How practical is home solar power these days if you're coming at it from an economic/preparedness perspective instead of an environmental one? I know I can't power my whole house with them, but are they a worthwhile addition yet, or just feelgood stuff?
Realistically, what can a set of solar panels power on their own, and for how long? How long does it take to see an ROI on your energy bills? That sort of thing.
As a lender I can say stay far, far away from those solar home scams where the costs get filed as liens and run with the house. It makes it super difficult to sell and probably you won't be able to get financing to buy the house in the near future. They've banned making loans on homes that have them once already and then relented and there's talk of doing it again but this time making it permanent.
Location is huge. It doesnt make financial sense here in Wisconsin.
I agree location is big, but essentially there are too many variables for each house to make a general yay or nay statement. If the salesperson says, "you'll pay nothing up front" - run away. Personally, if I ever do solar I want to write a check and own the entire system. Period.
It depends. Here in SE Michigan the electrical company has incentives at times. I have a friend with a large bank of panels on his garage. It's neat to watch the meter run backwards. His took 5 or 6 years to break even with incentives.
I lived on solar for many many years. Location is huge, true sine wave inverters cost lots, you will need a generator if you go totally off grid and it can be damn spendy to start up.
The best answer to your question on what it can run is how much do you need? you will need to have a gas waterheater, gas furnace or otherwise non electric heating, a/c isnt happening and a gas fridge if you want to just have a few panels and make it work. If you just want to lower your power bill.......dont do solar. Panels have gotten a lot cheaper recently but its not just the panels you need. Youll need a battery bank, trojan batteries have quadrupled in price since i bought them. Youll need an inverter to take the DC power from the batteries and convert it into ac you can use etc
The short answer is: it depends. The long answer is: it depends :)
I'm in CT, and have a 44 panel array:
Those are 44 five year old USA made 270w panels with micro inverters. It's good for up to 11.9 KWhr of peak.
First of all, it basically never makes sense to lease them (see solar world, et al.). You're only getting a fixed rate for a long term, but never reducing your cost past that.
The next thing to know is you're playing the long con. Best case scenario is you buy the panels for cash and you break even at 5 years. We have a loan, so our break even point is almost 7 years.
Depending on location and coverage, it may only make sense with incentives like our state has where every KWhr that we generate and not use gets credited to our account to pull out of we use more than we generate (Jan/Feb/Mar).
Price wise, 5 years ago in CT, it was about $1k per panel installed (our array was $44,500), but a Fed refund took off 11k and a state rebate took off 9k, leaving us out the door for ~24k.
Our average electric bill was around $250, if I recall. About 100 in the summer and 400+ in the winter. Now it's 25/month to be hooked up. The past two years we've gotten ~$90 back when the account was squared up.
For us it was a no brainier since we're not planning on moving for at least the next 20 years.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Oh, and we don't have batteries or anything. We're not off the grid. I would like to invest in some sort of battery system, but I'll wait a few years until that tech settles down.
I love solar. Its cheap now. But from an economics standpoint... it isn't cheap enough most places.
Never look at 'break even point' or 'payback period'. If you pony up 25-50k for a system, make sure you are looking at what that money could be earning you in the market.
If I shove $25k in the market, in 10 years I should have $67k
If I shove $25k in a solar system, it would need to save me $320/month (which I would then invest) to hit $67k. At $0.10/kwhr, that isn't happening here.
It sucks, but I am still considering supplementing with a little solar even at a loss. Our power comes from coal :(
Oh, one other thought when you're crunching the numbers to calculate the break even point. Look at historical energy cost increases per year, and guesstimate the rise on the life of your equipment.
Prodarwin - are you serious that you're only paying $.10 per KWhr?! We're somewhere around $.29 after distribution fee up here last time I looked. It was $.24 when I bought in.
But you're absolutely right, if there's no subsidies or the KWhr credit swap, we would have not bought in.
$0.1022 is the average in the city. But $0.1041 is national average (per here https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/), and I believe residential average is $0.12, so it doesn't seem that far I off. I honestly thought it was $0.12 here, but I just found that number googling as I don't have an electric bill handy. It has increased only a small amount in the 5 years I've been here.
We used to have some incentives, but not as large as the ones you have available. So I'd get less system for my money (although the additional sunlight might even it out). Still, as manufacturing costs drop and energy prices go up, its only a matter of time before its a much more viable option.
We do get the credit (as do most places I thought?), so if I were to buy a system and over-produce I would get a check from the power company. The issue is simply generating that much power to offset what my money would pay me elsewhere.
Also... my house faces/roof slopes east/west. On the south side of my house is a row of trees that would seriously cut into my output Nov-Feb or so. I don't have the ideal property for it.
In reply to Will :
It really depends on your usage and energy costs. Most solar is grid tie, meaning you are still hooked up to the grid. When your house is generating more than it's using, it feeds back onto the grid. When it uses more, it draws from the grid. You are charged for your net usage.
Off-grid, meaning generating all of your own power and using batteries for storage, is rarely an economic decision. It is much more expensive, and usually used when there cost to install utilities is prohibitively expensive. Off grid usually costs roughly double, and long term more than double due to maintenance and replacement costs.
Smaller batteries are starting to be used with grid tie systems now. The main reason is that some utilities are changing to a time of use fee structure. So someone who is gone all day while the sun is shining and uses lots of power at night would see a reduced benefit. So they include a battery in the loop to save some of that day energy to use at night.
You also should look at buying solar like buying a car. You wouldn't just walk into a car dealer and say, "how much for a car?" Because you know some cars are better than others. Yet lots of people do just that. They don't even know what they are buying.
The number one part of buying solar is making sure that you trust the installer with your roof. A screwed up roof can cost you more than the system will save you. Ask what kinds of mounts they use, and make sure they are a quality mount. It needs to keep leaks out for 25+ years, long after the installer is gone. I've seen crap installed that doesn't last one.
What kind of inverter are they offering? String inverters are a bit less expensive, plan on replacing it in about 10 years. Micro inverters are a little more, but allow more flexibility.
Buy a quality module. Doesn't mean the most expensive, but definitely not the cheapest. Don't let a cheap module with a long warranty fool you- odds are any manufacturer will be gone by the time you need the warranty. So buy a good one that is less likely to fail in the first place.
In reply to WonkoTheSane :
Rates vary wildly depending on where you live. My rate in the Philly suburbs is a bit less than 13.5 cents, between generation, distribution, etc.
What is the scam with the free solar panels? My neighbor was all hot and bothered to get them and tried to get me to. No way I’m putting holes in a new roof. I noticed he still doesn’t have them.
When I lived in CT.. Only two places in the US had more expensive Electricity. California and Hawaii.
Thanks to the California solar incident a few months back new regulations are in the works that will probably make inverter costs go up dramatically and drive the cheaper manufacturers out of business.
If you live in a net metering state solar can make you $ eventually, assuming your state stays net metering. In the rest of the states you are only going to get paid the wholesale rate for what you generate in excess of your usage ($0.023/kwh here) so it doesn't make sense to size your array much bigger than your usage.
Fueled by Caffeine said:When I lived in CT.. Only two places in the US had more expensive Electricity. California and Hawaii.
Yeah, and a lot of houses like mine have electric baseboards as the supplemental heat, because in the 80s there were going to be three nuke plants within 100 miles of here. There are none. We can't generate our own power in this state.
On the tech side, there's no sense in getting string inverters, if someone quotes you on them, disregard that person.
We're on a utility power provider called clean choice or something. It's a little more expensive (but still like 15c or less per kwh) and gives us 100% solar and wind power.
It's the easy button.
I'd love to have my own array but can't throw down my 10-20k yet.
I read this post on MMM recently and wondered if one could truly DIY a reasonably sized system.
One note about the grid tie setups - if you lose the grid, you usually can't access the solar power unless it's specifically wired that way. It's happened a few times at our shop. We have a power outage and the panels on the roof are happily pumping out power, but we can't get to it.
In reply to Will :
I am an EE who happens to be “the guy” for solar (and other net metering) at my power utility. As others have said, it depends on your location and what/if any incentives are available, but the answer is probably not solar.
Get yourself a generator that will do what you want, and get a transfer panel installed.
A gallon of gas has about 36 kWh of energy. Even after the inefficiencies of using a generator to convert the gasoline to electricity, it is still darn cheap, reliable, and works in the dark.
Jcamper
In reply to dyintorace :
I read this post on MMM recently and wondered if one could truly DIY a reasonably sized system.
Yes, a reasonably competent DIY'er could install their own system, assuming they are comfortable with working on the roof. Comp roofs are easy to install, tile roofs are a little more involved. The electrical is pretty straight forward, especially with micro inverters- if you can add a breaker and wire it, you can wire a micro inverter system. The modules and racking themselves go together like Legos.
Around here, a bit over half the cost is for the install itself.
There are four parts, and you can sub parts you don't feel comfortable with. Design and permitting, roof attachments, racking and modules, and electrical. I've known lots of people who installed their own, often hiring a small local installer as a guide for a fee.
FYI, my Westfalia has a solar setup I built. It's super-cool to know that the batteries just magically refill on their own, and that the refrigerator is powered by the sun. Works like a charm. I can certainly see going solar for an off-the-grid setup just for the geek factor, but I've also learned that I have the solar equivalent of range anxiety and I would be checking the battery charge constantly.
spitfirebill said:What is the scam with the free solar panels? My neighbor was all hot and bothered to get them and tried to get me to. No way I’m putting holes in a new roof. I noticed he still doesn’t have them.
Solar vendors are the modern day equivalent of the "Tin men" of the '60's.
Tin men sold aluminum siding door to door. They claimed "maintenance free", and were in the business of loading financing on people's houses until they were upside down.
Same deal.
In spite of the fact that solar component prices have tumbled, solar vendors will sell you the maximum amount you can finance and keep the payments close to your current electric bill.
I just met with a solar vendor last week for a "free" system. Total scam. He wouldn't even give me a copy of the proposal when he realized I was capable of doing the math.
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