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Residential Solar Panels

C

ChAoTiCpInOy

Diamond Member
I'm in the market of getting some solar panels installed at my home. We've only had one consultation which is saying our roof can handle 20 panels (240 Watts each). Who here has solar? Has it made a difference? What kind of panels would you recommend?
 
It almost doesn't matter what you use, it's all about how much you can get from the state, fed or local utility. Solar panels aren't a cost effective method of producing power, they only make sense when someone else pays for them.

In my opinion, we should stop wasting money subsidizing inefficient systems and spend the money developing viable solar panels.
 
I have friends that are "off the grid". They are actually on it but their meter runs backwards. PG&E won't buy the power any more but credits you for it.

It cost them $80,000 for the system with a $40,000 rebate. It will take them about 16 years in to recoup the cost. That's not including maintenance and replacement batteries.
 
Greenman said:
It almost doesn't matter what you use, it's all about how much you can get from the state, fed or local utility. Solar panels aren't a cost effective method of producing power, they only make sense when someone else pays for them.

In my opinion, we should stop wasting money subsidizing inefficient systems and spend the money developing viable solar panels.
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yup roof jewelry tax payer subsidy scam.

not even really efficient application of resources for solar in the first place, not likely your roof follows the angle of the sun throughout the days😉
 
0roo0roo said:
yup roof jewelry tax payer subsidy scam.

not even really efficient application of resources for solar in the first place, not likely your roof follows the angle of the sun throughout the days😉
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That's a good way of putting it. The Ontario government was big on the green energy bandwagon. Farmers were being subsidized to put up solar and wind on their land at ridiculously high kWh rates. All it did was jack up everyone else's hydro bills. 🙁

Both solar and wind power are grossly inefficient compared to other generating methods. Solar really only makes sense in desert areas like the south west United States. Places where you get consistently strong sunlight year round.

16 years is a long time. Do you plan on being in your house that long? If you sell, will you recoup the cost? All things to consider.
 
Know a few people that have solar and one who works at a solar company. In the best case, it's probably about 8 years to break even for sunny areas but there are tons of variables (how much electricity you use, angle of the roof, amount of sun you get, amount of tax break, etc.). If you don't stay in your house that long, I don't think you can get your money back from selling it at a premium.

If you generate extra electricity, you get some credits that are way below market value.

In addition to the huge initial cost, you have to wash the panels regularly to keep them at peak efficiency and there are a whole host of secondary issues to think about. For example, solar companies generally want you to have a new to newer roof before they install the panels so the cost may be higher than initially provisioned.

There are some programs where you can "lease" the panels where you just end up buying electricity from the solar company and they take care of everything.

In general, if your main goal is to purely save money, it's not that great. If there are other considerations, like wanting to not depend on the grid, then it may be a good idea to talk to more companies to compare options.
 
In the NE it really is a no win situation, even with subsidies it would probably take about 30 years to pay off, then the panels would break or need to be replaced.

I actually have a water spillway on my property, I wonder if I could do a mini-hydro thing. But I am not sure how.
 
there are panels that will follow the sun, there is liquid on either side of the panel frame and as one side gets warmer from recieving more sunlight it displaces the liquid cause the panel to tilt in the direction of the sun.
 
I have looked into it, but I have a very small yard, and would not want to put them on the roof. The only way I can think of to mount them effectively would be L brackets that nail under the shingles, and I don't think it would be very strong. Wind would catch under the panels and could potentially rip them off. Then there's snow. Need to go up there every morning to brush it off, then there's redoing the roof, which is usually every 20-25 years. Guess by then the panels themselves may need replacement anyway, so it may not be a huge deal I guess.

I've been reading a lot on alternative energy and I'm still on the fence between solar and wind. Solar system itself is low maintenance, the equipment is rather simple. Wind is more maintenance, but in a way, less in winter. No snow to remove. But because of the moving parts, it has more chance of failure and potential for issues during high winds etc. So more upkeep.

No matter what you go with, you need to chose your goal. Do you just want to sell extra power to the grid, or do you want to be off or partially off grid? If all you want to do is sell back to the grid, it will be cheaper. You wont really need a battery bank. Now if the power goes out you'll be in the dark like everyone else unless you can divert some of the energy to the house effectively, but without a battery bank it would be hard.

If you want to go off grid, then you could ensure you have room and equipment for a battery bank. In fact I would start with a very small bank at first, just to get a feel for the system. When the power goes off just shut off everything but a few CFL lights, and I'm sure a couple cheap marine batteries would keep you running for a few hours at least. If you are also selling to the grid, then perfect, keep that money aside and buy more batteries later on.

Eventually I want to go off grid more or less. I would keep the service, but only use it as backup. For my yard wind power makes more sense, though I'd have to ensure there's no by laws that would prevent me from doing it. I'd have to go like 50 feet high at least. The tower is the expensive part. The turbine I'd build myself most likely. I hardly know anything about the mechanics like making ball bearing sleeves and all that, but I'd learn, it would be a fun project.
 
mattpegher said:
I actually have a water spillway on my property, I wonder if I could do a mini-hydro thing. But I am not sure how.
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Small time hydro is tough to do. If you're particularly handy, you could set something up as a hobby type project, but it requires a lot of maintenance, and you need to be creative sourcing parts, or it would cost a fortune.
 
I would totally do hydro if I had the access. You are not going to make big time power out of it, but still something fun to do. If you can generate 100-200 watts, hey, it's free continuous power. Enough to keep a bunch of CFL lights or a small computer on all the time for free. Basically, it would cover all the "phantom charge" items in the house.
 
Red Squirrel said:
I would totally do hydro if I had the access. You are not going to make big time power out of it, but still something fun to do. If you can generate 100-200 watts, hey, it's free continuous power. Enough to keep a bunch of CFL lights or a small computer on all the time for free. Basically, it would cover all the "phantom charge" items in the house.
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If all you wanted was a few hundred watts, that's pretty attainable, and shouldn't be too difficult. Powering a house requires faster speeds, and beefier equipment, with the associated down time when it all goes to hell.
 
For the sake of this thread, let's say 30 years at this house is feasible. And I live in northern California. Sacramento area more specifically.

Does anyone have a solar system at their home?
 
mattpegher said:
In the NE it really is a no win situation, even with subsidies it would probably take about 30 years to pay off, then the panels would break or need to be replaced.

I actually have a water spillway on my property, I wonder if I could do a mini-hydro thing. But I am not sure how.
Click to expand...

I know a fellow who got rich off of a plot of land and a creek. He subdivided the land into four parcels, and clumped the four homes he built in one area. He then built a small damn across the creek and ran a couple of army surplus generators off an impeller in the spillway. The "worthless" property suddenly had a private lake and it's own power generation, the guy made enough to retire.

Edit: My guess is that if you tried to do that now, you'd spend every cent of your profit on environmental impact studies.
 
Greenman said:
I know a fellow who got rich off of a plot of land and a creek. He subdivided the land into four parcels, and clumped the four homes he built in one area. He then built a small damn across the creek and ran a couple of army surplus generators off an impeller in the spillway. The "worthless" property suddenly had a private lake and it's own power generation, the guy made enough to retire.

Edit: My guess is that if you tried to do that now, you'd spend every cent of your profit on environmental impact studies.
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You aint kidding, cost me $17,000 just to have a definition of existing wetlands so I could put in a pool (definitions are only good for 5 years in NJ).
 
a123456 said:
Know a few people that have solar and one who works at a solar company. In the best case, it's probably about 8 years to break even for sunny areas but there are tons of variables (how much electricity you use, angle of the roof, amount of sun you get, amount of tax break, etc.). If you don't stay in your house that long, I don't think you can get your money back from selling it at a premium.

If you generate extra electricity, you get some credits that are way below market value.

In addition to the huge initial cost, you have to wash the panels regularly to keep them at peak efficiency and there are a whole host of secondary issues to think about. For example, solar companies generally want you to have a new to newer roof before they install the panels so the cost may be higher than initially provisioned.

There are some programs where you can "lease" the panels where you just end up buying electricity from the solar company and they take care of everything.


*edit* We are actually just finishing up a job for a commercial customer who is having us install solar. With rebates from the local utility and federal/state tax benefits, their investment cost out of pocket after the 1st year is $21. Yes, $21.

In general, if your main goal is to purely save money, it's not that great. If there are other considerations, like wanting to not depend on the grid, then it may be a good idea to talk to more companies to compare options.
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It truly does depend on the company you work with.

The company I work for is lucky in the sense that we do solar for an area of the country, actually the world, that is saturated with sunlight a good majority of the year.

Most of our customers ROI's are 5-7 years and we also include a cost breakdown out to 30 years which includes maintenance on the panels and replacement of the inverters/micro-inverters in 25 years.

There are much better and more efficient ways of installing the panels on a roof then simply putting an L bracket up and attaching the panels. Generally we use racking systems that attach to the trusses on the house and rated to withstand 100+ MPH winds. While there is only one area of the state we service that deals with snow, we also factor that in with the racking systems we use at that particular job site.

Don't let those assholes at Solyndra put doubts in your minds about solar. Solar is a truly amazing and efficient tech.
 
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How do these racking systems work? You can't just nail or screw something right through the shingles. Or does it actually go direct on the plywood, then you reshingle around and use flashing?
 
Actually, we use a mounting system that goes under the shingle then we drill a small hole through the shingle and an attachments go through the shingle and attaches to the racks the modules are mounted on. It's actually pretty cool.

*edit* I noticed you said shingles, not tiles. Check this out, this is what we use on tilted roofs primarily. Obviously, we use different racking system depending on the job (i.e. roof slope, degree of tilt on the modules, etc.)
 
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Solar panels are not efficient enough yet, but they are doing great with nono-tech. Nor should we think just solar panels should be used to harness just the power of one sun, when a far cheaper mirror system can reflect multiple suns worth of light on one single solar panel.
 
They recommended some Sharp panels and I was looking at the efficiency of them compared to other panels or just more information about them in general, but there's not a lot of reviews about Sharp panels.
 
Red Squirrel said:
I would totally do hydro if I had the access. You are not going to make big time power out of it, but still something fun to do. If you can generate 100-200 watts, hey, it's free continuous power. Enough to keep a bunch of CFL lights or a small computer on all the time for free. Basically, it would cover all the "phantom charge" items in the house.
Click to expand...

Fairly interesting site. This guy gets 4kW out of his hydro setup and thinks he can take it up to 10kW.

http://ludens.cl/paradise/turbine/turbine.html
 
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If you're in a colder area that needs heating, solar thermal should be more eficient - sun goes to heat water to store thermal energy.

But only PV lets you sell electricity back to the utility.
 
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