A guy is coming out tomorrow to try and sell me a solar panel system.

Anyone have any experience with them?

Is the cost worth the monthly savings in energy ?

or are these nothing but another liberal boondoggle

From what I have read they take 8 - 16 years pay for themselves. Also you need to have a battery pack to make them worth having. For me the upfront cost is not worth the hassle. Just remember solar panels make working on your roof much more expensive.

It depends obviously. Do you live in an area that get plenty of days of sunshine? Is your local utility mandated to by any excess power you generate? To me those are the biggest factors.

I like the idea of it, but economically, don't think it makes sense. The tech is always getting cheaper. I say wait 10-30 years and it should be much cheaper and more feasible.

They take forever to recoup the costs and you better not live anywhere where it’s not sunny all year.

They put them on the new hip urban homes up here in northern Michigan to make the liberal millennials feel good and pay more. It’s like putting a hood with a blower on it on your car when you have a 4 cylinder engine. Tits on a bull.

It will pfuck your roof up. Coin flip which will last longer. Your roof or the panels. Doesn't matter. You have to redo both when the other goes out.

It depends on what you want the system to do, and where you live, and if you have full retail sell back to the grid.

If you only want to sell back to the grid, and you live in an area with really good solar hours, and especially if you live in an area where electrical costs are high, and especially if you can ground mount the system, then right now it would pay for itself in short order. (Less than 5 years unless they d*ck you on price.) The drawbacks to this grid-tie only system is that when the grid is down, you have no power, even though solar is working, because a grid tied system must shut down when the grid shuts down. Also, if you have to mount on your roof, the price will be higher because of the rapid shutdown and disconnect systems required for the fire department.

So, if you want power when the grid is down, you have to go to a hybrid system. This is the system I am currently specing out. THis system requires a battery bank to keep you up when the grid goes down, and allows you to continue to use your solar even when the grid is down.

My system is stout, because I need it to power most everything if the grid goes down. It may not be able to power EVERYTHING simultaneously if the grid goes down, but it can power most things at the same time. (Including central AC, water pump, water heater, etc.)

So the system I'm looking at is 2 Sol-Ark 12K's in parallel, which can supply 18.5KW of power on grid, or 16K off grid. (ANd can handle a 38KW surge for 5 seconds) Because of the need to power the AC/Heat at night, it will have a 45KWH battery bank and 15KW of solar panels.

But I'm lucky. I'm putting this in in Arkansas, where we can sell back to the grid at full retail. And I'll have that contract in place for 20 years. With the 26% tax rebate in place for this year, it has a 10.5 year payback period, which is still quite long. However, since this would eleviate the need for me to buy a generator of similar power size, the payback of not having to purchase the generator would be about 5 years. Over 20 years, the system will generate a net profit of $25K, not including having to replace anything that goes bad along the way. (The battery bank will need to be replaced in 11 years, and thats taken into account. ) THe Sol-Arks have a 10 year warranty, which is nice.

The issue I have is that I HAVE to have a power backup system to keep the ac on (I have terrible sinuses) and for my work. If I didnt, I probably still wouldnt do this because of the high up-front cost (although the tax rebate would come back to me fairly quickly, which is 26% of the price) But the time horizon is still so far out that there is a significant risk that I wouldnt really save any money. THe good news would be I"m shielded from future higher electrical prices (electricty is dirt cheap here, which is one reason its hard to cost justify. ) NOw, if the electrical prices were 15 cents per KWH, AND I could sell back at full retail, it becomes a no-brainer because I would would gain back 50% of the payback period, and generate a far greater 20 year profit. SO if you live in an area that has good solar hours, high electrical prices, and full retail sellback, thats kind of the trifecta you are looking for.

By the way, there's a kilowatt and electricity calculator for your solar system for your area at https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/pvwatts.php
I am required to submit the simulators result to the state and Entergy so they can determine how much power I would be pushing back onto the grid. But you can also use that to see how much electricity your system is projected to generate in dollars, and can use that for your ROI calculations.

We used to have a guy called Fitbud and he had them installed in his house. I told him that he just made it easier for the next homeowner because he would have them for free and Fitbud would be burdened with the cost. It's not like you can pin it to your mortgage it's like buying a swimming pool YOU have to pay it and like I said if you sell the house you still have that debt. Besides, it takes forever to pay for it and the hassles involved aren't worth it anyway not to me. We've had jokers come to my house wanting to sell them but I tell them that we're too old to be settled with that kind of debt for nothing. Sometimes they won't stop talking and I tell them "enough already, I'm not interested".

(07-16-2020 05:57 PM)solohawks Wrote:  A guy is coming out tomorrow to try and sell me a solar panel system.

Anyone have any experience with them?

Is the cost worth the monthly savings in energy ?

or are these nothing but another liberal boondoggle

NC State has a web page(should be easy to find) that will tell you exactly how they work for where you live including efficiency and payback terms. For the most part it is not a good deal in NC. a few places that have really good Southern exposure are just fair in ROI. The efficiency of the panels are still not where they need to be for our region...but..it is getting better with technology improving.

Obviously the further West you go..the better the ROI.

(07-16-2020 08:20 PM)UofMstateU Wrote:  It depends on what you want the system to do, and where you live, and if you have full retail sell back to the grid.

(more stuff)

That was a great post. Thank you.

(07-16-2020 09:31 PM)58-56 Wrote:  

(07-16-2020 08:20 PM)UofMstateU Wrote:  It depends on what you want the system to do, and where you live, and if you have full retail sell back to the grid.

(more stuff)

That was a great post. Thank you.

No problem. I just happen to be going through this at the time so everything is kind of fresh in my mind.

Agree with most all of UofM's post... well donde.... but stress as he does the location matters

Being able to ground mount it adds the ease of cleaning, inspecting and ability to protect it if necessary.... plus no build-up or additional holes in the roof. Battery storage is the biggest issue... I have friends using 'crashed' Tesla or Pruis or similar batteries. I have a rig on my 5th wheel... have a few panels on the roof just to run the DC, but set up a lot more if I'm boondocking. Can run a/c et al for about 36 hours under typical (not 100*) conditions without other power.

I spec'd out a system for my home... generating as much as I use... but not storing nearly as much... It has an 8yr payback and CAN be fully financed for 15-30 years depending, like a pool/mortgage. The payment on the system is less than what I'd save on the system.... on paper. In reality, it wouldn't save me that much because of the lack of battery storage.

Panels certainly are getting cheaper and more efficient, but IMO the real savings opportunity right now is batteries. I'm likely going to install the system and keep adding batteries as they get cheaper/improve. By the time I've 'paid for' my system (probably closer to 10 years) storage should be dirt cheap.

(07-17-2020 10:47 AM)Hambone10 Wrote:  Agree with most all of UofM's post... well donde.... but stress as he does the location matters

Almost EVERYONE I know overestimates their solar output. I even slightly overestimated it, even knowing that everyone overestimates it. Thats why the https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/pvwatts.php was so helpful, because it takes into consideration weather and cloud cover for your exact area and gives you a good solar power generation number to go by.

I see a lot of youtubers that show one day in the middle of a clear summer showing something like 100KHW generated for the day, and they jump up and down and celebrate. Well thats all well and good, but that means their average daily output for all times of the year would be closer to 40KWH -60KWH per day. That means a 7 year payback system based on 100KWH per day is actually closer to 15 years, and with a payback timeline so far out, you will have some things that will go bad and need to be replaced, which could prevent the system from ever paying itself off. So getting a very accurate annual solar power generation number is step 1 in the process.

(07-16-2020 09:31 PM)58-56 Wrote:  

(07-16-2020 08:20 PM)UofMstateU Wrote:  It depends on what you want the system to do, and where you live, and if you have full retail sell back to the grid.

(more stuff)

That was a great post. Thank you.

It's not worth it in Alabama. Alabama Power runs our PSC and so it's set up where you get charged even for not using the solar because the power company has to maintain the capacity.

(07-17-2020 01:25 PM)Auburn_Blazer Wrote:  

(07-16-2020 09:31 PM)58-56 Wrote:  

(07-16-2020 08:20 PM)UofMstateU Wrote:  It depends on what you want the system to do, and where you live, and if you have full retail sell back to the grid.

(more stuff)

That was a great post. Thank you.

It's not worth it in Alabama. Alabama Power runs our PSC and so it's set up where you get charged even for not using the solar because the power company has to maintain the capacity.

Yeah, the calculator UMU linked made that clear. There's a certain value to giving Alabama Power the finger, and being free of their unelected monopolistic corpo-fascist and worst of all bammer-aligned tyranny, but the price tag's kinda steep. I appreciated being able to math it out.

Thanks everyone for the info - especially UMass' indepth factual posting.

The system this company was offering me was a 9.92 kW system with 83% solar efficiency with battery backup for $75K. They estimated that I would get about $20k back in a tax credit and if I put that all back into the system I would be able to do a 55K loan at 2.99% interest over 25 years for $269/month.

I would still have a smaller power bill to so less say around $300/month for 25 years.

So for and my $200/month power bill during peak summer AC season this clearly is not a cost efficient and would take a very long time to generate a return on investment.

(07-17-2020 03:04 PM)solohawks Wrote:  Thanks everyone for the info - especially UMass' indepth factual posting.

The system this company was offering me was a 9.92 kW system with 83% solar efficiency with battery backup for $75K. They estimated that I would get about $20k back in a tax credit and if I put that all back into the system I would be able to do a 55K loan at 2.99% interest over 25 years for $269/month.

I would still have a smaller power bill to so less say around $300/month for 25 years.

So for and my $200/month power bill during peak summer AC season this clearly is not a cost efficient and would take a very long time to generate a return on investment.

^^^vvv boys and girls is the the insanity when real numbers are presented/applied...

#notsurprising

(07-17-2020 03:04 PM)solohawks Wrote:  Thanks everyone for the info - especially UMass' indepth factual posting.

The system this company was offering me was a 9.92 kW system with 83% solar efficiency with battery backup for $75K. They estimated that I would get about $20k back in a tax credit and if I put that all back into the system I would be able to do a 55K loan at 2.99% interest over 25 years for $269/month.

I would still have a smaller power bill to so less say around $300/month for 25 years.

So for and my $200/month power bill during peak summer AC season this clearly is not a cost efficient and would take a very long time to generate a return on investment.

Yea, that s a ridiculous "d*ck me over" price. And thats one of the problems with the tax credit; we havent seen a proper "lowering of prices due to scaling up" that you normally see. They are simply marketing to the highest price point.

That will be changing soon. THe tax credit is being phased out. (It was 30% last year, 26% this year, and even less next year, and I believe is phased out after that.)

One of the companies I have been really impressed with is Sol Ark. I was originally going with an outback system, but was really impressed with what Sol Ark is doing. They are a US veteran based company, havent had a single turnover in 5 years of operation, and havent had a request for a refund from one of their systems.

Its sad that after the tax credit is gone, the actual prices will probably drop to where they should be now.