Alex warned us early in the conversation that this might get detailed.

He wasn’t wrong.

An engineer by training and temperament, Alex approached solar the same way he approaches everything else: assumptions first, claims second, and numbers always subject to verification.

Tell us a little about your home and where you’re located.

We’re in Fairfax County, a fairly typical suburban setup. Nothing exotic about the house itself, which almost made the process harder, because it meant there were a lot of “standard”

assumptions being made.

I don’t like assumptions.

What initially interested you in solar?

Rising energy costs, mostly. Not emotionally — analytically.

I started noticing long-term trends in our utility bills and wanted to understand whether on-site generation could meaningfully change that trajectory. I wasn’t interested in buzzwords. I wanted to know whether the math actually worked.

How did your first solar conversations go?

Poorly.

Most explanations stopped exactly where my questions started. I kept hearing averages without distributions, projections without confidence intervals, and best-case language presented as typical outcomes.

That’s not how I evaluate decisions.

So what did you do instead?

I started building my own models.

I pulled historical usage, compared it against production estimates, looked at degradation assumptions, and stress-tested different scenarios. But even with that, there were gaps — mostly around real-world behavior and how utilities factor into the equation.

That’s when I started looking for explanations, not proposals.

How did you find VirginiaSolar.org?

Through frustration, honestly.

I was searching for explanations of how production modeling actually works and why different quotes could look so different. VirginiaSolar.org stood out because it didn’t oversimplify. It explained concepts without pretending there was a single “right” answer.

Eventually, I used the Help Desk because I wanted to verify my assumptions with a real person.

What was that interaction like?

Efficient. Which I appreciated.

I came in with very specific questions and didn’t feel like I was being steered away from them. We talked through edge cases, seasonal variance, and what happens when real life doesn’t match a model perfectly.

At no point did it feel like someone was trying to guide me toward a yes. The goal was clearly understanding, not persuasion.

Did anything you believed going in change?

Yes — and that’s important.

I went in assuming most solar models were overly optimistic. What I learned was that the bigger issue isn’t optimism, it’s misunderstanding how averages work over time.

Once that clicked, the system made a lot more sense. Solar isn’t about precision on any given day — it’s about statistical reliability over long periods.

That distinction mattered.

What ultimately convinced you to move forward?

Confidence in the assumptions.

Once I could trace how production estimates were built, how seasonal variation was accounted for, and where uncertainty actually lives, the decision stopped feeling risky.

I didn’t need guarantees. I needed transparency.

How do you feel about the decision now?

Satisfied — which is probably the strongest endorsement you’ll get from someone like me.

The system behaves within the expected range. Variations occur exactly where they should. Nothing about the performance has surprised me, which tells me the underlying assumptions were sound.

What do you tell people now when solar comes up?

I tell them not to look for certainty — look for honesty.

Any system that pretends it can predict the future perfectly is lying. Solar works when expectations are grounded in how systems actually behave over time.

If you understand that, the decision becomes straightforward.

Why We Share Stories Like This

Some homeowners need reassurance. Others need explanations.

VirginiaSolar.org exists for both. Whether you’re instinct-driven or data-driven, the goal is the same: understanding how solar actually works so decisions are made on solid ground.

Sometimes clarity comes from conversation. Sometimes it comes from spreadsheets.

Both are valid.

Note on Privacy

Names and identifying details may be adjusted to protect homeowner privacy. These stories reflect common experiences shared by Virginia homeowners with different approaches to decision-making.