Samuel G. Abrams discusses commercial rooftop solar financing and installation. Third-party companies finance projects via triple-net leases with a 30% tax credit. Panels use adhesive mounting systems that install in about 10 minutes, and depreciation rules let investors write off roughly 85% of the system value in four years.
Chapters
Being a. What was. Had an overlay of a rural residential area.
Yeah. That can be very disruptive.
Yeah.
So are you doing more residential or commercial or both?
I'll do both. I'll do whatever comes along. But one of the other things I want to talk about before we run out of time is that my, one of my other project, which is sort of on hold right now, but I would want to develop it, is solar energy for commercial buildings or for anything with a large flat roof, because I see them all around and I wonder why they're not covered in solar panels.
So. Well, does that make it. They wouldn't be flat on the roof, they would be at an angle, right?
It depends. You can actually, in Florida, you can actually mount them flat if it's a flat roof. You do lose some energy production with that. But because we're so far south, it's not that much. I've been told between 7 and 15% reduction.
But. So what are you doing with solars? What aspect is important to share with the audience?
The biggest thing, I'm trying to educate a lot of people about it because there's been so much negative publicity on the news about this doesn't work and that doesn't work and this leaks and that has happened and none of that is necessary. Now you have a lot of fly by night and cheap outfits because the residential market is very oversaturated. But for the large commercial properties, you got two things going on. I've got a company that I'm working with that's actually a finance company and they will pay the owner of property on a triple net lease for their roof space. Then they will finance the system, install it and run it. But the fight, what the finance company gets out of it is not just the energy which they can turn around and then sell to whoever tenants are in the building or whatever. But the biggest thing though is first off, there's a 30% tax credit right off the top.
Okay.
But the really big thing for commercial properties is that is depreciation. And you can do accelerated depreciation of 85% of value in just four years.
Say that again. 40%. What?
85% of the value can be depreciated in just four years.
Gotcha. Wow.
So that is a large tax shelter, especially when you're talking about a good sized project. Now the finance company puts a lower limit of projects at 10,000 square feet. So the upper limit, they don't have one. They've done, they've done projects in the megawatt range.
So do they do houses then? If the minimum is 10,000 square feet, they don't do houses.
They won't do individual houses. However, they will do an entire development that way.
Yeah, I see. More efficient.
Yeah, it's just as expensive to do a small deal like that as it is a big one for them. So they prefer the large deals.
Yeah, makes sense. And I think that, well, is there a shortage of supplies in the solar.
World or no, not that I've seen. Okay, not that I've seen.
Yeah, I haven't heard anything either, but that doesn't mean I, I did hear something the other day, but I didn't think it was a worthy source. So was not sure, but very good. What else would you like to share with the audience?
Well, again, some of the things about solar. For instance, leaky, leaky installations. There's a company I know of called Solar Stack and they use adhesives, so they use a spray on foam adhesive that they don't have to drill any holes at all.
Huh.
And at the conference that I went to, I saw this, they challenged people to rip off the panel from the mounting and nobody could do it. But you can cut this stuff, you can cut the foam with a knife. So if the roof needs to be repaired or something needs to be changed, it's relatively easy. And the installation they said was 10 minutes per panel.
Wow. I might have to get with you on that. I don't, I don't know what they do with older roofs. Do you have to re roof before you put them on?
That's usually a good idea for. Yeah, for older roofs, yes. But if you have a brand new roof, then yeah, you know, that's like an ideal time to put panels on.
Yeah. Do they do anything to help you on the price of the roof?
Some of the companies do, yes.
Gotcha.
There was one company I'm trying to remember the name of, it escapes me offhand, but they said if you get both a solar installation and a new roof, that no, they would like chop 25% off the price of a roof.
Interesting. Very good. All right, so, and I forgot to warn you, I have this thing I do towards the end where I ask, and you should have seen this on an email, I ask everybody if there's a pivotal person or event that brought them to where they are today or that is pushing them forward to a place that might be identified already. Do you, did you see that? That, that would be a question.
No, but I have no problem with that. There are a couple things growing up in Philadelphia and seeing all the city planning and what was being done there. My father back in 1948 did a model of all of downtown Philadelphia which showed how it was looking then and then how it was supposed to look in 1980. So that was pretty influential, you know, and having exposure to a lot of architects and city planners when I was young, including some rather famous ones, was a big influence.
Nice. That's good.
And for the solar energy, the energy problems of the early 70s, and I went to the second National Solar Energy Passive Solar Design conference in Philadelphia, and that was extremely interesting. Now, these days you don't hear much about passive design. It's all about photovoltaics. Back then, the photovoltaics were way too expensive. But they were designed. They were doing designs where the entire house was actually the collector itself, that they didn't really have separate panels. It was just like a glass front and special insulation and things like that. And how to design a house to absorb energy or block unneeded energy.
To block it.
Why would you block a needed one in Florida?
Oh, just too much.
Yeah. In Florida, you want the shade.
Yeah.
Because you have more hot days than you do cold. So you want to have lots of trees. You want to have their ways of installing, like, trellises and things that will actually block the sun at some angles but allow it in at lower angles in the wintertime.
Right.
So you go both sides of it. Or, you know, you plant deciduous trees so that in the wintertime, no, no leaves to block the sunlight.
Right.
So you can get the best of both worlds.
That's right. I need a land planner or a landscape artist. I don't. Not artist, but. Yeah. I don't get into that stuff very well. But so. Yeah. Well, that's good that you have so many things going on and. And that you're able to still keep, even though you're semi retired, keep doing some of this stuff. It's really exciting. It kind of helps you stay young, Right?
Absolutely. And I enjoy doing it. I think to me, challenging the regulations and no looking at what's possible. It's fun.
Yeah, me too. Me too. Great. Well, so why don't you tell the audience how they can reach you? And we'll be putting that in the show notes. And we need to go ahead and wrap this up then. Yeah, yeah.
Sounds perfect. It's good timing for me. Yeah. My phone number is 407. 457-0557.
Okay.
My email is real simple. It's Samuel G. Abrams that's a B R A M s@gmail.com.
Okay, very good.
And I'm working on some on a website right now, but I've been in a Google page, but I've been having some problems with that, so.
Okay, well, maybe by the time this comes out, what we'll do is we'll send you the show notes and if that. You got all that straightened out, we can add it to the notes.
Great.
Okay. Well, great. Well, thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate you being here.
