AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :
I'm leaving DFW this summer and very likely will never live in TX again. I've lived here longer than most people ever will, but the big cities in TX are headed in a bad direction overall. TX still exists, but you have to be 90 minutes outside and of the big 4 cities to experience it.
And here I am itching to move back to Texas.
pirate said:Sure, I guess if you ignore the cost of the panels and install. Of which the national average is $16,000-18,500 to install solar on a 2000sq ft house.
I've spoken with two different companies here in Oklahoma about it. Basically you're just trading an electricity bill for a long-term loan on the panels/install. And to keep it affordable, most of those loans are 15-20 years.........or the average life span of the solar panels.
There is also the price of a $60,000 average price EV! I don't think anyone can predict how long they will last or what ongoing maintenance costs will be. From what I have read the infrastructure is not there for everyone to drive an EV. Kind of like jumping out of an airplane with the intent to sew a parachute on the way down.
$16,000 and a 20 year life span is $800/year. I spend way more than $800/year on power. That's only $67/mo! I would gladly spend $16,000 now to have free power for 20 years if I knew I'd be in my current house for 20 years.
An EV does not need to be $60k. Many are available that don't really cost more than a gasoline equivalent, even without calculating for the gas savings. A friend drives a Fiat 500e he paid $8000 for. I drive a Volt I paid $8000 for. A new Bolt is $30k. A new Leaf is $27k.
I'm not going to pretend that solar and an EV are perfect solutions to every problem in the world, but please work with reasonable numbers.
yupididit said:AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :
I'm leaving DFW this summer and very likely will never live in TX again. I've lived here longer than most people ever will, but the big cities in TX are headed in a bad direction overall. TX still exists, but you have to be 90 minutes outside and of the big 4 cities to experience it.
And here I am itching to move back to Texas.
Plenty of cheap land in the Big Bend Area. Carroll Shelby used to hang out in Terlingua.
In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :
I prefer the satx and atx area. Somewhere in the outskirts of either will be nice to move back to. Granted I've only been out of Texas for 2 months lol
dculberson said:pirate said:Sure, I guess if you ignore the cost of the panels and install. Of which the national average is $16,000-18,500 to install solar on a 2000sq ft house.
I've spoken with two different companies here in Oklahoma about it. Basically you're just trading an electricity bill for a long-term loan on the panels/install. And to keep it affordable, most of those loans are 15-20 years.........or the average life span of the solar panels.
There is also the price of a $60,000 average price EV! I don't think anyone can predict how long they will last or what ongoing maintenance costs will be. From what I have read the infrastructure is not there for everyone to drive an EV. Kind of like jumping out of an airplane with the intent to sew a parachute on the way down.
$16,000 and a 20 year life span is $800/year. I spend way more than $800/year on power. That's only $67/mo! I would gladly spend $16,000 now to have free power for 20 years if I knew I'd be in my current house for 20 years.
An EV does not need to be $60k. Many are available that don't really cost more than a gasoline equivalent, even without calculating for the gas savings. A friend drives a Fiat 500e he paid $8000 for. I drive a Volt I paid $8000 for. A new Bolt is $30k. A new Leaf is $27k.
I'm not going to pretend that solar and an EV are perfect solutions to every problem in the world, but please work with reasonable numbers.
Thanks for fixing that. My Bolt was $26K with 4K miles. You can spend any money you want if you're being silly, but let's be realistic.
Duke said:alfadriver said:Duke said:In reply to alfadriver :
Considering the bath most of them took in '20 and '21, I don't really blame them.
They all made up 2020 in 2021. Let alone they all had enough money to survive the pandemic like most other companies were able to.
So you are ok with them making tons of money on your gas bills? People here are all complaining of paying more at the pump, and to justify that oil companies just don't make enough money is, well, I'm not sure I accept that reason.
Yes, I'm perfectly OK with them making a ton of money. I sure as hell don't want to be a geologist or roughneck or pipeline mechanic or refinery worker and all the other jobs - including the dreaded, evil upper management - it takes to find, retrieve, and process oil. I'll gladly pay all those folks to do it for me.
Part of the reason oil is getting more and more expensive is the oil locations are further away and harder to extract.
Solar and wind are local and can be easily turned into consumable power without the need for further refinement and distribution.
We aren't there yet and we might never completely get there. But the wind will always be blowing and the sun shining ( at least someplace ). I'm OK with small nuclear plants supplementing renewable
In reply to dculberson :
But that requires you to buy a different car. I know it's not common anymore apparent but not everyone has a car loan or wants one again.
In reply to frenchyd :
But it's not always blowing or always shining. They can be great supplemental power supply but as the only supply? Better have sone massive batteries. We will go weeks on end with gray overcast skies limiting solar production and no one wants to install a residential wind generator
In reply to yupididit :
Seems like these days, no matter where you go, you're gonna be dealing with some bull. The entire world is in a borderline state or crisis for all sorts of different reasons, and everywhere has problems, you just gotta find the place with the problems that bug you the least.
dculberson said:pirate said:Sure, I guess if you ignore the cost of the panels and install. Of which the national average is $16,000-18,500 to install solar on a 2000sq ft house.
I've spoken with two different companies here in Oklahoma about it. Basically you're just trading an electricity bill for a long-term loan on the panels/install. And to keep it affordable, most of those loans are 15-20 years.........or the average life span of the solar panels.
There is also the price of a $60,000 average price EV! I don't think anyone can predict how long they will last or what ongoing maintenance costs will be. From what I have read the infrastructure is not there for everyone to drive an EV. Kind of like jumping out of an airplane with the intent to sew a parachute on the way down.
$16,000 and a 20 year life span is $800/year. I spend way more than $800/year on power. That's only $67/mo! I would gladly spend $16,000 now to have free power for 20 years if I knew I'd be in my current house for 20 years.
An EV does not need to be $60k. Many are available that don't really cost more than a gasoline equivalent, even without calculating for the gas savings. A friend drives a Fiat 500e he paid $8000 for. I drive a Volt I paid $8000 for. A new Bolt is $30k. A new Leaf is $27k.
I'm not going to pretend that solar and an EV are perfect solutions to every problem in the world, but please work with reasonable numbers.
Of course that's going to be dependent on your power cost, usage, and the cost of the install. That $16k install may not provide you with enough power. In some places, I saw regional average prices of $36k for an install. It's all going to be calculated on your demand, IIRC, so if you have a significantly larger house, that may not be sufficient. Which means more power needed for cooling/heating, and thus a larger and more expensive install. Then there is the type of compensation, if any, will be provided for excess power that is fed back into the grid. In both of our states, you're only compensated if you're provider is investor-owned.
And those panels still aren't going to provide you power at night unless you have a massive battery bank which adds even more to the cost.
I really like the idea of solar and an EV, but currently the COL including electricity where I live, it doesn't make sense even for our income.
With all those factors, the only way someone will know if it makes sense to them is to actually price out an appropriately-sized install and compare all the costs.
pointofdeparture said:In reply to yupididit :
Seems like these days, no matter where you go, you're gonna be dealing with some bull. The entire world is in a borderline state or crisis for all sorts of different reasons, and everywhere has problems, you just gotta find the place with the problems that bug you the least.
That's why I want to live out in the desert in an RV with my pet coyote. Away from everything and everybody. In this work from home world this may actually be possible.
In reply to tuna55 :
I know very few people on GRM live in California, but the EV infrastructure here is incredibly built out, and with state + federal tax credits you can lop almost $15,000 off the cost of most new EVs. That would make something like the MINI Cooper EV a $14k car. If I didn't only have one parking spot (that's occupied by a Miata) investing in an affordable EV daily would be a no-brainer.
I absolutely agree with Bob that there are many areas of the US where an EV will never be practical (at least for a very long time) but the entry barrier really is pretty low in some areas, particularly the west coast.
Gas is still in the $5.29-ish range here, FWIW.
In reply to z31maniac :
The quote for us 3 years ago was $68k to install and hookup. I know friends that did it last year for about $35k
Don't get me wrong, I'm already on solar and off grid so an electric car and a huge solar array sounds cool in theory but where I live a third of the year we get very little solar so it's generator backup then.
I do plan on upgrading my very tiny system though in the future
bobzilla said:In reply to dculberson :
But that requires you to buy a different car. I know it's not common anymore apparent but not everyone has a car loan or wants one again.
People replace cars all the time, no not everybody, but we here all buy and sell cars constantly. $8k is not a very high barrier to entry. Very few middle class people daily drive cars that cost less than that.
z31maniac said:frenchyd said:Erich said:In reply to preach (dudeist priest) :
At those prices, charging up at home is about $190/mo less expensive than a 25 mpg ICE would be by my calculator, assuming 12k miles a year.
Plus solar power on your roof is particularly effective in San Diego. This even further reducing your costs.
Sure, I guess if you ignore the cost of the panels and install. Of which the national average is $16,000-18,500 to install solar on a 2000sq ft house.
I've spoken with two different companies here in Oklahoma about it. Basically you're just trading an electricity bill for a long-term loan on the panels/install. And to keep it affordable, most of those loans are 15-20 years.........or the average life span of the solar panels.
Totally dependent on where you live. For example here in Minnesota the power companies install them with no out of pocket costs. Yes you are paying for them. Through your electric bill. But if you generate more than you consume your neighbors are helping you pay for them.
In some places in the south the sun shines enough and at a direct angle where they potentially could be profit source to the home owner.
Even up here in the arctic tundra there is a break even point.
I accept that future panels will be more efficient and durable. But the question is when?
There are other benefits such as longer roofing life. Lower energy consumption in the summer due to shade.
We did a small 3.6 Kw solar install last year in Michigan, and even here it's enough to completely offset our use of two EVs and then some on average over the course of a year. It ran about $10k, and should pay off in about 8-10 years, so worthwhile considering we plan on staying here long term.
Put another way, would you prepay $10k for your gasoline for the next 25 years?
Solar makes a ton of sense if you are replacing a roof - I would definitely do that at the same time.
We've got solar and an EV. Still in the first few months with the sunshine, but the cost of financing the array is less than our average monthly electric bill so we're saving money right now even with what is fairly inexpensive power available to us. We're also insulated from future price increases including time-of-day surcharges, and the array lifespan is expected to be longer than 25 years - heck, that's the length of the warranty. It's sized to provide 110% of our annual power use. The fact that the array also replaces our fuel costs is a bonus. I know what my fuel and electricity costs will be a decade from now.
The key to making our solar work is a grid hookup, though. We're basically using the grid as a battery, getting 1 kWh of credit for future energy for every kWh we push upstream. Going completely off-grid would be quite different, especially during the winter. Right now, we're producing a power surplus that's being banked for the summertime use when I crank up the AC units in my shop.
The price of the EV is what you pay for the EV, they vary quite a bit. Ours was not $60k. It wasn't a used Leaf either. Like ICE vehicles, there's a whole range of options out there. And the infrastructure is invisible compared to gas stations, it's a lot more built out than you might think unless you're actually looking for it.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
Totally agreed re: grid hookup. I don't think batteries really make a lot of sense right now, given how expensive they are, and how long they last.
In the future, having the EV serve as a vehicle to home emergency backup will be great. GM is actually contracting with PG&E to do some pilots of this, and the F-150 will also have the ability to serve as home backup. Not sure if it makes sense to use it as a solar battery routinely though - that might lead to premature battery degradation.
Antihero (Forum Supporter) said:Don't get me wrong, I'm already on solar and off grid so an electric car and a huge solar array sounds cool in theory but where I live a third of the year we get very little solar so it's generator backup then.
I do plan on upgrading my very tiny system though in the future
When I was selling Wind generators there is a cross over point where they pay for themselves. Too small and they are just a hobby. But big enough to turn a profit gets expensive. The trouble is marketing costs add so significantly to the cost of wind generators and solar panels. That and time for management of their erection.
Those costs can tack on 50% to the actual costs and attempting to DIY is massively time consuming. Often leading to inaction because of the hurdles that have to be overcome.
We sold mid range wind generators. The cheapest were $80,000 installed but took 18 years to pay back with a 20 year life. ( the idea was you pull the actual generator down every 10 years, rebuild it and put it back up).
The biggest was Over a million but had a 3 year payback with a projected 50 year life.
There are certain things you need to look for to ensure it's viable. Geared wind generators need too much wind. The best of those need 6-7 mph before actual power is generated. Plus the maintenance is more than double.
Rare earth magnets direct drive can generate power as low as 2/3 mph. A lattic tower is cheaper but generates too much turbulence plus it's life is less than 50% of what a towers life is.
Minimum height is 20 feet above the tree line. Which requires a lot of concrete and rebar plus a pretty deep hole.
In reply to Erich :
EV as backup is the hot topic right now thanks to Ford. I think it's got some real validity but there's more wiring involved than people realize. I don't think EVs are a good solar battery because they tend to be away from the array during the day :) At the rate of charge involved with solar power, I don't expect degradation to be a significant problem. It's just that they're not able to receive the power when it's being produced. Having your battery get up and leave is a problem.
I think battery backup is going to be good reuse for old EV batteries. I've looked into a Leaf-based powerwall.
My solar experience has so far been quite different than that of a coworker. He's the sort of guy for whom everything goes a little pear-shaped anyhow, but he doesn't have much roof space and he's in downtown. I have a big flat roof with no trees around it. But I also have a much bigger array and I suspect the cost of installation and wiring is pretty similar for both of us so it's a much smaller percentage of the overall spend and thus more of my money went towards the actual power-producing components. Like Frenchy says, too small and it just doesn't work.
bobzilla said:In reply to z31maniac :
The quote for us 3 years ago was $68k to install and hookup. I know friends that did it last year for about $35k
Internet quotes put us around $30k for a system that would have any kind of return. I've come to the conclusion that it makes all the sense in the world for a newly built or added-on house, but the math becomes much more difficult as an add-on.
I'm also astounded at the wild fluctuations in the estimates. 4 different companies in 2017, and 3 different companies in 2021, and the prices and return on investment estimates were so wildly different between all of them that I just don't trust them. I think it is a brilliant idea and the technology is there, but I don't trust the vendors. Especially Tesla, they seem the worst despite having the best product.
EDIT: I should note that because of our tree cover, house orientation, and geographic location, we're not the best candidate for solar with our existing house. We also have pretty low electricity bills, so our break even just gets pushed out farther.
bobzilla said:In reply to frenchyd :
But it's not always blowing or always shining. They can be great supplemental power supply but as the only supply? Better have sone massive batteries. We will go weeks on end with gray overcast skies limiting solar production and no one wants to install a residential wind generator
That's the reason to be hooked to the grid. As for Wind generators. The wind often blows at night and during rain storms. And during dawn and dusk. Get a rare earth magnet one that starts generating at 2-3 mph. Remember the blades have to be at least 20 ft about tree tops which typically gets them 70-80 ft in the air.
We used to set up underneath them for our sales meetings. Yes you can hear them but they aren't obnoxious or that loud. I suppose some are. Gear driven direct drive, with bad blades could be noisy I suppose. But they don't start turning until the wind is 6-7 mph. Which is fast enough that most people retreat into the house.
There are several reasons you see most wind generators in rural areas. But you have a fundamental right to install one even if your city objects.
mtn said:bobzilla said:In reply to z31maniac :
The quote for us 3 years ago was $68k to install and hookup. I know friends that did it last year for about $35k
Internet quotes put us around $30k for a system that would have any kind of return. I've come to the conclusion that it makes all the sense in the world for a newly built or added-on house, but the math becomes much more difficult as an add-on.
I'm also astounded at the wild fluctuations in the estimates. 4 different companies in 2017, and 3 different companies in 2021, and the prices and return on investment estimates were so wildly different between all of them that I just don't trust them. I think it is a brilliant idea and the technology is there, but I don't trust the vendors. Especially Tesla, they seem the worst despite having the best product.
EDIT: I should note that because of our tree cover, house orientation, and geographic location, we're not the best candidate for solar with our existing house. We also have pretty low electricity bills, so our break even just gets pushed out farther.
Use the Federal weather numbers for wind. Those are Uncle Sams numbers and they aren't trying to sell something. Realize that wind at ground level is going to be a fraction of what wind 80-100 in the air is.
Vendors have a incentive to sell wind generators. As much as 50% of the cost is marketing and administration costs.
The administration costs are actually justified if you understand what has to be done.
Marketing costs will plunge once they become more common. But right now the holdup is rare earth magnets. There is more demand then supply. Last I heard it was 3 years delivery. ( a year of that is getting the tower up ).
frenchyd said:bobzilla said:In reply to frenchyd :
But it's not always blowing or always shining. They can be great supplemental power supply but as the only supply? Better have sone massive batteries. We will go weeks on end with gray overcast skies limiting solar production and no one wants to install a residential wind generator
That's the reason to be hooked to the grid. As for Wind generators. The wind often blows at night and during rain storms. And during dawn and dusk. Get a rare earth magnet one that starts generating at 2-3 mph. Remember the blades have to be at least 20 ft about tree tops which typically gets them 70-80 ft in the air.
We used to set up underneath them for our sales meetings. Yes you can hear them but they aren't obnoxious or that loud. I suppose some are. Gear driven direct drive, with bad blades could be noisy I suppose. But they don't start turning until the wind is 6-7 mph. Which is fast enough that most people retreat into the house.
There are several reasons you see most wind generators in rural areas. But you have a fundamental right to install one even if your city objects.
No, you absolutely don't. I don't know where you come up with statements that functionally mean, "You don't have to follow the building/zoning codes of your locale."
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