Home Solar Panels

[Adrian @ JB Solutions]

That time of year where my bill is going up and I re-think getting solar panels.

Any one with good experiences? My gut still tells me its a scam.

 

[steveinmd]

That time of year where my bill is going up and I re-think getting solar panels.

Any one with good experiences? My gut still tells me its a scam.

Lease or buy?

 

[Julian]

My neighbor has them and loves them. His next investment is 2 Tesla power walls! He also has an ID 4 which he drives for free (electricity) as he charges it off his solar when he needs to. Only in the winter does he use more electricity than his panel produce (due to less solar in the winter). He wants the power walls so he can run the house with a power outage - at present he cannot - something about the way its wired.

I think he said his ROI was 7 years. I'll ask him tonight.

Was talking to him and another electric car owner the other night and liked their comment "I love knowing that every time I go get in the car-the 'tank' is always full with no hassle"

 

[Acard7]

We have friends that financed home solar panels, pretty much what it saves you in your power bill per month pays for the loan payment per month, simple trade off. So if they last longer than the loan term then they are worth it ??

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

That time of year where my bill is going up and I re-think getting solar panels.

Any one with good experiences? My gut still tells me its a scam.

Several factors to consider.

Your latitude. Since you live in FLA you get a lot of sunshine each year so I’d think you’d be good on that front.
-Available roof space: How many KWh of generation can you put on your roof? And how much of the roof is at a good angle to gather photons from the sun ?
-Current electricity rates including tiers of usage. Cost per KWh? Time of use metering?
-Does your utility (FP&L?) still participate the in the original PURPA bill? Will your utility buy excess solar generation and at what KWh rate?
-Will your utility charge you a special fee for being on Solar? This is commonly referred to as a grid maintenance fee.
-What is your KWh usage per month?
-Will your roof support these panels? Most of the time the roof will support the weight of the panels and their mounting hardware, but most roofs will not support the wind loading of the panels, meaning the wind will create lift from the solar panels and they can pull the roof off of the house in high winds.
-Typically solar panels only produce about 60% of their rated output if they are installed in a fixed position, so let that figure into your ROI equations.
-Will the solar panel company give you a guarantee of the solar array output in full sun? If no then why not. This is the question that usually will keep the deal from happening because this is the corner stone of the ROI.
-Does your state or utility company offer either direct money incentives or tax breaks on installing a solar array on your roof?
-What will your home insurance think of installing a solar array on your roof? Will they raise your rates? Will they pay for any damage to the panels ?
-What about the guarantee on the roof of your house? Will that be affected by the installation of a solar array?

The return on investment is very important, as solar panels begin to degrade after year 10, and their output decreases when they get hot as well. During the life of the solar panels, typically 20 years, one needs to be able to put enough away from the savings to replace the panels and probably the inverter, at year 20 or sooner depending on the output of the panels as they near end of life of service, what will the cost of solar panels be in 20 years? As @Acard7 mentions its just a simple trade off / shell game / scam and the only ones who come out ahead are the solar panel companies and the loan companies.

What is the goal of getting solar panels for the house? If it is to lower your electricity bill and in the process of saving you money you can keep putting away enough money to replace the components when they are at end of life then it is a good deal. The higher your electricity rates the faster the ROI should be, also if you put in more KWh of panels and can sell this excess generation back to the utility the faster the ROI and the greater the amount of money you are going to get from the excess generation. As I mentioned above, PURPA was the act signed by president carter that forced utilities to buy back and excess generation that private generators produced at wholesale prices.

How long do you expect to stay in your house? This is a big one. If you are going to stay there until the end of life of the equipment you are probably going to come out ahead by a slim margin. If you are going to install them as an upgrade to the house and make more money off of the sale of your house by doing so then this might work in your favor. Most people will not pay the higher price of a house in regards to comps and some of the banks will not include that upgrade in the appraisal.

If you are looking at doing a battery wall you need to consider at what depth of discharge DOD you are going to do to the batteries most of the time. The higher the DOD the less life you will get out of the LiFePo4 batteries. Typical service life of LiFePo4 batteries at a DOD of 50% is around 8000-10,000 cycles. If you think you going to use this battery wall to power your house when the power goes out, then the battery wall will have to be sized accordingly to what level of autonomy you want during a power outage, and not only the KWh of the battery wall but the size of the inverter and with increased inverter size the losses also increase as a function of percentage. Typically inverters are about 80% efficient at turning DC from the batteries to AC, and the remaining 20% is converted to heat.

 

[RobbieO]

That time of year where my bill is going up and I re-think getting solar panels.

Any one with good experiences? My gut still tells me its a scam.

I looked into purchasing and leasing. In CA we have PGE and they will only approve enough panels so you break even or owe at true up at the end of the year. If you over produce, they buy it back at 1/10 of what they sell it for. If you purchase and finance, any savings is going to interest, and you'll lose money in the end. The rebate they advertise is spread out over several years. If you are usually getting tax refunds don't expect to get any rebate. They DO NOT send you a rebate check, it's a deduction. Unless you have a swimming pool, hot tub, electric cars etc., I cannot recommend. However, having a whole house backup battery may make it worth it if you suffer from major power outages. I'm speaking from experience in CA. They fuck us over on everything here. BTW, we have surpassed $6 a gallon for fuel in some areas.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

I looked into purchasing and leasing. In CA we have PGE and they will only approve enough panels so you break even or owe at true up at the end of the year. If you over produce, they buy it back at 1/10 of what they sell it for. If you purchase and finance, any savings is going to interest, and you'll lose money in the end. The rebate they advertise is spread out over several years. If you are usually getting tax refunds don't expect to get any rebate. They DO NOT send you a rebate check, it's a deduction. Unless you have a swimming pool, hot tub, electric cars etc., I cannot recommend. However, having a whole house backup battery may make it worth it if you suffer from major power outages. I'm speaking from experience in CA. They fuck us over on everything here. BTW, we have surpassed $6 a gallon for fuel in some areas.

Ah yes…the CPUC in cahoots with the IOU’s gutted the PURPA act so that individual home owners couldn’t make some decent money back on their “green” energy investment… Remember anything PG&E does has to be approved by the California Public Utilities Commission since PG&E is an investor owned utility, this includes your electric rates.

The safety power shut offs when the wind blows is another gift from the state of ca to the rate payers and is a direct result of “de regulation“. AB 1490 from Rep Steve Peace of San Diego is what brought in de reg and brought on a host of problems that exist to this day in the ca grid and energy markets.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

I don't have one yet, but I plan to. Tell me, will it save me a lot of money?

That depends a lot on your situation as I mentioned in my previous post.

In a nut shell, the higher your electricity rates are the faster the solar panels will pay for themselves then you will start realizing your savings. Until the panels are paid for it is just a shell game about the out of pocket dollars.

 

[Jim_in_Delaware]

I thought about it. Decided that I didn't want anyone drilling holes into my brand new roof, as I just didn't see any benefit.

I have considered buying a travel trailer. If I go this route, I may go all in with solar panels and a lithium battery bank.

Jim

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

An acquaintance of mine even had panels on his car.

And?

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

I thought about it. Decided that I didn't want anyone drilling holes into my brand new roof, as I just didn't see any benefit.

I have considered buying a travel trailer. If I go this route, I may go all in with solar panels and a lithium battery bank.

Jim

I put them on my toy hauler with SLA batteries… works great for dry camping / boondocking …but that is a very simple system and I have a generator to run the microwave, AC, charge batteries when the sun isn’t out. I still use propane for water heating and comfort heat.

 

[jimbobalu]

I saw a recent story about insurance companies canceling or raising rates for solar, so maybe check before you install.

 

[Julian]

I saw a recent story about insurance companies canceling or raising rates for solar, so maybe check before you install.

They probably should raise your rates if you have solar as the cost to replace them is high. Or they need to exclude them from your coverage?

Sucks that California doesn't pay a decent rate for solar power. Here in NC you get the electic company's rate for what you over produce. So my neighbor now charges his car off the grid at night (lowest rates), and lets his daily solar go to the grid as he gets paid the most for them.

 

[dbfl]

My aunt and uncle in Lakeland (FL) have about 32 panels their roof and are far from happy. It's not that the panels don't work but the folks are wasteful of electricity in total so the panels make only a smallish dent in their bill. Fortunately that's something they can change. When the sales guy went through our neighborhood I told him of their experience and waved him off. Looks like he did sell it to about one house out of 15 though.

I didn't want anything on my roof but decided to grab some free photons for back yard emergency power. I bought eight 100W panels that perfectly fit the top of my shed, a 1500W/3kW burst inverter/24V charger unit and 400 AH of 12V sealed batteries for maybe $1,800 total, all from AMZN. That netted something akin to a small generator that's always on. A hidden 10 GA extension brings the power to my porch and runs a few things out there full time, plus is there e.g. for fans and to plug in the fridge if the power's out. (No connection to house power.) I kept my 3.5/5 kW portable gas generator as a backup.

Keep in mind that while the daylight hours don't vary as much in FL at its lower latitude, we have a *lot* of cloudy days particularly through the summer. It's more clear Dec-Mar. Exact opposite of the midwest where I grew up.

 

[Bruce]

My suggestion would be to look at used panels. There are a lot of 200 to 300 watt lightly used panels on the market going for fifty cents a watt or less. With those and a DIY install you could get a return reasonably quickly. I am sure you would need a licensed electrician to complete the grid tie portion if you want to do so.

Any way you do solar someone is prepaying for your electricity to be paid back over time.

When I built my house in 2011 SIP Panels (R30 insulation) made sense, Geothermal heat and air made sense, a heat pump hot water heater made sense. Without incentives, which were not available in Arkansas, solar did not make sense at the time.

 

[Murf'n'surf]

Today's solar panels and battery storage is what flat screen TV's were in the early 2000's. Give it another 15 years to become affordable unless you have money to throw at helping the environment.

 

[Adrian @ JB Solutions]

I am still torn on this. We put in new windows a few months ago and just got up plantation shutters. I need to re-evaluate my usage then. I would really like to cover all my energy usage with battery back-up for 30k. I would bite at that price.

 

[Bruce]

I am still torn on this. We put in new windows a few months ago and just got up plantation shutters. I need to re-evaluate my usage then. I would really like to cover all my energy usage with battery back-up for 30k. I would bite at that price.

How many kilowatt hours does your home use per month?

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

They probably should raise your rates if you have solar as the cost to replace them is high. Or they need to exclude them from your coverage?

Sucks that California doesn't pay a decent rate for solar power. Here in NC you get the electic company's rate for what you over produce. So my neighbor now charges his car off the grid at night (lowest rates), and lets his daily solar go to the grid as he gets paid the most for them.

The original intent of PURPA (Carter Admin) was to help bolster the grid and for all of the large factories that use boilers to extract the energy that would other wise just be waste. Originally electricity generated by dispersed resources was to be bought at wholesale to give the utilities the ability to make some money to cover grid maintenance.

But the utilities have peddled their influence in many areas and gutted PURPA

 

[Taylorman]

They probably should raise your rates if you have solar as the cost to replace them is high. Or they need to exclude them from your coverage?

Sucks that California doesn't pay a decent rate for solar power. Here in NC you get the electic company's rate for what you over produce. So my neighbor now charges his car off the grid at night (lowest rates), and lets his daily solar go to the grid as he gets paid the most for them.

In NC they don’t pay for solar energy that goes to the grid but they do issue you a credit. However, that credit is only valid during their current fiscal year which resets July 1st. The credit is not carried over year to year. That means everyone has a blank slate when they typically need the most power…hottest months usually = highest bills. Having an electric car is one of the few ways, if not only way, to really get a benefit from the credit system. Otherwise it’s just spot benefits if you have gas heat. The dynamic may shift favorably enough if you’re using electricity for heat but we aren’t.

My neighbor has panels as well. He got them a couple years ago and his ROI is about 8 years. Since then the energy company switched to a lottery system for their rebate which really negatively impacts the ROI timeline. When I looked into it earlier this year it was 14-16 years. That timeline was a non-starter for me. Feds are increasing the tax incentive some but still don’t think it’s enough to make me invest. I plan to get a lake house in the next few years which will further diminish the value as we’ll spend time at the lake and using less electricity at this house. At this point I’m convinced I’d need to see major changes in either the business model, cost structure, technology or maybe all three to reconsider solar.