I have a home in Kentucky and in Florida. I have roof panels on both houses. The Florida house has 9KW and the Kentucky house has 12KW. I don’t split up my normal and emergency loads, I supply whole house with my Kentucky system. When grid goes down everything still works. The way I do that is not real common but since I have enough power on the roof, battery and generator I can get away with it. In Florida with no backup, when the grid is down I’m down until I start my generator.
Before my solar I was having winter and summer electric bills in the $600 range, now I can’t imagine getting a bill for more than $100 in Kentucky and about $150 in Florida and usually the bill is only the connection fee of about $20.
I assumed the Kentucky house solar would pay for itself in about 10 years, I installed it myself so there were substantial savings. This is year 8 and I’m breaking even in Kentucky.
The Florida house was much cheaper because I only did it a year and a half ago. Prices have really come down. I have battery backup in Kentucky but no backup in Florida I just wanted to offset the cost of Pool pump and pool heater in Florida. In Kentucky I have no grid cost most of the year, in air conditioning middle of summer I have to borrow from the grid.
I use a heat pump for heat until it gets very cold then I use gas. I have installed a couple mini splits that are unbelievably cheap to run compared to the whole house heat pump and they do both heat and cool.
Yeah when my roofs need replacing I will have to remove the panels, it will be a pain in the a$$ to do but I love the security of always having electricity in Kentucky and I like the monthly outlay reduction in Florida.
Since I paid up front for electricity that I will use many years later, I got a good deal because I paid less for it then than now and it will keep going up.
Did I use the incentive? I sure did. In Kentucky that meant a third of my costs of about $50k were paid by reduction in taxes, in Florida it was only 25% of about $25k. Those were both Federal incentives but by the time I bought solar in Florida the incentive had been reduced, this is the last year of Federal incentive and it is now only 17%. I think subsidizing something like my solar is stupid but if its there I’m not going to ignore it.
Grid tied solar without battery backup is simple and requires almost no maintenance and is pretty cheap compared to what it was a decade ago. With battery backup however it is a different story. You have to know your system and take care of it, it is substantially more complicated. Since I installed it myself I can take care of it easily enough but when I croak my wife won’t have a clue. Taking care of batteries can be a challenge depending on what kind of battery you get. My first battery was free. It was huge, over 3000 amps at a 20 hour rate but it was flooded lead acid, they really require a lot of care. I just replaced that battery with a maintenance free glass matt system, they should last 30 years pretty easily since I won’t really use them except on occasion of storms or some other calamity. If the you know what hits the fan and society fails I will have to be careful with my electric usage and probably will greatly reduce my air conditioning usage.
My main reason for getting solar is reducing monthly expenditures so that when I die my wife will have reduced expenses. I’m not trying to reduce my carbon footprint, I don’t believe in man made global warming. I’m enjoying the low, almost nothing electric bills even as I use the pool and pool heater in most of the year. I like it when the neighborhood lights go out after a storm and I don’t know about it until a neighbor asks me when my electricity has been restored. I like knowing that my freezer food storage is safe even after a big storm.
If I had it to do over again the only thing I would do different is have more panels. While panels make substantial electricity on cloudy days with a third more panels a cloudy day would still take care of most of my needs. I get a lot more sun days in SW Florida than I do in Kentucky. Getting solar in Florida is a no brainer, you make good electricity all year long.
I’m in Maryland - Installed a 30kw system this year.
grid tied, ground mounted, perfect orientation and angle.
Projecting 42kw of production in a full year based on actual so far this year.
That will cover all of my electric use, plus leave some to sell back for cash during the annual reconciliation process.
We are 38 degrees latitude- so having the right orientation and tilt is critical which I couldn’t do with a roof mount. We have a small farm, and we were able to find a spot in the front pasture that is perfect. At my age (71), I don’t know if I’ll see this pay off before we retire south in a few years but I’ll get a lot of it back when we sell the place. I think electricity costs will go through the roof in the future and my net (after tax credits) investment of $60k will pay off.