I just bought a house (yay) and an looking at a solar installation for it. It needs a roof anyways, so it's one of those "while you're there, do it right" kind of deals. The main roof is like 1.5 stories and south facing. The solar people that came out estimated 95% efficiency on a 16 panel, 4800 watt system. Looks like about $19k before the federal tax rebate of $6500ish installed.
Thoughts? Pitfalls?
Musk is ramping up his solar roof production so maybe a true two birds with one stone.
A local car-buddy, Monte Saager (of the CSCC TSD Rally fame) just posed this same question on FB, I tagged you, but I don't know if you can see it.
Basically it looks to be about 20-25 years to save enough money in energy costs to pay it off and buying them outright made more sense financially.
That said, one of the responders mentioned their monthly electrical bill went from $300 to about $30 during the summer. Winter was a much smaller delta (not surprising).
Another mentioned that the addition of a Tesla Power Wall made a difference in when they used the majority of their power, so at noon when it was more expensive they leveraged the solar and power wall and when it was less expensive they used the utility's power to charge the wall. The ability to weather utility outages and have at least 4 hours of power was a nice bonus.
Charging electric or plugin hybrids via solar is also a nice bonus for some.
Read through this thread from earlier this year if you haven't already. There are some folks here with real life experience with solar systems.
In reply to Stefan :
Thank you much!!
I've lived off grid for a lot of years. Solar is great but unless you live in an area that is hard to get power to, or your bill is incredibly high there is no point unless you just really want solar for no other reason but just to have it.
It's spendy too, but getting a lot cheaper. Also solar isn't just panels, it's batteries to store it and inverters if you want to use AC instead of DC
What is your goal? If your primary motivation is saving money, do the math. Often it is not a great investment.
Also factor in the likely fact that solar will only get cheaper and more efficient in the future.
Another useful aspect of solar is in case the grid goes down you have a backup, depending on how you are setup of course.
Make sure you compare the quality of the products proposed in your quotes. Roof attachments, solar modules, inverters, racking. There are huge differences in quality, for not big differences in price. Some installers try to be the low price leaders by installing crap. You wouldn’t just walk into a car dealer with 20k and just say “give me a car.” I mentioned the roof attachments first, since they are the most important part. Don’t cut corners there.
Your house looks easy for a DIY install. Since you are getting the roof done, have the roofer install the attachments when they do the roof. Then the racking and modules bolt on easy. Many solar suppliers will sell you a package with the drawings and paperwork you need for your permit. Hire an electrician to do the final connection. You can cut around half the price off with a weekend’s worth of work.
Just noticed that you are in Washington. I believe there is an incentive to buy “made in Washington” modules, and a couple manufacturers do their final assembly there to meet the requirement.
This might be more apocryphal than true, but also check into what the homeowners insurance impact might be for the installation.
One of the guys from our local (volunteer) fire department said they will let the building burn before they put someone up on the roof of a house with a solar install.
It’s early days for this, but I imagine things will even out in the end.
Maybe our resident firefighter, Woody, has more on this aspect.
aircooled said:Also factor in the likely fact that solar will only get cheaper and more efficient in the future.
Another useful aspect of solar is in case the grid goes down you have a backup, depending on how you are setup of course.
Unfortunately the inverters need the grid to work. So if you have no grid you have no solar.
In reply to MrJoshua :
I think that depends on your setup - a system that is designed with battery backup in mind should have a working inverter if grid power goes out.
Essentially there seem to be two types of systems out there - one that has "just" solar panels and an inverter, and ones that use battery storage. The former always feed excess power back to the grid and top up from the grid when the power from the panels is low, the other one runs off the batteries first and may or may not top up from the grid.
The third type of system is what people usually call a solar generator, which is essentially a smaller pack of batteries and panels that would take the place of a gas powered generator in an emergency.
There's actually a fair amount of DIY culture around these systems, especially ones with home built powerwalls. No need to hit up Elon for storage.
Not that I've been looking into this - out roof faces almost directly south and we're suffering from regular power outages that last anything from a few seconds to a day or more. Which isn't fun if you're on a well.
In reply to BoxheadTim :
Any good resources for reading up on the DIY powerwall setup? My limited knowledge is just from watching the EVTV vids.
In reply to MrJoshua :
I've been mostly "watching up" on this stuff, too. There are a few channels on YouTube talking about stuff like this. I personally like Jehu Garcia's channel (jehugarcia), but there are a few others as well.
MrJoshua said:aircooled said:Also factor in the likely fact that solar will only get cheaper and more efficient in the future.
Another useful aspect of solar is in case the grid goes down you have a backup, depending on how you are setup of course.
Unfortunately the inverters need the grid to work. So if you have no grid you have no solar.
No, plenty of people live totally off grid. I'm one of them.
I make all my power via solar and generator, no grid connect at all.
I love the idea of rooftop solar. I love the idea of getting the majority of our power from solar. If I were to do rooftop, it's because I believe we should all be putting our money where our mouth is to switch to better power generation sources.
However, I don't have solar and here's why:
1. In Illinois, we have the option to purchase power from whoever we want (the local utility still "delivers" it and charges for that). A few of the suppliers provide "clean" power (solar, wind, co2 offsets), and it is only a little more for our family. It's like 8.5c/kwh vs 6c/kwh for standard utility power (delivery fees bring the total to closer to 15c/kwh). Yes that's like 40% more expensive but we don't use many kwh so the dollars are low for us. And it's only like 10-15% more expensive when you include the delivery costs. It's really hard for me to go spend 35k on a system that achieves what I already have for an extra 2.5c/kwh.
2. Call me a nervous Nellie, but anything with a payback period of more than 20 years seems really risky - and in a business sense, I'd be wondering if it was lining my pockets or someone else's. And seems like it's really just lining someone else pockets. Where will the tech be in 20 years? It could be 10 times better! And I'd be stuck with an expensive dinosaur on the roof. That's all assuming my stuff still works after 20 years and that the supplier is still in business and that I can get replacement parts and service, etc. I want to let someone else handle this risk.
If I didn't have the easy button of 1, I might be able to get over 2. But I do have 1, so right now I'm laying on the easy button.
Antihero said:MrJoshua said:aircooled said:Also factor in the likely fact that solar will only get cheaper and more efficient in the future.
Another useful aspect of solar is in case the grid goes down you have a backup, depending on how you are setup of course.
Unfortunately the inverters need the grid to work. So if you have no grid you have no solar.
No, plenty of people live totally off grid. I'm one of them.
I make all my power via solar and generator, no grid connect at all.
You probably know all of this but I want to post it because most people are not getting quotes for systems with battery backup. The problems I've read about are with the microinverters used on grid tied (no battery pack) systems. Those use the grid for reference and shut down if the grid isn't present. So no grid means no power.
Robbie said:2. Call me a nervous Nellie, but anything with a payback period of more than 20 years seems really risky - and in a business sense, I'd be wondering if it was lining my pockets or someone else's. And seems like it's really just lining someone else pockets. Where will the tech be in 20 years? It could be 10 times better! And I'd be stuck with an expensive dinosaur on the roof. That's all assuming my stuff still works after 20 years and that the supplier is still in business and that I can get replacement parts and service, etc. I want to let someone else handle this risk.
Not only that, but the 20 year payback is 1) paying you back in less valuable dollars (inflation) and 2) not really accounting for any potentially alternative investment one could make with the money.
In reply to ProDarwin :
If your solar has a payback of 20 years (or 10 for that matter) you don’t need solar. You have cheap power, low consumption, or both. Invest your money elsewhere. In high energy cost areas like California, payback is creeping down to the 5 year range if sized for right. Sizing affects payback. An undersized system will payback faster, since it mainly knocks out the higher tier of your power bill. It’s easier to knock the first $100 of your bill than the last $100. But it may have a lower ROI over the life of the system.
Boost_Crazy said:In reply to ProDarwin :
If your solar has a payback of 20 years (or 10 for that matter) you don’t need solar. You have cheap power, low consumption, or both. Invest your money elsewhere.
Absolutely.
If you want to do it for the feel good factor, or for the environment, or other reasons, sure go for it. Don't fool yourself that its a wise investment.
California electric costs have been skyrocketing while solar prices are tanking. Get current numbers. Battery isn't an issue unless youre going full prepper and can be added later. Pg&e will credit you for unused power: net metering.
personally I'm waiting for solar tile roof to become common as I'll be needing a roof soon as well. Two birds and all that.
With 7 cents per kwh flat rate cost, low consumption, and no net metering, solar does not make sense for me at this time. Thanks for the input!
One other thing, if you want to be "green" and if your region allows, is buying energy or credits from a renewable source. It's getting close that wind power here in PA is at parity with "general mix" sources and we have some of the lowest generation costs around.
aircooled said:Also factor in the likely fact that solar will only get cheaper and more efficient in the future.
Another useful aspect of solar is in case the grid goes down you have a backup, depending on how you are setup of course.
I don't know a ton about solar, but I believe that every solar system I have seen shuts down the inverter upon sensing a power outage. Therefore you cannot power you house during an outage. Of course there may be other systems that allow for this, but I read it was a safety issue for the lineman working on the grid. Perhaps there is a system that locks out the back feeding of the grid during a power outage, and still powers your home. It wouldn't be difficult I suppose but the utility, and the NEC would require it to be a full mechanical lockout I bet.
In reply to Mazdax605 :
That really depends on the way the system is set up. I can see a cheap(ish) grid tie system being set up like that, but I don't think there is any good electrical reason not to have something like an automated transfer switch that disconnects your house from the grid when there's a power outage. Basically, same setup you'd have with a whole house generator setup as that also shouldn't backfeed into the grid.
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