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.
The Eloi are angry.
There are simple ways to tell if your sh*t stuff is working...
Read somewhere that electrical circuits resist current and become less efficient when they become overheated.
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.
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. 🤣
btt
Future business opportunity: “Solar Removal - Free Estimates “
Intermittent energy production, will always require a backup that is reliable. The panels are an environmental horror when they wear out, too expensive to recycle in most cases. Only one company in America even tries. Most panels go to landfills. Ugly eyesores too. Makes houses look like little dystopian factory buildings. If they last 15-20 years, that means they have to be removed and reinstalled to put on new roofs. Insanity.
All it takes is one hailstorm and say goodbye to that investment.
I didn’t read past the exurpt but there are other known problems with solar that make it NOT a install-it and forget-it solution. Like EVs, home solar needs batteries or a charge holding system. These don’t have a relatively long life. You have electrical equipment that do not have infinite lives and require maintenance.
I love the concept of being off the grid, not for the sake of “the environment” (in all it’s loaded meanings) but moreso for the idea of not being dependent of energy monopolies. But there are a log of cons to the pros that you need to be aware of, and you definitely shouldn’t have to be under contract with a solar company if you are trying to get out from under the thumb of an electricity provider.
rooftop solar has been a total scam for decades ...
SolarCity essentially invented the scam in 2006, and ten years later Elon Musk bought the company from his cousins ...
I would be concerned about the roof under those solar panels. The panels add considerable weight to the roof that could be beyond the structural capacity of the trusses especially with a heavy snow load. I would suspicion that in high winds those panels could act like sails and lift from the roof causing damage to the roof or other property if they tore off. I have also heard reports of the shingles becoming rapidly degraded under the panels.
It’s the same old story...
* Lots of federal subsidies plus easily fooled people snookered into “Let’s save the earth” pitches lead to many unscrupulous operators.
* Unscrupulous operators go out of business leaving customers holding the bag
* Fraud claims skyrocket
* The big guys (SunRun, Tesla, SunPower, et al) buy up lots of small, poorly-run companies who only wanted to cash out and make the founders rich
Human nature never changes. Crooks and naive buyers abound, fraud is rampant, unscrupulous companies don’t give a damn about their “customers.”
Whenever there’s big federal money in something, the above story repeats over and over.
Somehow, gullible people (as well as gullible authors at Time magazine) want to believe human nature has changed, people will be honest, and nobody is hustling to make a crooked buck.
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.
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.