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Switching To Solar Power — Six Months Later
ThinSkin writes "Slashdot readers may remember an article regarding ExtremeTech's Loyd Case's experiences with solar power for the home after one month of usage. During that time six months ago, it sure seemed like a great deal, but the tables have turned significantly once winter approached. While it's no surprise solar power generation is expected to dwindle during the winter, Loyd compares solar power data of the last six months to determine if solar power is still worth the time and money."
Who the hell uses that much electric power?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
http://www.extremetech.com/print_article2/0,1217,a%253D235949,00.asp
If you can plug in your car overnight and have it charged from a bank of batteries in the basement that is where you'll start seeing a decent return on your investment.
Just goes to show that solar power should only be considered in Tropical climates.
There's an important step that this guy missed: cutting consumption. I have a roughly 3000 square foot house, and the most I've used since August '07 is 700kWh in a month... and that was a month when I had visitors for basically the whole month, so we used a lot more power. My average is around 500.
Now... we don't know how big this guy's house is, or how many people live there. But really... 1,635kWh? That seems pretty excessive for any reasonable house. Maybe if he's got a bunch of servers on all the time, and has electric heat, and lives in a cold climate, but it still seems high.
I would have been interesting to see some numbers or estimates for the installation and maintenance cost... and the cost of the insurance. It's like a car. Even if you succeed to find the money to buy a Ferrari, will you have the money to pay the insurance and the maintenance costs over the years ?
Not only are you saving a lot by generating your own power (actually I'd like to see your annual generated power curve along side your savings from the years previous and the savings assuming you didn't have the solar panels installed) but you could still add panels to your roof to generate more power. I wonder what the break even point is for your system, when would more panels make sense or not? I also wonder if adjustments to your system to track the sun angle even in one dimension by lifting the panels with a motion system would be? What about adding solar water heating to your house?
Why didn't this follow up article include a Return on Investment number? It would be nice if he would have included the cost of the install and compare it to the difference in his electric bills. I'm curious to see how long it will take the install to pay for itself.
but the tables have turned significantly once winter approached
Much like with coding: planning is everything
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I don't know about the position in the US, but in Europe there is a market in energy efficient appliances, and a small change in cost for things like freezers can buy one with half the power consumption. It would be interesting to know if he did the exercise you suggest, and if so did a cost benefit analysis. After all, in Northern CA it might be that he is using air con which could be avoided by improved ventilation, planting, modifications to windows etc., or electric heating for part of the winter which could have been replaced more efficiently with roof thermal absorbers rather than PV.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
print link
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Who ever installed the panels mounted them directly flat on the roof. That is bad.
They need to be angled for the best sun during the time the power need is greatest. Ideally they would be adjustable semi-annually/quarterly/monthly for the best angle. And if fixed would be biased toward the point of worst number of sun days and power need.
Doing a suboptimal installation and not accounting for sun angle is not a good installation and should be perform at a fraction of potential output.
Given the 40 degree difference in the sun angle between Summer and Winter, would it make sense to change the tilt on the panels to optimize the angle for the two seasons?
Maybe a screw jack could lift the top of the panels as winter approaches, then lower them again as you move into summer?
It's not like snow or ice would be a problem and you could probably get the screw jack from an old satellite dish (or Boeing surplus!).
Just a thought...
"...Loyd compares solar power data of the last six months to determine if solar power is still worth the time and money."
And the article never answers that question. So while we still don't know how many years his installation will take to get to the break-even point, I can at least tell you that RTFA is definitely a waste of time.
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth gets you modded -1 Troll
I don't understand... Why would you bolt the panels directly to the roof with a constant, set angle?
If it was me, I'd frame up some 2x4s and bolt the panels to the frame. Then I'd put a hinge on one side, and an adjustable support on the other.
Four times a year (or so) I'd go up on the roof and change the angle of the solar panel frame so it's orthogonal to the sun's position in the sky. At the end of each season, just adjust the angle for the coming season's conditions.
Or you could really go nuts and do it once a month.
Hasn't anyone thought of this yet? I mean really.
1,600 kwh per month is gargantuan.
You can calculate how much solar energy you get per year by using solar radiation data collected by the weather community. http://www.wunderground.com/calculators/solar.html . You can then use this information to do a calculation on what solar panels will do for your particular location.
Atlanta, GA
1300sf condo with 2 common walls (shared)
summer average:
$100 electric
$ 30 gas
winter average:
$100 gas
$ 30 electric
electric AC
gas water/furnace
either way, i'm paying $100-200 a month for both
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I went back to his original article (the instalation). He said the estimate is that his anual utility bill will drop from 4400 a year to 1100 a year.
So I made a few assumptions.
#1-his power use will not increase. Not really likely but a future increase shouldn't change the ROI on his current investment.
#2-Utilities will just keep pace with inflation (assumed 2%)...power costs will stay porportinally expensive in the future. This is probably not ture as power prices tend to increase slightly faster than inflation. So this assumption will tend to increase the ROI.
#3-I assume he is financing it through his mortgage at about 5%
Therefore when I calculate out to 25 years I find that he would spend about $141,000 in power over the 25 years without slar. With Solar he would spend $35,233.
The Payoff date comes at about 12.5 years.
I wonder if it might make sense to buy the panels over time. Since the watts per sq foot and dollars per watt are only going to improve. What if you budget installing one new panel a year. Then
your initial costs won't be that high (would need all the electronics, inverter) and your panels would be better. One a downside your wattage would be low to start with.
MAKE:blog has some descriptions of some DIY sun-trackers to move the panel with the sun during the day.
If you generate more power than you use with solar panels, are you able to sell it to your energy provider? Here in Germany any extra power your panels generate has to be bought by your utilities company, at a price a lot higher than the market average for electricity. So as long as you're generating more power than you consume, your utilities company actually pays you. For many people this means they end up with a net gain at the end of the year, as the money they make in the summer more than offsets the price of the electricity they have to buy in the winter.
The only remaining downside is the high installation cost of the panels. Still, I see them everywhere here.
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
How well do Solar Panels on the roof handle getting covered with snow and ice? I'm up here in Wisconsin and would be interested in Solar Panels to cut the summer costs down (AC, winter is gas heat) but if the panels can't handle the weather up here it wouldn't be worth it.
DEMETRIUS: Villain, what hast thou done?
AARON: Villain, I have done thy mother.
Shakespeare invents 'your mom'
In the U.S., for a grid-connected system, the best locations are places where the electrical peaks are summer air conditioning loads, and in which you can sell the electricity at peak rates during the high-solar-input summer daytimes (or, at least, use the solar electricity when your price is high). This does require that you're getting time-dependent rates and not a flat rate.
From his results in TOA, notice that his electricity use from the grid is almost zero in the summer, but high in the winter. If he gets a price differential between summer (peak) and winter (off peak) rates, that's a significant difference.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Did any of you people read the original articles about the install???
1) His power consumption is huge: reason, he works from home in technology and has a server farm running in his basement. He was in the top tier of the electrical usage payments for California, thus the $400 power bill was normal for him.
2) He should have cut his power consumption: Read #1.
3) He should have installed more panels to generate more power than he needs: Why he didn't. He estimated his usage/cost, and could have gone 30% more panels than he did. The decision to do the amount he did was mainly a result of the contractor estimates he received. Additionally Cali has a Net Usage limit. I.e. He must draw more from the grid than he produces to the grid for each year. If he produces more than he uses for the year, he's giving away free electricity for no benefit to himself, and no return.
I see lots of questions about the energy usage of the home in the article and the return on investment.
There are links to the previous articles which explain the level of power consumption and there is enough data to make a rough estimate of the ROI.
They have a computer lab running in the house along with some substantial home entertainment hardware and both of the homeowners work from the house so the energy consumption does not drop off when they go to work. Even with a lab I have to admit the power consumption is rather high but he doesn't go into detail as to the equipment in the computer lab.
For the ROI he provides enough detail to estimate an annual power bill savings of $3,800. And after rebates the system he installed set him back $38,000. Assuming no maintenance costs and 15% cost of capital the ROI for the first year is around 9%, the second year 16%, the third year 23%, and it goes up from there. The simple payback is 10 years.
I'm always amazed at the high cost of a solar power system, it was around $50k before rebates. However, looking at the panels he had installed they appear to have the equivalent of 72 six inch silicon wafers, he installed 27 panels, so the cost per silicon wafer is around $25. That's pretty cheap considering the cost to produce a six inch silicon wafer with a simple semiconductor device is well over $100 per wafer. Which leads me to believe the driving factor for the cost of solar power installations is the pathetic efficiency with which they convert solar energy to electricity. The panels he installed are only 18% efficient. Sounds like we need some advances here.
He and his wife live alone. Even if the guy wasn't some self-righteous conservationist, why SHOULDN'T they live in an average house? Is he, as the former Vice President, supposed to be some kind of royalty now--too good to live in anything less than a sprawling mansion? I mean more power to His Lordship if he can afford it, but I'm certainly not going to listen to him turn around and lecture me on *MY* wastefulness without pointing out the glaring hypocrisy.
I, as an individual, use an average of $90 a month in electricity with no natural gas, living in the same part of the country as His Royal Highness. I drive a little car (not an SUV, much less a fleet of them) that gets about 35 mpg. I'm not an environmentalist. I would describe my position on the global warming idea as "open, but skeptical." I'm not particularly big on conservation. And I don't go around telling everyone else how to live their lives or taunting any new religion or cause. But I guess His Kingship would say that I'm "part of the problem" because I don't kiss his ring and tell him how great he is, even as he does more to contribute to the problem of over-consumption and CO2 emissions in the course of one year than a lowly peasant like me will do in most of my lifetime.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
A lot of it would be gone.
You can count on the returns for solar.
You can pretty much count on electric rates rising in the future.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
This, folks, is why you need to do management classes. ROI is a subject which can be arcane if you start to do serious modelling, but it is the ROI that gets management to tell the bean counters to give you money. The lack of forecast ROI is why the Government is not simply putting up money to build loads of PV solar plants.
Computers are quite different. Our business depends on them. We have to pay what it takes to do the job. But the payback is enormous. Compare what I can earn in a non-IT job with what I can earn in an IT job, and my having access to a computer probably gives me a net benefit of well over half a million dollars since 2000. The cost of the computer is negligible compared to the opportunity benefit. The cost of the solar cells exceeds the opportunity benefit over 5 years or so.
Once again I say, learn some economics, folks. Remember, in a recession you will get opportunities and promotion if you can offer your business significant savings. And that means mastering lifecycle project costs and ROI.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
How dare he use a ton of electricity!
Notice that we aren't complaining about the energy usage of Bill Gates's house. That's because Bill hasn't made quite the campaign on carbon control and global warming. While flying around to summits in his private plane.
You could argue that his energy bills should be lower, after all, he's gone much of the time.
Basically, Al Gore is rich enough to actually reduce his footprint; but didn't until people made an issue of it. Even then, I remember reading that after energy saving renovations his electricity bill went up compared to the year before.
He's asking us to make sacrifices; shouldn't he lead the way?
I don't read AC A human right
Don't tell anyone, but there's a tab on the first page that's labeled "print". I don't get to wait for ads and pictures to load, but it has the text.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
Oh. I see that bill was prior to the solar installation. So, I guess the penalty worked.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
People talk about single solutions but that is not the answer. It will be a blended solution. It will be a combination of solar, natural gas, wind, water, AND nuclear. In Israel, ever since I can remember (80s) each house/condo has solar panels to help heat water tanks...which are also sitting under the sun. Wind turbines are in various areas (Atlantic City NJ has about 5 or 6 MAJOR wind mills). Water turbines can work well. In California they created these water turbines that are hidden into the cliffsides. So when surf hits it water is sent up (and back down) to generate electricity.
But all of those will not be enough. We also need to supplant that with natural gas and nuclear energy. We also need to find ways to recycle spent nuclear fuel and convert it to useful energy...put it this way if that spent fuel is SO radioactive (meaning having lots of energy) then we could harnass it - we just don't know how (i think).
Until we get warp power - a blended solution will be needed - but it can work.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
I find posts on using Solar power interesting. If only because I grew up about 21 miles from the nearest town and power lines were not available. It is amazing how people's lives adjust. There are a lot of ways to save energy that are not even thought of in a normal home. Solar water heaters (need to be drained in the winter), wood stoves etc. that are all just part of life in some parts of the country. We needed to use a generator in the winter months about twice a month to charge our battery back. Now most folks are using the grid as a battery bank and just selling power back to the utility when they have extra. I think the problem with this method is that people are not forced to cut back and don't realize how easy some cut backs can be. In any case it is interesting.
Imagine if every home had this. And a more efficient setup (angle and sun tracking as others have pointed out) and you can see that it would make a HUGE difference, especially in the summertime. It would certainly put a hell of a dent in our use of fossil fuels, most of which go into generating electricity, not powering cars.
And that's in the winter. It's a lot more in the summer because of AC. Granted our building faces south and in the winter time gets a lot of solar time when the sun is out.
Granted we're a business and we run several servers in house 24x7 for development, testing, and backup and about 25 PC's.
We put up as much solar as we could given our amount of roof space last October. We've seen our electric bill go down to around $700 - $900 per month. It's basically cut our bill in half. Now we had the cash on hand to invest in the technology, plus there were some tax write offs that made it advantageous to do so before December of 2008.
But we viewed it as a wise investment that freed up over $1000 a month in cash flow. That's about a $1000 per month we can spend on additional development. It doesn't sound like much, but it was enough to offer 2 paid internships this spring semester at the local university.
Will the investment still take 5 - 7 years to pay for itself? In raw dollars, yes. But there are intangibles as far as I'm concerned. We've found two really good interns for this spring semester. Just over winter break they were able to take a piece of one project and get it to a working beta. It was the final piece of the puzzle to finishing that product that is now on the market and we've already got 20 installs lined up totaling about 1/3rd the cost of the solar panels.
Granted, we knew what our limits were. We did it not to be green and save money. The cash was either going to be given out as dividends (we are employee owned) and taxed or retained as earnings and taxed.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
...a separate web server for each page request.
They are so extreme that they provide enough computers to server one page of HTML, then they throw it away.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
It's amazing that people would install on roof solar panels these days. There is 10 times better ways to do it.
http://news.cnet.com/Home-builders-switch-on-the-invisible-solar-panels/2100-11392_3-6070992.html
That article has a lot of consumption and billing numbers for each of utility and homegrown power, but it's hard to get exact performance comparisons because the numbers don't exactly measure the same things. There is no exact start and end date, just month names, and approximate mentions of offsets into them, not lining up generation and billing dates in either the solar generation half-year or the time before drawing from only the utility. And practically no data on income from overgenerating, selling back to utility or grid.
But there is enough data to make rough comparisons. They say their January/utility bill was $446, but their December bills are the highest (all of which extra usage was billed in the highest rate, 300% of the base rate). So let's say their average bill used to be $450:mo, or $5600 annually. However, they said up front that their annual bill is about $4400. We'll take the average of $5400. Now their July-December/solar bill is $389.39. Even if we call that $400, and so their annual/solar bill is $800, they're saving $4600 a year. They paid about $55,000 before rebates, about $37,000 after all rebates. Their utility bill savings pays off their installation investment in $37,000 / $4600 = 8.04 years. Pessimistically, they should be paid off in 9 years.
These systems have a minimum lifetime of 30 years (if you don't invest in an upgrade during that time). Even if energy rates stay the same in those 30 years (probably not, probably higher), that $4600 for 21 more years is $96,600, or 2.6x the installation cost. Total return is $133,600 on $37,000 investment, so 3600% Return on Investment over 30 years. If you invested that money in a compound interest account (either savings or some investment with an average annual return reinvested), you'd have to get 15.43% annual compound interest to turn $37K into $136K in 30 years. Conversely, if you took out a 30 year mortgage on your home at today's average rate of 5.63%, you'd net 9.8% benefit. Which means that it's worth mortgaging (part of) your home to invest in these, with a fraction of your old utility bills paid as mortgage interest, and getting $78K more ("profit", really utilities savings) after 30 years, with no out of pocket.
That could be even better than they say. Their reasons for failing to maximize their roof generating area don't seem compelling: "it would get a little crowded up there". Other than access to the panels for cleaning, who cares how crowded it is? It looks like they could double their area. Which would give them closer to zero Winter bills, but overkill in Summer that exceeds what's left (if any) during Winter, which exceeds their "zero annual bill" maximum for reselling overgeneration to the utility at retail rates. So probably about 1.5x the area would give them Summer overgeneration that would equal their Winter utility draw, netting zero bills. It's got to cost less than 1.5x to install just more area, because labor and shared components (especially the inverter that sells power back to the utility) are a substantial cost that doesn't increase at all at that rate. Say it costs 1.2x, or $44,400, but they save the full $5400 annually. That's still about the same time in payback (about 2% longer), but 3.7x the return. And the "green feeling" is complete.
--
make install -not war
Now assume that the cost of solar cells halves in a 5 year timescale. That seems about right based on trends so far. The $38000 investment is worth $19000 in 5 years. Each year I've forgone $1140 in interest, and the depreciation has actually been closer to $3800. So I have saved $4800, but I've lost slightly more. And remember, this assumes no more maintenance than routine cleaning and checking.
My conclusion is that this kind of investment is close to making sense, but not close enough. If the recession ends in a year or so, the stock market will become attractive again, people will invest more in solar technology and it will get cheaper. If it doesn't end, energy prices will be depressed and the cost of electricity may drop. I'd wait till 2011-12 to decide.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
If he's in PG&E's service area, same as mine, last I checked electricity was about 13 cents per kWh, but they have this premium pricing scheme called "baseline usage", which during the winter is a rather low figure, and your rate rises to something like 17 cents per kWh or more if you go over. "Baseline usage" is based only on your climate zone, not on the number of kids you have, whether you have electric heat (most people in the SF Bay Area use natural gas for heat), or whether you have EXTREME tech in your house.
Feel free to correct me on those rates, I don't have my bill in front of me.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
We've cut our winter bill from 300 to 150; and our summer bill from 200 to about 100, by doing the following:
I admit the winters are a bit chilly while in the living area, but blankets and sweatshirts take care of that; and you alos get used to it faster than you'd think.
The summers are surprisingly easy at 82 - the movement of the air from the fans makes it 'feel' 5-8 degrees cooler than it is.
Not that I disagree with your point, but only in America will you see people saying their "small car" gets 35 mpg. Unless the car is 5-10+ years old, of course.
People that are successful should be entitled to enjoy their success.
Al Gore's carbon footprint should be measured against people with similar incomes, not against the average Joe.
Having said that rich people that decide to be wasteful, and thus socially irresponsible, should be taxed heavily, but that is an idea that lots of folks, specially in the US, would treat contemptuously.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
*sigh* They can tell you what to do (within reason) if you choose to move to a community with a housing association. All of the plots of land common to the development - coming from a single original grantor, typically - are bound by a covenant, which you agree to as condition of buying/renting/living there. It can be either explicit agreement or implicit agreement (e.g., part of your responsibility when you buy land is to examine the title, which would list the restrictions. Same with actually reading a lease.) These are all private rights and have nothing to do with The Man keeping you down.
Zoning, on the other hand, is the government telling you what you can/cannot do. On the other hand, it should theoretically be less restrictive, since they are supposed to be limited to matters involving public health, safety, & welfare (and public morality. What a lark.)
If you want to have all of your "freedoms," find a nice place out in the country to live. That's what I do. If you want to live with other people, you need to follow the rules.
Mr. Fusion isn't ready yet, but you could probably get a TRIGA...
Need Geek Rock? Try The Franchise!
Ha, by American standards my car is an ant in a sea of crocodiles. And, sadly, my car is old enough to vote.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Really? Every engineer at my university, regardless of discipline, had to pass an "economics for engineers" course (IE420, I think it was). It was nothing *but* the different means of discussing ROI and everything that goes in it. Our final project was a full cradle-to-grave cost analysis of a project with two active options and the "do nothing" option. It had to factor in recycling/salvage, at least two funding options (50%/100% debt), and two different long term interest rate scenarios over a 25+ year life.
While most software engineers may never do a NPV analysis, I guarantee you that most civils will.
Plus you forgot to factor in inflation and the possibility that he financed his installation. Most people either forget inflation or they assume that inflation matches interest on the "do nothing option." Only in horrible times does inflation match interest so that's usually a fallacy, although it probably isn't unreasonable to assume that energy costs will increase at a rate higher than inflation. How much I leave to the experts. Since he probably financed the $36,000 installation, his ROI on the "do nothing option" will be the interest adjusted return on $36k minus the repayment schedule minus his total future cost adjusted power bill.
I've been on slashdot so long I'm starting to get out of touch with the cool stuff if it ain't on slashdot.
Actually, the average estimate of their utility bill is $5000 annually, not $5400. So they're saving $4200 a year with their solar, not $4600. That $37,000 takes about 8.8 years, not about 8.08 years, to break even. The overall ROI also reduces commensurately. But it's still in the ballpark, still under 9 years payback, still well worth the investment over 30 years.
--
make install -not war
Your comment seems better suited to someone who was trying to go off the grid completely. The author was merely playing with the technology, getting a feel for it while at the same time hoping to 1) retain some value that would otherwise go to the power company, and 2) reduce the environmental effects of his family's otherwise unmodified lifestyle.
They're much the same reasons my wife bought a hybrid sedan.
Luke, help me take this mask off
Instead of generating electricity to power an inverter to run the electric water heater (and possibly household heating) he should have harvested how water into a heatbank. That would be more efficient as there are fewer conversions in the process. I'm surprised that he didn't do more thorough research, or than the suppliers didn't offer a more complete solution
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
So Al Gore uses comparable energy and wants everyone else to use less. That doesn't sound like a hypocrite at all.
... [Al Gore] puts money in to carbon offset funds.
Don't you mean Al Gore operates carbon offset funds as a business and gets OTHERS to put money into them?
And while we're at it, what evidence do we have that these "carbon offset" operations actually sequester any significant amount of carbon for geologic time?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
One thing that's not mentioned is that it's likely they live in an area with progressive electricity costs - One figure I saw was 11.4 cents per kwh for their first kwh, 35.5 for their last. Ouch...
Thus, 'undersizing' their system(for now), makes sense - they eliminate the highest cost bracket except for Dec-Jan when the panels are generating the least amount of power, and have insignificant bills in the summer when the panels are most productive. Each additional watt he installed would have cost just about the same as the previous one, but there's points where each resulting kwh doesn't give him the same return. Given the various information available, it sounds like he sized it right at a sweet spot. He'd be able to get a good idea of electricty usage from historical bills, there's charts for how much solar power to expect in different locations and at what times of the year, etc...
Don't forget that it's at least somewhat of a test system - he's reviewing them. Hmm.... He's doing a review, on a professional site he's a paid reviewer for... Maybe the panels are doubly tax-deductable! ;)
I don't read AC A human right
[A re-post of my original comment to the original story from a few months ago]
Guys -- you all seem to be neglecting the recent developments in solar financing.
(Disclaimer -- I do work for SolarCity http://solarcity.com/ [solarcity.com], a leading installer of residential solar arrays in the SF Bay Area and beyond. I won't make a totally shameless plug here, I'm trying to be fair to the other good and clever solar companies out there. A rising tide lifts all boats!)
By bringing in a 3rd party commercial owner via an Operating Lease or Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) structure, the customer can save money from solar on Day 1.
The 3rd party (an investment fund, or perhaps the solar company themselves) owns the system and claim the full range of available incentives. Commercial owners can take accelerated depreciation on the system, and can utilize the full 30% federal tax credit , and they also get whatever state/local/utility incentives are available as per usual. The customer would have ZERO down-payment, and makes monthly payments over a period of ~15-18 years. There is no lien on the house. The tax investor receives a reasonable return on their investment over time, the installer makes reasonable margins on the installation, and the customers can save money from Day 1. Everybody wins!
So to use the parent submitter's house as an example of what we can do -- For a $400/month average bill in Sunnyvale, CA, we might recommend a 7.7 kW DC system. Assuming the customer had decent credit (720 FICO), we would require no down payment, and then charge monthly lease payments of $216/mo, for 15 years. The monthly payments do go up at 3.9% per year (we could alternatively have 0% escalation, but of course that would require a higher starting payment and so it's harder to show savings right away... there are many possible variations here. Also remember that local PG&E utility rates are increasing at >5% per year on average).
With this 7.7kW system, they might expect their average monthly bill to go from $400 to $99 per month. Add the $216/month payment, and their new average monthly electricity cost is (216 + 99) = $315/month, for immediate savings of ~$85/mo!!
The installers offering these plans usually include full service/maintenance for the life of the lease, including replacement of the DC/AC inverter if necessary.
The customer is given the opportunity to purchase the system after years 6/10/15, or if they have to move or sell their house. The panels are warranted by the manufacturers to last 25+ years at 80-90%+ kWh output, so a long-term buy-and-hold strategy is solid. Or, if the customer looks around in 15 years and sees a better/cheaper technology, or just doesn't wish to renew or buy out), they are free to end the lease and we'll remove the panels at our cost.
The customer who understands Net Present Value (NPV) calculations can easily demonstrate that this offers far superior savings compared to either a) doing nothing, or b) purchasing the system for cash.
So before you all roll your eyes about solar being a poor investment with a many-year paybacks, please consider such alternative financing approaches.
Solar PV is a good replacement for utility electricity, as this article demonstrates.
Solar heating of water is supposed to be even more economical. The equipment is cheaper (basically a black pipe looped across area), and captures a lot more than 20% of the sun's power in the heated water. The only problem is that the extra power not consumed by using the hot water (washing or heating the building's air) is lost, dissipated through the system, or discharged when it exceeds even the water tank's heat storage capacity. But the tank can be made very large, and its heat can be converted to electricity (inefficiently, but better than losing it). You don't get to send unlimited surplus power back to a "bottomless reservoir" like the surplus PV electric to the utility, but some large tank should be sufficient to store all the extra heat. And perhaps store some extra PV power beyond what the electric utility will stop taking when the net annual utility consumption reaches zero. Elevating the water stores energy at close to 90% efficiency (the multiplied efficiencies of the elevating electric pump and the electric turbine in the downpipe).
It seems that there's a compelling case for installing both, and using a large tank as storage that increases the total efficiency substantially beyond the basic operating parameters. Which sounds like it's even better than the 3-4x+ 30 year ROI from just the PV demonstrated in the article.
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make install -not war
What's half-assed is your comprehension skills.
Come on guys, it's useless to be comparing the bills when everyone's rates are different. If you need to compare, try KWH or something. The OP's bill is useful in that it determines how cost effective his install is, but not the rest of you.
Specifically, NiMo power is dirt cheap: I wish I still paid it. I don't know about Buffalo, but there are some municipalities upstate that are even cheaper.
Go solar without buying a system. You can actually save money right from the start depending on your utility rates. Check it out: http://www.jointhesolution.com/pskishter
Considering he originally claimed "It is estimated to pay for itself within 10 years", would it be asking too much for him to address that issue in his six month follow up? He barely mentions finances at all, except that his bill for 6 months with solar was less than his January bill last year.
That's impressive, sure, but doesn't give me a clue as to whether he's on track to a 10-year pay back.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Questions: How much does the array increase property taxes? Insurance? I don't ever see those factored into the equation when talking about ROI. What is the yearly maintenance?
I live in Texas, and was interested in installing solar panels a few years ago, but back-of-the-envelope calculations made me decide that it was way too expensive. It seemed the savings from PV would not even pay for the increased insurance and property taxes due to the array.
I would be glad to be proven wrong, but I am still skeptical of the ROI figures I see here.
Thanks in advance for the info.
I appreciate your non-extremist view, and accept that a former VP might have requirements that I don't, but even granting that, Al does seem to be providing a poor example.
It is perfectly reasonable to expect that he live in a smaller house than he does (hello Harry Truman -- or Dwight Eisenhower)and travel less (Remote presentations via teleconference, anyone?).
Not saying Al is a hypocrite, but I would prefer to see a sermon than hear one.
This isn't a normal year... we're at solar minimum, with greater than average cloud cover over most areas, in winter. Basically, sans ice age, solar panels will never receive less energy than they do right now.
I remember reading about solar shingles a few years ago, how it was supposed to be the next wave of solar power for the home, the price was lower for installation, etc. I did read that they were a bit less efficient, but you were able to cover a much larger area of your roof for the price, thereby more than offsetting the disadvantages.
Fast forward to today, everywhere I look people are still installing solar panels and I haven't seen a single new article, blog or discussion about solar shingles. Was the technology flawed?
I'd love some feedback on this, because there's a possibility I might build a home in the foreseeable future, and I'm definitely intending on going solar for both electricity and water, maybe even a heat pump. Proper insulation is a given, energy efficiency appliances, passive solar design. I'd love to shoot the works on this project.
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
Thanks, thinSkin, for writing up a summary that implies the article demonstrates solar is somehow "not worth it" once winter hits. The article, in fact, suggests the exact opposite... that while energy savings are lower during the winter than during the summer, that they are still substantial, and that his entire electricity bill for the past 6(ish) months is roughly equal to his electric bill for just January 2008. In other words, one would have to be stupid to look at his data and say solar doesn't help during the winter.
Summary should have read more like:
Switching to Solar Power -- 6 months later
"Slashdot readers may remember an article regarding ExtremeTech's Loyd Case's experiences with solar power for the home after one month of usage. During that time six months ago, the author saw huge returns on his investment, but what happened once winter arrived? While it's no surprise solar power generation is expected to dwindle during the winter, Loyd compares solar power data of the last six months and determines that solar power is still worth the time and money."
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
I live in a neighborhood with a neighborhood covenant that restricts, for one, dishes and antennas that extend beyond the roof of the house or sit on the front of the house. While this may cause some inconvenience, the same neighborhood covenant also prevents someone from leaving a broken-down vehicle up on cinder blocks in his front yard for an indeterminate amount of time. Ultimately, it protects the value of my house and my neighborhood by making sure I don't live near unsightly things that will lower my property value. Neighborhood covenants aren't for everyone, but they do help mitigate risk of property value depreciation if such mitigation is more valuable to you than the "right" to keep the externally-visible parts of your home & yard looking trashy.
I pity the foo that isn't metasyntactic
Amazing.
By comparison I have a 3 bedroom townhouse in Sydney, Australia. 2 adults, 2 kids. A few computers, efficient lights, no air/co, cooking and water heating is gas. I work at home, so I use stuff during the day. The house is in the inner city, so smaller than country houses but nonetheless bigger than most around here.
Looking at a random bill, it was $153. 15 November 2007 - 15 Feb 2008. So that's $50 per month (those are Aussie dollars, recently worth almost the same as USD, but now YOUR economy has collapsed, worth about 0.7 USD - I don't understand it either).
Most electricity recent bill $181 for 3 months. $60 per month. Less than that in USD.
My gas [that's not petrol, but gas you use for cooking and water heating] bills are about the same, $180 - 200 per 3 months.
We don't use coal or wood fires (the temperatures stay fairly reasonable all the time, really. We have a gas heater we use a bit in summer, and on those really hot days - like today - we use fans and sweat a little).
Anyway, that makes overall energy expenditure about $330 per 3 months, 110 per month, that's USD 77 per month.
What are you folks doing?
"Cats like plain crisps"
Carbon credits are basically at tradeable "carbon ration": want to use fore than your fair share then buy from some else or someone that is sinking carbon.
Carbon offsetting is a much easier concept to scam as no carbon trading needs to happen.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
"....years. Alas, that's the price one pays for being an early adopter. But when I look at my power bill, I still have a nice, warm feeling inside. "
Isn't that the "REAL" reason to be green, for that "Warm feeling inside"... Proving once again that environmentalist are more in tune with their "feelings" than the real hard core science of how our planet works.
Hey, I got a fuzzy feeling for you... I didn't WASTE $40K that will take 40 years to recoup energy savings --- If not more, the #'s were kinda fuzzy logic in the original article. PLUS, he was using rebates and federal tax credits, so WE paid to help him do this or it would NOT be anywhere near cost effective... Thats a wealth transfer out of my wallet by "UNCLE SAM" - THEIVES! On Top of all that, he stated it would save 6.6Tons of GHG... I can suggest you save that by shutting down your frick'n computers at night! or turning thermistats down while out of house, or quit going to starbucks for latte's!!
WHEN are people gonna wake up about this SCAM. I hope they one day come up with the magic bullet of 90% efficent pannels, etc, but till then you are just thowing your money away that could of helped your family or some poor person that needed some assistance. In the mean time, I'll let Ed Beagly Jr. & Jay Leno D7ck it out to see who has the biggest solar pannels and turbines.
--- Relax, that mass muderer is just trying to reduce our carbon footprint, one fetus at a time...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It won't make solar power better, it's still just electronic cars being better than gasoline ones.
Jeez.
That guy REALLY hates his neighbors.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
I'm sorry, what can I do to help?
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
You can easily fix your bedroom being hotter than the other rooms several ways. Floor vents between walls to draw the cool air from room to room. In your situation a fan powered between wall unit. Small and cheap fix.
If the wall solution is not possible. Use fans in the hallway to your room to move the air along. You can have the window in your room open a crack to allow the pressure in the room to drop just enough to make pushing or pulling the air more efficient.
At a little extra cost. There are also hollow baseboards with fans in then that run along a wall at floor level or ones that run along the ceiling. These can be plain box shape or fancy decorative. Whatever you choose there is information on the net to solve apartment issues like this.
Actually, my Sequoiadendron gigantea appears to line up with the apparent target of the 3-dish ridgeline array, but I doubt he'll still be depending on those in the 15 or so years it'll take for us to blot out that bit of sky.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
The lower angle means less light hitting the panels on my roof.
Does somebody has (pointers to) measurements about the efficiency of solar panels at the vertical walls?
I've read an article of an architect, who built a house in 2007 with panels on all outside walls and the roof. He argued that:
I don't remember if he also covered the windows with something "panel-like".
The picture of the house did look fine, however, you cannot paint the walls ;-) what can be an opportunity for some houses, but the individually is very limited.
Paintballs filled with right guard?
I was honestly thinking that Cekander was maltreated at some point, and perhaps could use something positive and hopeful.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
at my house
My ism, it's full of beliefs.