathered in to the old community solar subscription is that I no longer have to pay the $5/month fee, so this is a big win for me, especially if I end up moving to a region serviced by SCE.

Tracking community solar savings

Because the web page for community solar no longer works for me, I have to track my savings through the monthly email I receive from Arcadia. I’ve created a public spreadsheet to track my community solar savings. I am told that they are working on a new community solar dashboard.

Over the past year, I’ve saved $56.24 on my electricity bill. If I extrapolate this to the full ten years of my subscription, that’s $562.40, just shy of the promised $600. Given that I have an expected overall savings from my subscription and have helped a renewable energy project, I am pretty happy about my investment.

Use my referral link to sign up with Arcadia: https://www.arcadia.com/referral/?promo=jonathan1680

2023 Update

Arcadia has shut down their Community Solar offering.

Since using these sites, I’ve been randomly getting referrals every month. I would estimate I currently receive about $20 per month, which is not enough to quit your day job, but is nevertheless passive income. It’s also been useful for finding referral codes for products none of my friends use as many offers are only available through referrals.

refer.codes

refer.codes is the first network I found and is powered by Facebook Login. Unfortunately, none of my Facebook friends use this, but it has a great, simple UX. However, judging by the Twitter activity, I’m pretty sure this is a one-man operation, which explains why new features and referral programs are not added frequently.

invitation.codes

invitation.codes is a more feature-rich network of referral codes, but it doesn’t have any social networks integrated with it. It does, however, seem to be a company, albeit foreign, so it has a lot of potential. Currently, this has been my favorite referral network as referral programs are frequently added and you get used to the UX. Unlike other networks, it has some gamification that would hopefully help it build traction.

Blogs

Various travel or personal finance blogs have referral link comment threads where you can post your referral link. Unfortunately, these Wordpress commenting systems are not meant for referral links: comments are not randomized, so usually the last person to post a referral link before the thread is locked wins. I’ve gotten pretty luckily with a few Doctor Of Credit posts, but many other blogs such as Frequent Miler have similar threads.

Reddit

Reddit has many subreddits dedicated to referral codes, but I’ll only name a few.

r/churning & r/churningreferrals

r/churning is the best subreddit to discuss reward programs and travel hacking. If you have enough comment karma in the past 3 months in this subreddit, you’ll be able to post your referral codes to r/churningreferrals, which then show up on rankt for ease-of-use. The probability of someone using your referral code is slim, but credit card referrals have higher rewards.

You can check your r/churning Karma here: https://350hp.github.io. Don’t know how to build karma? I’ve been gaining karma primarily from complaining about various aspects of my trip.

r/ReferralsForPay

r/ReferralsForPay is a subreddit where people offer to pay you to use their referral links. It’s an interesting proposition, but it takes a lot of work. I haven’t had success here as I once posted an offer with no takers and consequently gave up. I’ve also looked for referral links that can only be sent via email, but these redditors didn’t respond to me. Maybe you’ll have better luck than me.

Referral Code Strategy

Don’t spend too much time on referral codes. I simply post all my referral codes to the above sites and avoided any methods that require spamming or don’t link the referral code to your account. This isn’t going to make you rich. The best bet, of course, is referring your friends.