Posted on 09/27/2016 10:23:34 AM PDT by artichokegrower
These sound like undercover Mormons - who always want to put a lien on your life and wallet.
THe article mixed up too things that are both important, the first more than the second though. THe first that the panels are so expensive that over their lifetime, they can only pay off if you pretty much use all the electricity they can generate all the time. Which really nobody does, and storage to cover peaks is way too expensive.
But the property tax is the bigger deal. See, you can get subsidies for the systems, and tax breaks. But suppose someone handed you a $33,000 system in a county that charged, say, $1.20 per $100 in property taxes. (not uncommon I think). That “free” system now costs you $360 a year in taxes, which for me is about 4 months of my electric bill. I’m not costing the county any more money by having this system. But they get more from me, because I’m “richer” because my house is “more expensive”.
For every ‘crisis’ there is a con(job)! Remember Rahm Emmanuel’s axiom, “Don’t let a good crisis go to waste!”? I am ever so strongly reminded of the plethora of ‘gas saving’ gadgets that came out in the ‘gasoline crisis’! It became a regular comedy line about having to drain gas from your car instead of filling-up!
Here is the Golden State and the color is green; green energy and green money! The con artists promise the former but want their cut of the latter and with the state doing the selling job, hey, it is an easy con! Selling a decades-long payback to senior citizens is almost criminal on the face of it. Yes, there are some who will benefit but the usual rule applies, if it is more complicated than a Fuller Brush and sold door-to-door, just say NO!
Here is reality aka physics:
From the EIA, the average US house consumes 30 KwHrs per day. That’s average, including the central air con days of summer. The lowest state for consumption is Hawaii, at 16.6 KwHrs/day and most was Louisiana at 42 KwHrs/day. This is mostly air con but for hawaii, close to the equator, lighting.
So if you have an avg house you need 30 KwHrs in a day.
The Tesla house battery (Powerwall) silliness is 10 KwHrs. That’s 8 hrs of power. Got a snowstorm that has power out for a week? This thing is worthless.
10 Golf Cart batteries? A Trojan T105 golf cart battery has 205 amp hours. A watt is an amp X a volt, and these are 6 volt batteries. So that’s 1.2 KwHrs and you want 10 of them so that’s 12 KwHrs. About 9 hrs of power for your house if there’s an outtage.
If you get a snowstorm, your solar panels will be covered, so you get nothing from them and all you have is 9 hrs of power for your house.
For $15,000 you can get a 10 Kwatt solar array (not including labor). On sunny days, with air con off, it will power your house. If aircon is on, your instantaneous power reqmt is way above the 30 KwHrs needed for the whole day, and your demand will overwhelm the panels, and draw on the batteries. If you have some cloudy days that are hot, like most of the southern US, you won’t be getting much from the panels and will drain the batteries pretty fast.
So, the $15K plus labor really only serves you for a very narrow number of days in the year, provided you live in a mild climate area. If you’re in Hawaii, it probably can work. If you’re in Minnesota, your furnace blower is on a LOT. If you’re in Arizona, your air con will eat those panels up.
You are NOT off the grid with these. There are going to be days you need the grid, and whenever something breaks you need the grid to not just give you power, but to give you spare parts.
It’s all mostly a scam, for most locales.
From what I’ve seen/heard, the electricity costs go down but one usually has to put more money in for repairs and never reaches a break even place.
I have one answer for all that look at this green answer.
GENERAC Generator.
Keep 20-50 gallons of gas close by and your not paying out thousands every year for taxes, payments and technology that is still in it’s infancy.
All for less than a couple grand.
I maintain both a Solar Array and and Wind Turbine for my Employer. (Both on Grid)
Amplifying others. What you buy today in green Technology will most likely not be repairable due to either Manufacturer/Supplier/Dealers going under or parts no longer made in less than 5 years. We have found that IN BOTH Solar and Wind turbine Systems.
We live in Western NY and put in a solar water heater system 33 years ago when we put an addition on our house. It was a custom job. The tank was plywood and fiberglass. We have used it all these years to preheat our hot water, provide underfloor heating to our addition and kitchen, and to heat our swimming pool. Last year the tank sprung a leak and we were able to find someone to replace it with a much better tank, and this year he is going to replace some parts on the panels. I think it has not only saved us money over the years, but more importantly, made life much more comfortable.
These days people are trained at community college to handle all kinds of solar systems. There are many options for parts. It is not a problem to find someone who knows how to deal with these things.
The problem with producing power directly is that then you start dealing with bureaucracies that don’t want to give up the power or money.
Harvesting solar power can be cost effective, but not with photovoltaic cells at this time. I incorporated passive heating and cooling in the house I built, and it works quite well to reduce my energy needs.
The Ancient Greeks understood how to take advantage of solar heat in the winter, and reject solar heating in the summer.
It cost very little to nothing more than regular construction costs, and there is no maintenance required except to change from summer setting to winter setting.
Solar supplemental heating of the hot water system is just as easy to setup, but I do not use that much hot water, so did not include anything for hot water.
Combination of wind and solar to charge deep cycle batteries for inverters seems reasonable for off-grid, low energy living.
Maybe even 12vdc based circuits, RV style, with LED lighting, and propane RV fridges.
As far as a roof anything goes.Solar,TV whatever I am not a big fan of drilling holes in a good roof.
I see houses out my way completely cover with panels.
What do you do idk you have a roof problem cause the Solar Guys were butchers?
There is a farm down the road with this Drive In Movie size panel in the field that follows the sun.
That seems to be the way to go but appears to be a mega buck set up??
The diesel engine tech that serviced our generator at the credit union I worked for said we love GENERAC because they always break,stay away.
It will continue to be a good idea as long as Fed and State governments continue to rob Peter of his tax money to pay Suzy Solar to install panels. When the “public financing” schemes end, the economic viability of solar ends with it.
#30, most of those need the Grid power to drive the actuator/censors that control the movement of the array.
No Grid power, sorry pal...unless you are out there moving the array every few minutes your power generation goes south quickly.
Solar water heating on the other hand, pays off. I've been heating our hot water with solar for about 15 years.
100% in the summer 50% or so in the winter, with some small percentage heating the house too in winter.
I’ve got a GE whole house generator that runs on natural gas. It’s 15kW and strictly for power outages. Had it for about 3 years and used it about 3 times without a problem.
My oldest Trojans still in use were manufactured in 2005. They test at about 80% of new capacity. I keep them in a small array separate from the newer batteries. I recondition all the batteries frequently.
Mine is gas, 15KW had it 10 years. Uncover it, hook up the battery...push start. Not once have I had an issue with it. On average I need it 4-8 days out of the year. One year it ran 11 days straight. Tornado took down grid.... It powers everything we need.
Most smaller Generators have the Generac front end (power generation). I haven’t been around any diesel units.
I sure can’t complain on the performance of mine...
When I was in Florida, I put solar panels on my roof to heat the pool water. Worked great. Little energy needed, driven by the pool filter and gravity. The pool was screened in and the water got cold. Worked great. Far less expensive than a gas heater.
Solar panels slowly degrade and lose both their voltage and current generation maximum. I realize it's only 10-18% but MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) is a factor never discussed. As in all electrical and electronic components, they will fail. The likelihood of 15 years from now a compatible replacement panel will exist in stock or be available anywhere is Poweball odds. This means an entire system update to all panels and controllers.
“Betcha those panels won’t last 20 years either...”
We don’t have huge hailstorms here so that’s not a factor but my 17 year old panels show no diminution of output that I can detect, although in theory there should be a reduction of 18% or so.
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