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 ...
“glass and aluminum are pretty tough”
how do they hold up to 1.5” hail? ... i’ve had to put on two new roofs due to hail damage since i’ve lived in colorado ... fortunately, home insurance covered the costs ...
The answers definitively saying Solar Power is bad and will never work are usually from people who don’t understand how they can be used and be effective.
It’s not cheap but is a viable option off grid living.
For example, the idea they will have to be removed to replace the roof is true unless you ground mount the panels, in rural environments often times people own enough to ground mount the panels in the most practical and productive area possible.
If a solar panel solution is not for you, fine, but why trash the idea when it can and does work for quite a few people.
I live in Phoenix, Arizona. If there is ANY place where solar should be useful, it is here.
The good news is, our nine year old system has suffered no noticeable degradation, and requires little maintenance. Might be good to hose down the top if there is a sandstorm.
Here are the drawbacks.
Many of these solar contracts are front loaded for low initial price. So, our $20K+ 20 year lease provided tax breaks and goodies for the original buyer. Also, the lease payments are low initially, but climb. It starts at about $80/month and winds up at $120 at the end of the lease.
The savings slightly more than offset the expense, but in the hot Arizona summers the electric bill can reach over $250 even with solar. (1600 sq ft house).
Here’s the kicker: we had to buy during a seller’s market, and probably only got the house because a solar lease is an ALBATROSS to those who are selling and buying the house. So, we needed separate financial checks, contracts, and paperwork to make it happen. Tesla (the current owner of the equipment) was crappy on following up on the paperwork and almost messed up the closing. They have little incentive to be efficient, and have a HORRIBLE web site/phone call infrastructure for taking care of their red-headed step child, home solar.
All in all, a lot of headache for little benefit. And yes, if you don’t buy batteries, you are just as much reliant on the grid as anyone else.
I am glad our roof is not old. I do not know what I would do if I had to replace the roof during the lease period.
I am shocked also, that Tesla does NOT provide a discount for prepaying a lease.
Overall, not a great deal.
and speaking of snow, those panels don’t work too well when they’re under 8” of snow for weeks ...
Just don’t fall for the net-metering option without battery backups, power goes out, you go dark too without a $20K battery system.
______________________________________________________
I went with the battery backup system. I’m on my second set of batteries but I got the first set for free and paid about $5,000 for the second and they are very nice. I ruined the first set because they were flooded lead acid batteries that require a lot of maintenance and my travel schedule at the time did not allow me to take proper care of them. The new set requires no maintenance and will last longer than me. Batteries are included in the tax rebates so you really only would have to pay 2/3rds of what you purchase in the long run after your rebates. I bought my batteries directly from Asia, arranged shipping and customs. Would have cost twice as much here in the States.
I always recommend battery backup although perhaps not everyone is willing to go for a whole house system That is the way I wanted it. When the grid goes down nothing is different in my house, everything works. If it is summer and the grid goes down I turn off the 4 ton central air and rely on mini splits and limit A/C to Kitchen, Dining room and to our bedroom. I can go for a very long time on battery that way. The reality is that when using the battery and not feeding the grid my excess, then my batteries get fully charged during the day so that living on battery is ok except for using up the batteries, they do wear out over time with heavy use. I have refrigerator and freezers that I don’t want to lose on loss of grid power, I won’t.
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.
My wife and I live in the middle of a bunch of fir trees that are over 100 feet tall that tend to blow over in bad weather and cause our power to go out. Blue skies are nearly non-existent for 7 months out of the year, which happen to be the same 7 months when the power goes out most frequently. So even if the trees were not blocking the sun where our house sits... solar panels would still not be a variable option for backup power.
Fortunately, we have natural gas to our home despite being a couple of miles outside the nearest town. Otherwise we would be in a much more expensive situation when the power goes out, sometimes for weeks at a time.
The primary thing that I have to do for maintenance is change the oil in our 30 year old Generac 5000w generator once a year. I have no idea how many 1000s of hours it now has on it, but it has given us very good service. It set us back $400 when we purchased it, and I spent another $100 converting it to natural gas.
It still costs about 3 times as much to generate power as what the utility company charges for it... but gasoline would be several times more than that.
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 believe that "Green energy" will never become financially viable. It requires more energy to build such equipment than it can produce in its' useful lifetime. Hydroelectric power is the one exception, and that is not considered "green" by the environmental activists.
Solar panels do not last 25-30 years and the lease deals for those units are a scam. Those rooftop panels can last 5-8 years under bad weather conditions, maybe 8-10 years in good conditions.
I signed up for a community solar program that seems foolproof. They give me a credit on my electric bill and then months later I pay them for the credit less a 20% discount. So far it has worked like a charm. I save 20% on electricity with no risk.
Yep....and I never understood why anyone with two (2) working brain cells would let a solar company penetrate their roof-the thing that keeps the rain out and snow from caving in your home! The less penetrations your roof has, the stronger it is and longer it lasts in its primary function: Keep the elements out!
If I wanted solar, I'd be in the country where I'd have a patch of land I could walk up and down solar rows and clean them with a squeegee.
Insane. Nuclear energy is even MOAR green.
Unfortunately, “seems foolproof” are the operative words. Nothing about the left's preferred energy sources actually are foolproof, or even viable in any normal sense of the word in the long term.
I have a brother in California who made a rooftop solar panel lease arrangement, wanting the lower electric utility bills from it (lower because in California as in most states the electric utility is REQUIRED to buy your roof top system’s excess electricity, whether the utility actually needs it or not, and in California the utility must pay retail which is more than they would have to pay wholesale, on the grid, if they really needed more power).
Summer time is when there is the most sun, making his solar panels the most effective. It is also the time when it is hotter. When “hotter” turns into a heat wave, everyone wants their air conditioner running, and when everyone wants their air conditioner running the grid for the electric utility can get stressed and when it is too stressed the utility will schedule selective “brown outs”, and if it effects my brother’s area all his power goes off because the grid cannot have his solar system sending power to the shut-down -grid. Apparently the controls on his system do not provide the option for the system to disconnect from the grid when the grid is down.
What is wrong with his system and many others is not insufficient “regulation” but roof top solar outfits with non-transparent contracts that the client homeowner does an insufficient amount of due diligence about on their own to be absolutely clear as to what they are buying into.
I have mentioned to young people that they should be looking for the most beautiful place in the wilds they can find that is cheap because there is no way for grid services, a cabin site based purely on beauty (and being cheap).
Today, or when the time comes they can afford it, they can put up a cozy small house kit with solar, satellite internet, and a compost toilet if it is too remote for septic.
This off-grid stuff is getting easier and easier and is already completely workable for utilizing the undiscovered cabin sites.
Yes, thank you for explaining, I live in FL and everyone is selling solar, even the power company. Lots of neighbors are getting them, I talked to one that just has the panels, grid goes dark you still are in the dark power company charges $100 flat rate fee for regular power and net metering covers the rest.
My power bill for 5 months averages $70 in fall and spring, I kinda like that, I have a small 3br/2ba on the coast. Not sure if insurance would cover panels damaging roof in big blow.
So yeah I’d want a best cheap battery system they got before I do it.
“glass and aluminum are pretty tough”
how do they hold up to 1.5” hail? ... i’ve had to put on two new roofs due to hail damage since i’ve lived in colorado ... fortunately, home insurance covered the costs ...”
I’m in Florida. Had to drop the windstorm coverage from my home owner policy this year. When you are mortgage free, the law tells them they have to allow that. So I have fire, theft, water pipe breakage, liability coverages.
When one has hail — it’s a grey area.
Can the insurance company CLAIM that hail can only exist when a windstorm produces the hail ??!? Will I have ZERO coverage from hail ?
This question has nothing to do with solar, its has to do with general roof and structure coverage.
“None of this is a problem with solar panels...”
So...the lady’s solar panels are actually working?
“I purchased solar because in my old age I wanted to continue to have air-conditioning ... “
You sound 99% like me. In Florida I have done the same.
Batteries so I can operate off-grid, but day-in-day-out, remain grid-tied.
Can you private email or post here more specifics on your installation ?
I have metal roof, so that’s the 1% difference.
Thanks.
I can tell you that in Florida where my brother-in-law is, he has a solar panel array on his roof and it has lowered his electric bills dramatically. The electrical grid has to be working in order for the solar panels to provide assistance. If his neighbors power goes out so does his.
As regards the lifespan of the panels, being a good liberal Democrat he doesn’t give a shit about what happens after he dies. And there’s no way he’s going to outlive the average lifespan of the panels. So his attitude is, it ain’t my problem as long as I’m getting what I want right now.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.