So you have Solar Panels all over your roof....Do Tell

[Wise Old Owl]

Well some here might have their roof covered in Solar Panels and I don't - I am keeping an open mind and that tax credit that is about to expire again. So I hear. - Well its 2015 the panels are better I have a roof that is about 5 years old - the rancher is from 1948. I have converted the entire house to LED and Florescent for the basement & kitchen... The water heater is ultra modern and the Heat pump is the best I could afford. My bills have gone from $100 a month to $350 since coal plants are under attack. We have done everything under the sun short of making my own electric.

So if anyone here has done it. Please Share. Roughly how much did you spend and what are the bills like? Or should I move to a cabin in the woods..

[hunter63]

No I don't have roof covered with solar panels......
Have a HF set up at about 45 watts, that I haven't hooked up yet....Got in on sale $149 bucks...
http://www.harborfreight.com/45-watt-solar-panel-kit-68751-8527.html

Have not decided what to use it for...as 45 watts doesn't go far....except maybe a trickle charger for the boat or dump trailer batteries.
BUT not here all the time....at "The Place" so need the charge regulator and dummy load to use extra charge.

Did a engery audit with our Co-Op as far a a grin tied system....and found that I needing min of 1700 watts with inverter/battery bank, controlled disconnect for back feeding system safely.
...ad can't use my elect base boards unless connected to the grid....
Long story....but did get approval to be the 2nd grid tied system on their line....BUT they have to approve all work with the approved installers ....
Bottom line $35 Grand........
Payback time 35 years+ and system life expectancy 20 years (NOT the cheapo HF system...LOL)
Soooo....... spending my money for insulation, new windows...fire wood....easier to conserve energy than to make it.

BTW check your cost per KWH...out here is .12 cents.

[BLEUXDOG]

I have 33 panels on the roof tied to the grid. Electric bill was $117 last month. I run the a/c, 2 large refrigerators, a freezer, pool and an aquaponic green house. Was $33,000 to install, cost after tax credits and rebates...$6,000. It is much better to have the $117 bill than the $250 bill! LED light bulbs too!

[Wise Old Owl]

I have 33 panels on the roof tied to the grid. Electric bill was $117 last month. I run the a/c, 2 large refrigerators, a freezer, pool and an aquaponic green house. Was $33,000 to install, cost after tax credits and rebates...$6,000. It is much better to have the $117 bill than the $250 bill! LED light bulbs too!

Yea I was prepared for that. I was still thinking there has to be a "gotcha ya!" I am here in PA not far from Valley Forge a 40° degree parallel. So if the power fails, does anything work for you?

[hunter63]

I have 33 panels on the roof tied to the grid. Electric bill was $117 last month. I run the a/c, 2 large refrigerators, a freezer, pool and an aquaponic green house. Was $33,000 to install, cost after tax credits and rebates...$6,000. It is much better to have the $117 bill than the $250 bill! LED light bulbs too!

Running a battery bank?....If so how many and what kind?....If you don't mind.

[Rick]

Over what period of time was that power bill increase? You may also have the ability to choose a different electric supplier. PA was one of the first states to allow consumers to choose their electric supplier. I don't know if you live in an area where you can take advantage of that or not but it's worth looking into. A savings of 1 cent per Kw will be over $100 in annual savings. And don't forget that taxes take up a good portion of the overall bill.

http://www.papowerswitch.com/

[NightSG]

First step: http://www.dsireusa.org/

Then shop around; prices can vary a lot, and right now we're 30-40% cheaper than other installers in Texas. Can't help you with a single residential install in PA, but maybe if you gathered up a dozen solid inquiries the boss would send a rep up to check them out and look at contracting a crew there.

As for running without battery backup, SMA makes a few 5-10kW inverters now with a single outlet isolated from the grid that is active any time you have either grid power or enough sun. It's not much, (10-15A at most as I recall) but enough to keep a reasonably insulated freezer going indefinitely, run a AA and cell phone charger during the day, etc. The price difference is under $200, IIRC, so it beats the extra $6k+ to set up a full hybrid on/off grid system.

[BLEUXDOG]

I have a generator for when the lights go out. Batteries are still too expensive and their life is not long enough. My installer suggested I wait for technology to catch up. We used One Planet Solar in Louisiana. The price of the panels has gone down and their efficiency has gone up. This is my retirement home so I want to make sure I won't be in the dark later on.

[Wise Old Owl]

Over what period of time was that power bill increase? You may also have the ability to choose a different electric supplier. PA was one of the first states to allow consumers to choose their electric supplier. I don't know if you live in an area where you can take advantage of that or not but it's worth looking into. A savings of 1 cent per Kw will be over $100 in annual savings. And don't forget that taxes take up a good portion of the overall bill.

http://www.papowerswitch.com/

First - Huge thank you for BLEUXDOG for his post.

Rick - I see why you are an Administrator ....Sharp as a tack but the devil is in the details.

Short answer: There isn't a savings. Its a sham... you still end up paying more in state tax. I was invited to several power parties locally to sell this service and noticed obvious pyramid schemes and other shenanigans. They are not bypassing the Unions or the labor that causes the higher price which will always be "$ per hour" It is a lesser "transmission" charge, from Peco to avoid looking like a Monopoly with shells. And I suck at Algebra... but I know when stuff doesn't add up. It's another way they are looting the Pennsylvania public. That's my take after a Light Beer investigation, (But I don't drink lite)...feel free.

[TXyakr]

I have looked into a significant number of solar panels to make a difference and the cost and efficiency is just not there yet to justify it from purely a financial stand point, even with tax credits and rebates. It is more of an issue of needing to be more self sufficient if you live in a remote area where it could take a long time for your power transmission lines to be repaired, or if you really believe it is better for the environment or something like that.

I wonder about the pollution in manufacturing and then disposing of old broken solar panels, and all the lead etc, in the inverters and batteries etc. Bottom line 100% "Green Energy" does not exist. Best to look at the overall cost, reliability and pollution of a total system.

[LowKey]

Tesla is gearing up to enter the solar battery market. I'm waiting for their second release before even thinking about it.

You might want to check into your local power company. Where I live, we cannot tie solar panels to the grid. The area is saturated and the power companies are not accepting any more backfeeds. They say they've reached their cap. In a state that is pushing for a new gas line to feed their power plants and the price of power up 29% since mid-last winter. So if you want solar to pay off here, you have to add battery storage. It's not there yet. I sure as heck wouldn't keep them in the house either. An add-on lean-to, heated/cooled somehow probably. Still deciding if staying on this property into retirement or continue trying to find a place of my own that isn't quite so "neighborhood covenant."

[hunter63]

Seems most all of you have seen thru the BS.........and is why we are spending the money on up grades on insulation and window at this time.

The payback is not there yet...is the truest statement I have seen......Yes the ability to be self sufficient is attractive.
Do you energy audit to see what you really need....You will be surprised at how much is just wasted.

[canid]

My goal with my couple of panels, since I can't buy enough for the credits/subsidies to be much of a factor is to have the basic lighting changed to low voltage dc all together. Nothing that doesn't need to be mains voltage would even go through an inverter. This would make the necessary inverter smaller and the losses smaller.

I don't intend the whole house to be run from the dc system, just the little important things such as I can. Being without mains power would still mean much is unavailable but we would have some functions we would not have had in that situation without the system. Lighting, one at least of the computers, fans, clocks and some of my tools/utility devices.

I'm no expert on this subject but I do have a little relevant specialized knowledge. I would characterize the primary goal as reducing the size of the system required in the first place. Minimizing demand can be furthered by not powering devices which are larger than required and finding ways to reduce losses to inefficiency. For example it might not be advantageous to think of the inverter, large enough to meet all the needs as the first line of your power system. The power is collected as low voltage DC and much of it, particularly for short power runs can be used as such. There may be no benefit to inverting it to mains voltage ac to run to a lamp/bulb which is just going to rectify and step it back down to low voltage dc at 90-70% efficiency for each of those steps. It might beat out dc transmission losses however for long runs. It might not be prudent to keep using an appliance if it is oversized for the household aready, etc.

In some cases you may also find that savings from merely reducing your household demand alone would lower utility costs substantially, and that replacing older appliances (even with newer but still second hand or refurbished ones) is at least as affordable as installing a solar system.

Where solar, or other personal scale alternative power/heat generation/collection systems really shine is availability. E.g. that they can be available (or not) independent of commercial or municipal power availability. This has downsides too, as weather/fuel may make them unavailable for various reasons also and cost may make it prohibitive to install a system large enough to meet your needs alone and you could end up in a situation where you must count on both, which has a lower net availability.

This (largely the cost) is why the system have slowly in the works is deliberately minimal. It's basically enough to make the household a few comfortable steps above camping in the event of local utility interruptions and to whittle down the cost of those utilities otherwise. I had 4 120 watt panels and 4 80 watt panels a friend 'loaned' me when he put in a large array, though 3 of the big ones are gone now.

[canid]

For example, the development and general use desktop computer I use is an intel atom desktop board which excluding the monitor uses less than 25 watts full load. This is less than a quarter of what some desktop computers use and is suited to almost all the same tasks. Including the monitor, with the brightness/contrast settings adjusted uses less than my late laptop. It has an onboard lvds header so when I can get this junked 14" laptop display panel working with it it will use even less and the whole system will more readily be powered directly by one 36-12v dc supply who's power doesn't cost anything but paying for outlay of the system. It's not a large savings but if I'm usually watching it instead of the big tv which seems to be on at all times it starts to look much better. Likewise for the household and shop lighting. And incrementally some of the shop tools and smaller of household appliances.

[tundrabadger]

Buddy next door has a whack of solar panels.....his house would have been built early 60's, probably 61 or 62, assuming it went up when mine did. Now, he has a set up that lets him backfeed electricity in to the power grid, which isn't that common *here* yet, from what I've read. A lot of people apparently do have banks of batteries....I don't know how effective that is, only experience I have with a solar charged battery setup is the thing my mother has at the cottage, which works pretty well, but it's one panel in a house that mostly runs on propane. People up the road live there all year, mind, on a solar set up, and very rarely need to run a backup generator. Take from that what you will.

I think he paid somewhere in the 10's of thousands for the panels and so forth, maybe 20k. Canadian. Which in American currency is at least 50 bucks. that being said, it's more or less paying for itself BUT, and this is a big, important but, he has really great southern exposure due to the way his house is oriented. if you don't have good southern exposure, or you do but you have a lot of big trees and it's shady, or anything else that might obstruct the sun, it's probably not worth doing.

[NightSG]

I have looked into a significant number of solar panels to make a difference and the cost and efficiency is just not there yet to justify it from purely a financial stand point, even with tax credits and rebates.

For Texas, it depends mainly on your power company. Some folks are getting as little as a 3 year break even by the time all the incentives are figured in. Considering most of the panels have a 20-25 year production guarantee, (and some inverters have an optional 10-20 year warranty) that works out well.


I wonder about the pollution in manufacturing and then disposing of old broken solar panels, and all the lead etc, in the inverters and batteries etc.

Well, stop breaking your toys and we won't have that problem.

As for batteries, they're easily recyclable, but thanks to the EPA, that has to be outsourced to third world countries that make more of a mess than necessary when doing it.