Posted on 09/30/2023 6:40:44 AM PDT by The_Media_never_lie
This year, during the heat of summer, when temperatures in New York surpassed 90°F, the 22 solar panels on the roof of my house were doing absolutely nothing.
This is not something I learned until September, four months after my husband and I bought this house with a purportedly functional leased solar system in upstate New York, months after logging into a website that inaccurately told us that the panels were working, months after we forked over $6,000 to prepay the remainder of the 20-year lease to the company supposed to be maintaining the solar panels, Spruce Power, which happens to be the largest privately held owner and operator of residential solar in America.
A third-party technician dispatched to our house by Spruce in September blamed squirrels that chewed on some important wires. Spruce blamed the previous owners, who they said fell behind on lease payments; in September, Spruce told us it had disconnected the system previously but that did not explain why they’d taken our money to prepay the lease on the panels in June. The panels are still not working to full capacity. (Made aware that this article was in the works, Spruce said in September that it will repay us for the months the panels were not working.)
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
Green energy has a long way to go before it becomes financially viable, IMHO.
This is really about the dark side of bad corporate behavior. None of this is a problem with solar panels, just the company these people leased from.
it’s green energy..
its making the leasing company millions of green dollars.
Whomever stated that these panels would last 20-25 years was dreaming. Or lying. Or both.
25 to 30 is the industry standard. Of course they, like all other things, need to be maintained. And not shut off by remote. One of those was the problem here. Any appliance with a maintenance agreement that the company then doesn’t maintain would have the same problem. Except I guess it’s easier to notice when the AC doesn’t turn on.
The Eloi are angry.
There are simple ways to tell if your sh*t stuff is working...
“This is really about the dark side of bad corporate behavior. None of this is a problem with solar panels, just the company these people leased from.”
Exactly. Solar is a technology that needs care and maintenance. It will never compete financially with utility power, but that’s not its purpose. Its purpose is to provide power when the utilities go out or are not available.
I have a sincere questions about the ability of solar panels to remain in the sunlight and remain operational for a specified length of time. Any studies? I will research this. However, the sun has power destructive to manmade equipment.
I am skeptical, because there is an industry behind the green movement with political power.
Read somewhere that electrical circuits resist current and become less efficient when they become overheated.
The grid is always working. It has economy of scale operational reliability. You cannot beat it for either either reliability or economy.
Sure there are disruptions, but these are temporary disruptions.
All solar panels have two dark sides. One is underneath the panel and the other is nighttime.
We get these scammers at the house frequently. One was dressed like a slob and for some reason insisted on showing me photo’s of his “ranch” in Florida. When I finally got rid of him, I saw him drive away in a beat up Tahoe with a trash bag side window. Yea, bit successful guy there.
I’ve done enough homework to know that solar is a horrible choice for whole house energy. That 20 year lease is about the lifespan of the product, then you either have useless fogged glass panels on your roof or you need to rip them out and pay another $20,000 for new shingles.
The seller would have proved that the 'stuff' was in working order or the seller would have been missing me at the closing.
Just dont fall for the net-metering option without battery backups, power goes out, you go dark too without a $20K battery system.
And a $500 generator is a lot cheaper option for those odd disruptions.
—”All solar panels have two dark sides. One is underneath the panel and the other is nighttime.”
BINGO!
WE HAVE A BINGO!!!
Winner, winner!
One of the nice things about rooftop solar is that if there is an air gap between the actual roof and the cells, they protect your roof from the sun beating down on it. That should keep your home a little cooler in the summer. 🤣
Yep. The dark side of solar panels is the environmental impact. That’s what I thought this article was going to be about.
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