Solar Panels

[tvguy]

A lot of solar panel companies are here today and gone tomorrow. A 20 yr warranty is worthless if the company who offered it has gone out of business. If you are only saving $30/month using solar you never recoup the initial costs.

I had no initial costs. They put it in for free. An investor put up the money in exchange for the tax credits. I just have to pay for the power it produces for 20 years

 

[cmarsh31]

A lot of solar panel companies are here today and gone tomorrow. A 20 yr warranty is worthless if the company who offered it has gone out of business. If you are only saving $30/month using solar you never recoup the initial costs.

Same here. didn't put up any money... and Tesla is our solar company. We specifically picked a large company instead of a small start-up.

 

[tvguy]

Same here. didn't put up any money... and Tesla is our solar company. We specifically picked a large company instead of a small start-up.

I was Solar City which is now Tesla. Shouldn't be an issue.

 

[ford family]

We are thinking about getting both solar panels and an electric car.

ford family

 

[cmarsh31]

I was Solar City which is now Tesla. Shouldn't be an issue.

Same. Our battery system is Tesla.

 

[tvguy]

Same. Our battery system is Tesla.

Wish I had the battery but that is a lot of money

 

[FlightlessDuck]

I think about it a lot, but haven't pulled the trigger or done the cost-benefit calculation. Instead of panels you can also look into those solar shingles that Tesla makes.

A baby step might be looking into changing energy providers if that is a thing in your state. In Pennsylvania, power was privatized about 20 years ago. You have the company that owns the transmission lines, and your bill is through them, but maybe your actual energy is created by a different company. For example, I could get a power contract with one of several different companies that's 100% renewable (solar and wind). No panels on the house, but at least you know your energy isn't coming from a coal plant or whatever.

 

[GAN]

I was Solar City which is now Tesla. Shouldn't be an issue.

Same. Our battery system is Tesla.

First of all -I'm big on Tesla. The solar roof they're offering is so interesting -along with the battery system. Primarily because if you need to replace your roof -that's an investment that could cost you $10-20,000 anyway, so to add solar makes the payback even better. I have a friend looking into it now for his roof. I think in this decade we'll see big movement in this area. At least Musk seems to think so as he's talking the Energy side of Tesla will be larger than the Automotive side.

 

[_19disnA]

Musk tends to say a lot of things to pump up the value of his stock and tends to exaggerate or use a lot of hyperbole. He mostly strikes me as a loose cannon as CEO. He originally said their solar shingles would be cost effective but in reality they are way more expensive then asphalt shingles you find on most homes. Only if you have a slate roof, which I seem to recall are about 20x the price of asphalt, do such comparisons pan out. Then there is also the issue of maintenance and damage from things like snow/ice/hail storms/tree branches etc. No matter what kinds of solar panels/shingles, you still only generate power during the 50% or so of the days there is sun shining. None of that changes the overall economics for most homeowners.

 

[Treeedor]

Smaller panels < 200W, have less surface area per glass panel and are a bit more robust for the vibration and wind loading on a van. I'd rather have 4 x 100 Watt panels and have to replace ONE of them every once in a while than have one very expensive 400 watt panel.

So I chose RockPals 100W panels

 

[wfjny]

I do not have solar. Looked into it about 10 years ago, after moving to North Carolina from Long Island. Living in the south, the formulas changed. We tend to get more sunlight, but our electric cost is cheaper.

I have two friends that both have solar power (again one in Charlotte, one on Long Island). They both love it. Both paid for it up-front. They have the app, they can see how much they are generating, and how much they are pumping into or pulling from the utility. Neither are "off the grid" battery systems.

Which leads me to the one issue. If the power goes off, your solar system is basically deactivated. So, when Sandy hit up in New York, my friend lost power for 10 days. The solar panels on his roof could not supply electricity to his house, as there is some sort of interconnect that disables when there is no power from the utility. Makes sense, cannot pump electricity into a system that is already down, you could shock and kill one of the lineman who thinks they are working on dead wires.

 

[poosiegirl]

We have solar panels. Our house is also all electric, no natural gas or oil heat. We bought our panels outright from Solar City (now Tesla). We did finance the panels (over 10 years at a very low interest rate). For us the loan payment is lower than the difference in our electric bill, so we come out ahead. We only have a couple years left on the loan and the savings will be all ours. The panels themselves are guaranteed as is the roof under it, which we replaced right before putting the panels on.

 

[_19disnA]

I have a backup generator to use when there is any kind of electrical failure. The electrician wiring it into the house electrical panel added a type of inter-lock that turns off the power from the electric company when using your generator, so basically you run either the generator or use the electricity from the electric company, but not both at the same time. Makes sense as this prevents back-feeding electricity from your generator and potentially harming someone from the utility company working on the lines. Why wouldn't solar power systems have the same type of interlock feature? What good is not being able to use your solar power if the power from the electric company goes down?

Even if you pay upfront for your solar panel installation, that doesn't change the overall economics. If a whole house solar systems costs $20,000 (as an example), I would still look to see how many years it would take to spend that much on electricity from your power company. Your electricity isn't 'free' just because you paid for the solar system upfront. You have to pro-rate the solar system cost against the typical electric bill to see if the economics work for your situation.

 

[twincruisers]

There’s a bit of FUD on that bit about backfeeding to the grid. you just need a cutoff switch to detect when the grid is down and you can operate in standalone mode. For Tesla they have a link the owners manual about this.

https://www.tesla.com/support/energy/powerwall/own/best-practices-during-power-outages
Other solar panel vendors can provide the same functionality. At the end of the day the real discussion is what is your ROI based on what you are putting down on the system. PPA’s are just one form of payment, you can lease, or roll it into your mortgage if you are refi‘ing. 7-10 years is a normal payback over the past decade but it’s gotten lower as solar prices drop. Add in the factor of how often you see outages in your area (check some Tesla Powerwall owners experiences in TX last winter) and you can have a resilient system for a decent price if you have the spare cash.

 

[Katiebird]

We got solar panels and a power wall battery 3 years ago, and have been 90-95% self sufficient for electricity since then. It's almost always sunny here, and the power wall gets us through the night except on very hot nights where the a/c runs a lot. I believe our system would charge the power wall even in a grid outage, so we would have enough power for at least the fridge/freezer if the power went out.

 

[_19disnA]

^^ What was the installed cost of the solar panels/batteries and how much was your average monthly electric bill before getting solar? Sounds like you live someplace that is hot & sunny perhaps the Southwest part of the US?

 

[Katiebird]

^^ What was the installed cost of the solar panels/batteries and how much was your average monthly electric bill before getting solar? Sounds like you live someplace that is hot & sunny perhaps the Southwest part of the US?

I don’t remember the details, but I believe we calculated that the system would pay for itself in 7-10 years. Yes, its almost always sunny here, which makes it an easier calculation that if one lives somewhere with more volatile weather, that all factors into the calculation, along with environmental factors.

 

[idayrarecorded]

Solar panels are a great way to produce enough power for an entire house. They are easy to install and maintain and are a very efficient way to produce power.

 

[jalapeno_pretzel]

Which leads me to the one issue. If the power goes off, your solar system is basically deactivated. So, when Sandy hit up in New York, my friend lost power for 10 days. The solar panels on his roof could not supply electricity to his house, as there is some sort of interconnect that disables when there is no power from the utility. Makes sense, cannot pump electricity into a system that is already down, you could shock and kill one of the lineman who thinks they are working on dead wires.

If you have a backup battery installed you will have power when the grid is down. That's what we did. It's not enough to run AC during a long outage, but lights, fridge, tv, phone chargers, fans, microwave, coffee pot, toaster oven, etc ... all good. Adds to the cost though. Our ROI on the panels was calculated at 10 years. We're 5 years into that and very happy with them.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Solar panels are a great way to produce enough power for an entire house. They are easy to install and maintain and are a very efficient way to produce power.

Welcome to the dis, recorded.