Adding Solar Panels Thoughts?
- Thread starter Kraffty
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We purchased our panels outright. With the fed tax credit and the SRECS we can sell in NJ, we are on track to meet our 5 year ROI. It was a no brainer for us. But every state is different.
NJ is a net metering state, which means our production goes back to the utility and offsets what we get from the utility. In the summer we make more than we use and in the winter it is the opposite. In May we true up. So there is no variation day to day for us.
I'll relate to you what happened to me that I still, to this day, gripes me. Salesman came to the house with a Google map of the house, claiming he could put 52 panels on and provide 106% of my average electrical usage. After a site survey where someone came to the property and phyically surveyed the property, the salesman announced he could only put on 27 panels and provide 72% of the electricity. I kinda viewed this as 'bait and switch'. Yes, I did sign. One, the roof was 2 years old, and two, I refinanced the next year so I own the panels now, Wish I could afford batteries. In 25 years when the panels die, I'll cross that bridge then. It was nice not paying the utility bill during the winter while I ate up the electric I had banked. BTW, I live in SW Ohio and am 76 yo.
NM is a net metering State as well. My local utility currently charges $360 for the net meter.
Just looked at our Electrical usage. Looks like we average about 830KWH over the year
Just looked at our Electrical usage. Looks like we average about 830KWH over the year
Daboyleroy
Senior Member
1. If I may ask, who is the manufacturer of the panels
2. life of the panels before replacement
3. are they daisy chain to each other or function separately
if one panel goes down, does it stop power production
thanks in advance
i have looked at panels for years
Last edited:
Spencerthebuilder
Member
Mike, the 25 yr metric is an industry standard for degredation of the panel. They shouldn't "die". 15% or 20% is to be expected.
Spencerthebuilder
Member
Personally I would keep my powder dry and wait for Biden's next Trillion dollar give away. Green Energy freebees. The economics are all about the roof, site, and State/ Federal incentives. Every state is different. Revolving funds, Grants, SRECS, etc. The current tax credits are sunsetting this year, but expect a freshening. Did AZ pass that solar Grid access charge they were wresting with a few years back? Get a subsidized loan and own the panels. Panels are a commodity. Balance cost per watt with brand names. Third party lease companies get you the panels, then pocket the tax credits and incentives for themselves. Those leases also can encumber any resale. Go with micro inverters instead of a central inverter. Several advantages over a string inverter IMO. A propane standby generator is a much better solution than banks of high maintenance batteries for that occasional power outage if grid unreliability is an issue. As others have said, as a safety measure, panel output is stopped when the grid goes down.
Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency® - DSIRE is a good source to find what's available. The smartest money (ROI) is still in conservation. Heat pump hot water heaters, insulation, etc.
Spencer
NAHB Graduate Master builder
BPI Building Analyst
RI NABCEP Solar trained
Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency® - DSIRE is a good source to find what's available. The smartest money (ROI) is still in conservation. Heat pump hot water heaters, insulation, etc.
Spencer
NAHB Graduate Master builder
BPI Building Analyst
RI NABCEP Solar trained
Obbnw
Senior Member
I bought a grid tie system 4 years back. Even with the tax credit I thought I'd be financially better off investing the 15k our system cost.
I put them up anyway, I think the technology is cool and our system has out performed our goal. (80 percent goal for yearly electric and we get closer to 95 percent).
The no power when the grid goes down but the panels have sun is frustrating, but I think in the next 5 years there will be a good solution.
Overall I'm pretty pleased with our system.
I put them up anyway, I think the technology is cool and our system has out performed our goal. (80 percent goal for yearly electric and we get closer to 95 percent).
The no power when the grid goes down but the panels have sun is frustrating, but I think in the next 5 years there will be a good solution.
Overall I'm pretty pleased with our system.
Here is my input from experience with solar in California.
Buy, don't lease, a solar system. If you cannot afford to buy then just skip solar.
Anticipate 8 years as the break even ownership period, hopefully sooner but don't assume.
Get your roof in shape to make sure you don't have to take the panels off before their 20 year life.
Solar panels lose 0.5% efficiency per year as the age. Build that into your energy needs.
Solar panels need to be cleaned to obtain their peak efficiency. If you cannot spray water on the areas where the panels are installed you will have to get someone up there with window washing equipment.
If you plan to sell the house soon, a solar lease is a huge turn-off to buyers.
Install a system that has enough panels to provide the same energy usage over one year plus half of the anticipated efficiency degradation plus maybe the load of adding an electric car charger plus one extra panel to account for breakage (it happened to me and the warranty is worthless, but it was easy to bypass.)
Don't install more panels than needed, less is better than extra.
Buy, don't lease, a solar system. If you cannot afford to buy then just skip solar.
Anticipate 8 years as the break even ownership period, hopefully sooner but don't assume.
Get your roof in shape to make sure you don't have to take the panels off before their 20 year life.
Solar panels lose 0.5% efficiency per year as the age. Build that into your energy needs.
Solar panels need to be cleaned to obtain their peak efficiency. If you cannot spray water on the areas where the panels are installed you will have to get someone up there with window washing equipment.
If you plan to sell the house soon, a solar lease is a huge turn-off to buyers.
Install a system that has enough panels to provide the same energy usage over one year plus half of the anticipated efficiency degradation plus maybe the load of adding an electric car charger plus one extra panel to account for breakage (it happened to me and the warranty is worthless, but it was easy to bypass.)
Don't install more panels than needed, less is better than extra.
Obbnw
Senior Member
I agree with most of what you say but wouldn't worry too much about washing the panels.
Here in Utah if often rains dirt. Gusty storms pick up dust/dirt from the west desert and we get 0.01" of rain that is mostly dirt. My panels are pretty easy to get to so I I did a few tests where I only washed a couple of panels to see if it made any difference. I have micro inverters so can measure each panel individually. Washing made no measurable difference. That said I still wash them occasionally (1 or 2 times a year), but the roof they are on is 2:12 (2 rows of 8 panels, with about 8' between the rows) and the roof is only 5' above grade on 2 sides so cleaning is easy and safe.
I do notice snow coverage. Having a few inches of snow on just the bottom of the panel virtually eliminates all production. The way my system is set up is not conducive to shedding snow. One row is flush to the 2:12 roof which slopes down to the north, the other row is tilted up to the south but the bottom of the panel is only about 6 inches off the roof. The only thing I would change if doing again would be to raise these to about 1' above the roof.
The north facing panels actually do better than the south facing in the summer but winter production is close to zero. Over 4 years the north facing panels are at about 76% of the south facing panels.
The big gaps in the graph are snow events.
BernardSmith
Senior Member
I guess my position is always - how long will it take before you get payback for this "investment". Me? I don't believe in solar panels being an efficient use of my money but I do believe in solar energy so I have my electric supplier hook me up to to a solar electric provider and I pay them for the power they provide through my supplier. If there is a power outage then I have no power BUT I have no cost and I use solar generated electricity but use my providers lines (more accurately, my provider is provided with more solar). But I think that centralized power generation is far more "efficient" than personalized power generation... and if you live in a state that refuses to spend money to ensure a good supply of energy I would turn those politicians out of their cozy offices but of course that would mean that everyone needs to pay for social goods (electrical power) through taxes... (sorry, I come from a culture that has no inherent problem with taxes when that money is used to pay for social goods such as health, education, roads, pensions etc
Thanks everybody, I love having a resource like this forum where I can reach out for advice and opinions. We agreed to sign up and while I don't have all my answers yet, I do have these basics. Won't sign a final contract until after all the inspections and final design is approved.
We are buying the system
The system is built to produce 140% of our daily average.
25 year warranty where they replace any cell in any panel that falls below the expected degradation
22 Micro inverters so I guess the work independently
Panels are supposed to be german but haven't got that info in writing yet
The south facing slope of our roof was completely replaced 9 years ago because of hail damage
I'll share anything I learn and post progress over the next couple of months till we're up and running,
Thanks again all, I really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts, experiences and expertise.
We are buying the system
The system is built to produce 140% of our daily average.
25 year warranty where they replace any cell in any panel that falls below the expected degradation
22 Micro inverters so I guess the work independently
Panels are supposed to be german but haven't got that info in writing yet
The south facing slope of our roof was completely replaced 9 years ago because of hail damage
I'll share anything I learn and post progress over the next couple of months till we're up and running,
Thanks again all, I really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts, experiences and expertise.
Spencerthebuilder
Member
Bernard, 1) Centralized power is not very efficient. After generation and line losses, transformers etc., it's only about 35% efficient. Distributed power (everyone produces their own and shares excess) is the basis of the "Smart Grid". Grid improvement is a major part of the new federal Infrastructure spending bill. If the Fed should be subsidizing private company owned lines is a different argument. Many issues going down that rabbit hole too.
2) Predicting the payback has many variables. Average solar hours? Snowy winter? Rate increases? Cap and Trade legislation, etc. We in RI just had a 40% increase in rates forced on us. 40%! But can take great pictures of the county's first offshore wind farm. Panel owners are somewhat insulated from these policy changes. As Mr. Snafflebit corroberated, an 8 year payback is very predictable. That's a 12.5% un compounded return on your money. Maybe you can beat that in the stock market, maybe you could lose. As rates go up more than the average 4% per year, the payback gets faster. When was the last time your electric rate went down? Pretty close to a guaranteed return, like a T bill.
3) Motivations can vary and are all valid. I installed a 14kw system for a neighbor. He's quite happy and his numbers are right on target. But as an Oceanography professor, he considers it a moral obligation to do his part, and backed it up with his check book. And he loves following the ENVOY chart as shown above by Obbnw.
@Kraffty That’s great. Our utility only allows us to have a system that produces 100% of our usage. We bought a plug-in hybrid last year and now our usage outstrips our production most months. Our added electric costs are still less than we were spending on gas, but I wish we could have put in a bigger system to future proof us. The new Mustang Mach-E looks really good to me!
Bkat
Member
In a southern climate I definitely see how they make sense if you can afford to buy rather than lease. I wouldn't hesitate. In the northern parts, it's a tougher call. We looked into them. Really like the idea of solar too. But the cost was a deterrent for something that still made us grid-dependent, was potentially under-powered during the colder months and that degraded over time. I played around with the math and it sorta became a break even in terms of actual money spent once I figured in interest earned on the cash if I didn't spend it all upfront.
So given that money wasn't endless and that our winter sun is a far cry from the Arizona desert, taking the same $$$ and investing it into making the house more energy efficient, making the land we own better at carbon sequestration, buying the most energy-efficient appliances (and furnace) when the time comes, and simply trying to use less energy overall, seemed a better use of available funds for the time being.
I would love to see affordable and efficient solar for all homes and smaller, community-centered renewable energy options that are more de-centralized. Maybe in time. This all said, I'd suspect new incentives may be popping up in the next year or two so I may change course if that happens.
So given that money wasn't endless and that our winter sun is a far cry from the Arizona desert, taking the same $$$ and investing it into making the house more energy efficient, making the land we own better at carbon sequestration, buying the most energy-efficient appliances (and furnace) when the time comes, and simply trying to use less energy overall, seemed a better use of available funds for the time being.
I would love to see affordable and efficient solar for all homes and smaller, community-centered renewable energy options that are more de-centralized. Maybe in time. This all said, I'd suspect new incentives may be popping up in the next year or two so I may change course if that happens.
Bkat
Member
I will add, one thing that frustrated me was, in Illinois at least, they capped incentives and a lot of those have gotten grabbed by "developers" who then planned to build "solar farms" to then sell the power to homeowners making them forever in servitude to utility companies.
BernardSmith
Senior Member
To points about winter vs summer and southern vs northern states, I guess I need to claim ignorance. Solar power is essentially - what ? electricity generated from light or heat? If heat then I understand but these are not photovoltaic systems that you are talking about? Light is light and it doesn't matter if there is a snow storm 24 hours a day for 4 months in the year. If you are dependent on the sun HEATING some surface to generate electricity then I understand but I thought all solar energy was photovoltaic. Am I wrong? And if I am not then why does it matter the season or the latitude? I live in upstate NY and our city has invested in solar farms to provide energy for schools and the city admin and the like.
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