Posted on 10/27/2024 5:56:01 AM PDT by where's_the_Outrage?
Asolar power system is a big expense, but if it gets enough sun, it can pay for itself and reduce your carbon footprint in the process. Unfortunately, obstructions can substantially reduce the power your panels provide and make it much harder for your investment to pay off. That's why it can be so frustrating if your neighbors plant a tree in the wrong place.
If there’s a tree in the way of your energy production, it's important to understand what your options are. They may depend on where you live and whether the tree or your panels were there first.
Can you make your neighbor cut down a tree? If your neighbor's tree is stopping the sun from shining on your solar panels, the first big question to ask is whether it was in place before you put the panels up. If so, you can't just force your neighbor to cut down pre-existing vegetation on their land. Ideally this issue is something you or your solar energy technician would anticipate prior to the installation.
However, if your panels were there first, you may have some recourse. Many states and municipalities have rules in place that regulate vegetation to protect solar access.
For example, California's Solar Shade Control Act prohibits someone who owns a property from planting or growing an obstructive tree if solar panels have already been installed and the tree or shrub would cast a shadow over more than 10% of the panels between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
His tree got there first. Your solar panels are a johnnie come lately. Judgement for the great oak.
The tree gives Oxygen and the panels give you a Pain
It's different based on if you have net metering. Alabama doesn't do net metering. Therefore, it's advantageous to me to use my incoming solar power with these priorities (all configured in our inverters):
1. Power the home. If more solar is coming in than my home load, then
2. Charge my home batteries. If my batteries are charged more than enough to power the home through the night, then
3. Charge my EV more than what I need for the next day's driving (my wife asks for a floor of at least 120 mile range ). My inverters have what they call a "Smart Load" feature to intermittently power a separate electrical panel. One of our two EV chargers is tied to that intermittent panel. So if the EV already has 120 mile range when we come home, we plug it to the intermittent charger and set the EV to charge to 80%. This basically adds to the home load in step 1. If we have even more solar than that,
4. Charge the home solar batteries to 100%. If those batteries are topped off and we still have more solar than the home's electrical load,
5. Sell the power to the grid and get 2.9 to 4.5 cents per kWh (way lower than the price we pay to when we use power from the grid, which is 14.1 cents to 16.1 cents per kWh).
People see my long roof, facing south, and try to sell me solar panels. They never see all those windows right under the roof, some thirty feet of windows. In the winter it’s like Florida in those rooms, and yet it’s a very old house, uninsulated in those walls, likewise the old windows. First sign of Pennsylvania winter, open all the blinds and those rooms will be 70 degrees by noon. Doesn’t matter how cold it gets outside, as long as the sun shines. Now the washing machine is up there, I don’t need the dryer either, everything goes on racks and gets baked dry.
Solar works for some, no denying that. But when you’re buying a house, give some thought to the sunlight it gets.
Lack of details.
Doesn’t give any dates. Doesn’t say whether roof mounted or on a pole in the yard. No pics of lot size or what side of the property the tree is on.
Stupid article.
Wow. You must have paid a fortune for that system.
Always remember This...
Fully 1/2 of the US population has an IQ or are mentally at or below average!
Let that sink in... “at or below average”.
Also, it appears, that many, MANY of those ‘at or below average’ are democRats!
Really.
“can I demand they cut it down”
Only if your neighbors are Trump supporters.
How often do you have to clean your panels?
We have solar panels which provide more than 80% of our yearly electric power, and yet there is a huge one-hundred year-old oak tree just to the east of our property. Looking at our Enphase hourly solar graph, I can estimate that stately tree costing us about 15% in energy loss, more in Winter and a little less in Summer. Still, we get at least some of that loss back by saving on air conditioning from its shade.
If my tree was there before your solar panels then I would tell you that either you or the installer DO NOT know what you are doing. If you take me to court to cut down my tree, I would countersue for whatever reason my lawyer can think of.
Perhaps once a month, maybe less. The rain actually cleans them quite well. Fires in Oregon cover them with smoke dust. So, there is a lot of variation.
I have found that the visible need to clean them is the best indicator. There is too much variation in their power output to use that as an indicator.
If you are too stupid to observe the patterns of sun before spending that kind of money on solar panels, it is all on you.
The good news is the tree will still be there decades after the solar panels are all resting peacefully in the local landfill.
higher power bill + natural gas bill + gasoline for two cars + $400/month to a car savings account to repair/replace the used gas cars we'd replace one of every 7 years. Note: "higher" as in at the time I was buying all of my energy like everybody else. Not "higher" as in political policies: Trump was good at lowering energy costs even before covid.
That's year 2019's prices: the last Trump year before covid (I hate comparing today's gasoline prices with 2020). Basically, I've beaten the Dims' stupid energy policy price inflation. Today I no longer have a natural gas bill because I replaced my two natural gas appliances with high efficiency electric ones. (After having a small solar system for a year to play with it and make sure it'd work well in my climate with mine and my wife's energy consumption habits.) Those costs were also paid for by the HELOC. As well as general purpose energy improvements to the house like adding insulation.
We drive the EV 16K miles per year on home charged miles, and rarely drive the gas pickup (though occasionally we have pickup chores or my wife and I have to split up for the day). Call it over 1,200 miles per month. So that's a lot of gas and oil change savings.
I make the EV payments from the HELOC. Any time the energy/car portion of my budget is over $850 (which it is while I have 1.5 years left of car payments), I pull the excess from the HELOC. That adds to the HELOC balance, which raises the payment. Then when I file my taxes I get a solar tax credit (not every year for life, but the solar tax credit for purchase and install isn't tax refundable, but does carry forward, so it's taking years of tax filings to eventually get it all), whatever portion of my tax refund is the solar tax credit (or EV tax credit the year I bought the EV in 2022), I use to pay down on the HELOC balance. That lowers the HELOC payment down too. I hate the EV tax credit and solar tax credit. I don't like the government screwing up the market. And all they did was artificially jack up my up front costs on solar and the EV. But I don't make the rules. I just engineer a strategy on the reality I'm faced with.
When the EV is paid off on the 4th year, I'll still use $850/month as my energy portion of my budget and pay down on the HELOC. When the HELOC is paid down enough that the payments + power bill is lower than $450/month, I'll resume putting $400/month into a car savings account to pay for repairs/replacement of cars (most notably replacing the EV battery, though I may be satisfied with not replacing the battery if the old battery is good enough for local driving). About the $450/month going to the HELOC + power bill: I'll put the excess from that into the HELOC to pay it down sooner.
In the end: the energy/transportation portion of my budget feels like it's forever year 2019. But I warn you, it requires LOTS of homework to make sure solar and/or an EV is good for your situation. Even if so, you're better off doing even more homework to get just the right amount of each component of solar to take advantage of the economies of scale, but not so much that you run against the law of diminishing returns. Bonus points if, after you get the system, you keep doing homework on it at least the first year, but during all seasons, to figure out how best to tweak the configuration for your particular climate and power consumption habits.
“Oh Lawd, they cut down the trees and paved the roofs with glass and silica!”
I spent some time in coastal SCAL with a view of the Pacific ocean. Anytime a home was going to be modified or replaced, a flagging system had to be deployed so uphill homeowners could vote on whether their view was going to be interfered with. I suspect Musk’s solar roofing tile system was born out of this requirement.
Don’t forget the savings of skin cancer for the trees and the extra insurance cost of solar panels due to increased roofing claims.
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