Replies

Where I could get by with $2,000 in panels you’d need $3,000 in panels. The rest of the system — batteries or grid-tie electronics, inverter, etc. — would make total cost $10,000 and $11,000, I bet.

I spent $13,000 after tax credits on a thermo-syphonic solar hot water heating system in San Diego. It was supposed to have a 20 year service life. It provided 100% of my hot water needs from March to October. I used it in "pre-heat" mode from November to February. Gas prices never went high enough to amortize the system...assuming that it lasted for the full 20 years. It didn't. It was fully effective for about 6 years, then the calcium in the San Diego water supply corroded the storage tanks, wetted the insulation and made the system unusable. Of course the supplier had gone out of business, so I had no recourse on the "warranty".

I pay about 5 cents per kw-hr right now. Solar has to get a bunch cheaper to make it interesting. I was paying 25 to 30 cents per kw-hr in San Diego (1999/2000), so it would have been more interesting economically and more viable in terms of available insolation.

In San Diego, you would get the equivalent of 5 hrs of sunlight, so a 1-watt panel would give you a KWh in 200 days. If the cost of electricity was 0.30/kWh, and the cost of the complete system was double the cost of the panels, then payoff would come in about a year and a half. Which would be an economical payback period even without subsidy

All this of course assumes that they will actually be able to deliver at the price-point specified, and that the product lasts long enough to be worth installation costs

Well, at PV is a solid-state technology. No fluids or moving parts to worry about.

I’m still in SoCal, and it kills me to see my AVERAGE rate during the summer run $0.25kwh and my peak $0.35kwh. For a condo with just me living there. A larger home would probably have most of my bill at the higher penalty rates.

Now I’m looking at building a place in the desert where I’d be off-grid, and $50K for a solar PV system is giving me pause. A $10K system would fit my budget much better.