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Solar Panels For Every Home?
Hugh Pickens writes "David Crane and Robert F.Kennedy Jr. write in the NY Times that with residents of New Jersey and New York living through three major storms in the past 16 months and suffering sustained blackouts, we need to ask whether it is really sensible to power the 21st century by using an antiquated and vulnerable system of copper wires and wooden poles. Some have taken matters into their own hands, purchasing portable gas-powered generators to give themselves varying degrees of grid independence. But these dirty, noisy and expensive devices have no value outside of a power failure and there is a better way to secure grid independence for our homes and businesses: electricity-producing photovoltaic panels installed on houses, warehouses and over parking lots, wired so that they deliver power when the grid fails. 'Solar panels have dropped in price by 80 percent in the past five years and can provide electricity at a cost that is at or below the current retail cost of grid power in 20 states, including many of the Northeast states,' write Crane and Kennedy. 'So why isn't there more of a push for this clean, affordable, safe and inexhaustible source of electricity?' First, the investor-owned utilities that depend on the existing system for their profits have little economic interest in promoting a technology that empowers customers to generate their own power. Second, state regulatory agencies and local governments impose burdensome permitting and siting requirements that unnecessarily raise installation costs. While it can take as little as eight days to license and install a solar system on a house in Germany, in the United States, depending on your state, the average ranges from 120 to 180 days."
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For my house in NJ, we got a quote for about $30,000 (of which we would pay $10,000 out of pocket) to put solar panels on our roof. We also were being asked to cut down 4 trees in order to get optimal sunlight. After hurricane Sandy, we instead bought a $450 3270 watt generator which is portable, won't be damaged outside, and can be shared with neighbors if need be.
Note also that if you want to make your house off-the-grid (as option) with solar, that requires much more expense. Batteries, inverter switches, etc.
Housing and condo boards will also be total assholes about this. I've had them browbeat me about satellite dishes even after showing evidence that there's a federal law that says they can't tell me how many dishes I'm allowed to have (I had 2). All they care about is that every house looks the same and their devotion to local housing politics pays off in the form of pushing people around.
Sure solar panels have gone down in price. I put a 9kW solar array on my roof 2 years ago, using grid-tied microinverters. The catch is that if the grid power goes out, the microinverters shut down so they are not putting juice onto the grid and zapping linesmen. This means the solar panels are not able to do anything during a power outage. If you want the panels to run, then there will be a huge investment in a battery system with a charge controller, load shedding and rather expensive batteries, along with an auto transfer switch to cut you off from the grid... these things easily make the solar panels the cheap item in the system.
Inexhaustible? Has no one seen The Matrix? When the machines take over, we are going to have to block out the sun. What use are your silly solar panels then?
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Living on the Gulf Coast, the threat of strong storms has always been one of my reasons for being reluctant to plunk down a large investment on Solar Panels.
How well did existing Solar Panels fair in New York after Sandy?
I like how the summary answers its own question - and gets the answer completely wrong. Sure, government red-tape doesn't help. And I'm sure the utilities aren't falling over themselves to promote this (why would they???)
But the simple, plain fact of the matter is that, unless its being subsidised by the taxpayer, installing solar costs the same as your electricity bill for the next 15-30 years, depending on where you are and how capable your system is. That means your panels are paid off just as they reach the end of their useful life. And if you have batteries, you've likely had to replace them before you've paid them off.
The average person looks at effectively paying their electricity bill for 30 years up-front and says, "No, thanks!"
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I have a 1800 sq. ft. house, by no means huge, basically average sized. I put 39 230 watt panels on the roof and I easily generate far beyond my usage - under real world conditions, a bright sunny day in June (in Michigan) I generate about 7.5kW steady all day long. The house idles at about 500 watts (refridgerator, one computer as a server, some fluorescent lights here and there that are left on almost always, nat. gas furnace fan, etc. things like that)
I like solar and geothermal energy sources for home based power. I am also a pragmatist that realizes simply legislating that everyone install solar panels for a wide scale would be financially ruinous. I think you could go about this with a hybrid approach that could allow the market to do what it does best while steering people to a greener future.
Start by saying that all new (and remodeled) buildings must includes support for 10% of their anticipated energy needs from a renewable source (let the source be up to the customer) and the switching equipment required for the grid. This will be a small enough amount that it can be met with a minimal number of solar panels or other sources. Importantly this will allow time for electricians, home builders, retailers and the like to start getting to understand renewable energy without being overwhelming. It will also allow for things like the switching equipment for the grid to start getting put in place.
Every four years after this starts you increase the amount of energy required by 10%. The increase is slow enough to give the market time to react and bring products, expertise and the like to bear. This is also slow enough to allow competition to build and for prices to benefit from economies of scale.
By the time the rate increases from 10% to 20% the market will have had time to develop skills, materials and everything else that is needed. This avoids a crisis that would come from simply mandating a significant amount come from renewable energy to begin with when the present market can't possibly meet that demand. This also allows for retrofitting with additional capacity by owners that want to ramp up from 10% to a higher percent.
I put 3KW of panels on my parents' barn roof this summer. Their monthly bill has gone down from an average of $163 a month, to an average of $32 a month. On a $7000 investment. That's a 54 month payback - call it 5 years to make the numbers easy. It's grid tied. Doesn't solve the outage problem, but it certainly is a good investment when there's a 5 year return on investment. Still tied to the grill, yep. That way we can sell the surplus on sunny days. So tell me, am I lying, or am I completely delusional? Or maybe, just maybe, you're working from inaccurate or obsolete information?
"we need to ask whether it is really sensible to power the 21st century by using an antiquated and vulnerable system of copper wires and wooden poles."
Every time there's a hurricane, people ask the power companies, "should we bury the power lines?" And the companies say, "sure, we'll have to charge you this much more in rates, and it'll take this many years" and the consumers say, "yeah, no, forget it."
There's nothing antiquated about overhead power lines. It's an engineering decision with tradeoffs both ways. Neither technology is clearly superior.
Overhead power lines are an obvious eyesore, and go down pretty regularly in extreme weather. (Although they're pretty resilient, too.) Burying power lines has significant costs even after you've got them buried. They're hard and more expensive to repair, they have a shorter lifespan (which most people don't know), and they're are competing for space with all the other crap we've got buried.
Whether its required depends on exactly how grid-independent you want to be. If you're happy with emergency electricity during daylight hours only, then it might not be too bad. This probably isn't quite as bad as it sounds - daylight-hours-electricity would still be enough to keep your freezer frozen, your fridge coolish, your mobile telephone telephoning and your clothes washer washing pretty effectively.
My main concern with the idea is that any hurricane is not likely to leave any solar panels still fixed to your roof.
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I did some research a couple of years ago and the cost recoup was still somewhere between 10-15 years for installing solar just for the cost of the hardware and not including labor. It's hard to put up that kind of capital outlay just to save around $100 on my monthly electricity bill. I decided I could save a lot more money by applying that same amount of money to my mortgage. I keep hearing about new solar technology that is tons more efficient, but where is all that new tech?
They are so predictable, the slightest hint of something being difficult they give up and say it can't be done. We'd still be living in caves rubbing two sticks together if it was up to you guys.
So it might be cloudy sometimes. Well maybe there is a way to store electricity when there is a surplus and feed it out again when there is high demand. There are dozens of technologies available to do this from batteries to pumped storage and everything in between (oh yes I know someone will reply to me to say that won't work because conversion losses or whatever so we shouldn't bother).
Also this grid thing might be a good idea, that way if it is sunny in one place but cloudy in another people can share (but oh no it won't completely replace all nuclear coal and gas fired power stations in the whole US so we shouldn't bother).
Do you know how many new houses were built in the last decade housing boom? I don't know either but just consider if even a small PV panel of a couple of square meters was on each one, the cost would be much less through economies of scale and it would make a significant dent in energy demands (but oh no it won't completely replace all nuclear coal and gas fired power stations in the whole US so we shouldn't bother).
And yes most states now have laws that prevent HOAs restricting the use of PV.
It may be a state to state thing, but here in Colorado:
Colorado law (C.R.S. 38-30-168)
Associations are not permitted to prohibit the installation of solar panels on a unit or property which is owned by a member of the association. Any such prohibition in the governing documents of an association is void and unenforceable.
We have 35 panels on our roof. We lost nine trees during Sandy, but there was no damage to the solar panels. We also have solar canopies and things like that all over town, and I only saw minor damage in one installation. Our only real vulnerability is if a tree falls on the panels themselves.
In the Netherlands there are a few (relatively) simple rules that need to be adhered to. The upside is that there are mandated nationwide through all municipialities.
- on a angled roof the solar panels must fall in the same flat surface and angle of the roof without protruding.
- on a flat roof the solar panels must not be visible from the street, this implies about 2 feet of space around the edges.
Ofcourse there are few exceptions:
- trackers, those need permits, even in the backyard.
- if you want to install panels on the facia of the building you need permits
This gives a lot of freedom and covers the "simple man" home owner. And it also prevents some of the installations seen in Germany which are frankly hideous. They might be giving a bit too much freedom there.
One of the issues raised by the original poster is the (backup) power issue. Pretty much all solar installations are of the Grid-Tie type, this means that they will not operate when the utilities power is cut. There are a few solutions for sale now which couple grid-tie for feed-in with battery backup for backup for increased self consumption.
I will leave it up to decide for the people themselves if the cost associated with Batteries and pricier Inverter are worth the trade off for backup power. However, when faced with a week long power outage it is nice to atleast have a working fridge so that food doesn't spoil.
My own solar installation wakes up every day and generates power I don't have to pay for. It doesn't need any maintenance or cleaning. Sure it doesn't produce as much in the winter as it does in the summer, but it's still power I don't have to do anything for. It also made me accutely aware of my own power consumption, which can be argued is a good thing. The prices for the panels have come down a really long way since 2010. However, the inverters and batteries have not really gotten any cheaper over the course of a few years.
After hurricane Sandy, we instead bought a $450 3270 watt generator which is portable, won't be damaged outside, and can be shared with neighbors if need be.
And will last for a few hours until your supply of fuel runs out. Remember please that the gas station pumps are electric powered so if the power goes out you cannot get more gas than you have on hand. Some stations have generators of their own but many/most do not.
I'm curious how well solar panels would stand up to the winds in a hurricane. Most of the ones I've seen aren't mounted all that securely and could be ripped off their mounts with sufficient wind force. (not to mention damaged by flying debris)
"In the case of my parents' house (southern Germany, pretty high electricity prices of ~0.25 Euros/kWh), I think a small photovoltaic installation might amortize itself within a few years."
So, the solar panels are cost effective because the cost of electricity is high. The next logical question is, why is German electricity so expensive?
In large part, because of Solar power feed-in tariffs which German utilities are required to pay people who generate surplus solar power with their power panels (so, yeah, it's cheaper to buy your own solar power, than buy solar power from someone else's roof or solar farm, and pay a middle man to markup the power and transmit it).
If they had planned to build a few more nuclear plants a decade or two ago, instead of planning to shut down their existing nuclear plants in a few years, they'd likely have cheaper power by now.
But, yes, if cheap power isn't available from the grid, then you may as well generate your own expensive electricity instead of buying someone else's expensive electricity. Grids make sense only when the power the grid can provide you is cheaper than making your own, or you can get it in quantities larger than you can produce with reasonably priced equipment of your own.
It's not that solar provides a fraction of "needed" power. The issue is that Americans (myself included) use far more than they really "need". People considering solar should look at lowering their energy usage and increasing their home's efficiency as a first step, and then looking at solar after all other improvements have been made.
Lead batteries clean?
Affordable??? (laughing)
Safe? Not sure how solar panels on my roof and a bank of car batteries in my basement is safer than getting my electricity from the grid?
If you recycle them instead of tossing them in a river, yes.
Our 3K array produces about 1200 watts of power under full clouds when it's raining. It's produced as much as 3100 watts in full sun. So yeah, it's degraded, but not useless.
Not interested in giving up anything for the "benefit" of going solar. When solar will provide the 200 amp service my utility does, and have SOME kind of advantage over them, something significant, I'll be interested. But I don't think it'll have a price advantage, ever, nor a reliability advantage, nor any other advantage beyond "conversation piece."
First of all, there are more problems than those listed above.
Issue 1: "anti-islanding."
So, a power line leading up to your home or business goes down. The lineman finds the break, and then goes to the nearest transformer to open the circuit, interrupting power to the side of the line break so that he may safely approach the break in the line and repair it. EXCEPT...unbeknownst to him, you have solar panels, and the other side of the line is live also. He is survived by a wife and 2.4 kids. This is the scenario that 'anti-islanding' prevents. Unfortunately, it falls within the realm of technology intended to prevent loss of life, and thus is very expensive because it must. always. work. The majority of cost for a solar panel installation is this technology; the cost of the panels themselves does not at all reflect the actual cost of HAVING solar panels installed. This is a large part of the 'hidden tax' that one of the linked articles refers to, and isn't exactly optional.
Issue 2: Phase synchronization .01 Hz is a BAD thing on the power grid) and timing, and match. Otherwise, you'll have nasty strange things go on at home. Remember...when you generate your own power, you become a generation facility. Not as big as a coal-fired plant, but you are a generation entity all the same.
This is less of a problem to the overal grid unless solar and other alternative power sources become more widespread. But it'll nuke your own stuff at home. AC power in your outlets is 60 Hz. But think of it as a wave (which it is). The waves rise and fall not only at the same frequency everywhere on the grid, but in sync as well. Otherwise, you get the kind of situation that takes place when you have waves from one place in a pond, and waves in another place in the pond...and the waves don't overlap perfectly. Instead of an even wave pattern of consistent frequency and amplitude, you get something less orderly. Electronics (and at higher voltages, electrical equipment in substations) don't like that very much. So the systems that generate power from solar panels, etc. must detect the phase frequency (with many, many points of precision...a deviation of
Which leads to the Issue 3: the main reason why Germany (and most countries, really) get these things done so much quicker. Germany is tiny compared to the US, both in terms of grid geography and in terms of grid scale. Overall, their grid is also newer, more modern, and more standardized. All of Germany can be managed by one reliability entity, for example. The US has eight, most of which cover a section of grid that larger than all of what is in Germany. On top of this, add those in Canada, because for all intents and purposes, there is no border between our grid and theirs (as evidenced in 2003, when a fault in Ohio ended up pulling down a lot of Quebec and Ontario along with the US Northeast). Also, control at the local realm is much more decentralized; here, we have PUCs for each community. Those PUCs vary widely in their efficiency and (cough) philosophy about their purpose. Some are quite efficient, some are a total pain in the ass...that's how it goes. In some places, like Washington, DC, getting approval is fairly straightforward because the local PUC is very interested in seeing these technologies tried out and tested. In others, you get pinheads with a power trip (no pun intended) who love playing the goalkeeper. This isn't a problem that exists solely for alternative energies, though...the power companies themselves have the same issue with these kinds of people. A pain in the ass is usually a pain in the ass for everyone, and these solar guys shouldn't take it so personally. It's not about them.
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Nah. There is a protocol for storage that includes removing the gasoline from the engine that everyone that has to deal with seasonal equipment knows all about.
This article is ridiculous. I have lived 12 miles inland from the NJ shore for 20 years. In that entire time I've experienced ONE power outage lasting more than 24 hours, that being the recent storm. I got through it partly with the help a gasoline generator that cost about $400.
I am not about to use this experience as a reason to install a power system for tens of thousands of dollars that the storm would have probably blown off the top of my roof and WOULDN'T supply power at night, which is when I would have needed it anyway.
Sure, I get that. So without the incentives, the payback goes from under 5 years, to about 8. Still not seeing how it's financially impractical. And the government certainly wastes money on things with NO payback, let alone a 5 or 8 year payback.
The house has been on the grid for 60 years or so, I suppose, so no new cost there. Wisconsin is a "net-metering" state, where the utility pays retail for the surplus power fed back to the grid. (which, they then sell at a profit to people who subscribe to buy "green energy" from them). Depending on the installation, you either have 2 meters as they do, or you can have 1 meter that runs either forwards or backwards depending on the sun and the load.
Last month's bill, their "on peak" cost was $1. Off peak was $20, and there was about $12 worth of facilities and surcharges. By using the electricity when it's cheap, on loads that can be delayed (water heater, battery bank charger if you go that way), you can change the cost dramatically.
And if some crisis, like say a monster autumn storm, does billions of dollars of damage to infrastructure...
Then you should bury that infrastructure underground in a city like everyone else does and then it will not blow down nor will it flood if you design it sensibly. Trying to mitigate storm damage caused by sticking infrastructure on the top of wooden poles by sticking even more infrastructure on top of poles and roofs is stupid.
Your installation cost for a residential system is extremely cheap ! On average in the USA a 3kW system would be a $17000 investment [1]. Also your annual savings are quite incredible: with the average household cost of electricity in the USA at 11.72c per kWh [2], it would mean that your system produced around 13413 kWh [12x(163-32)/0.1172] over a year ! For a 3kW system this would mean that your magic installation as a capacity factor of 51% !!!! [13413/ (3 x 24 x 365)].
So yes, I don't know if you're delusional but you have been most likely lying by forgetting to speak about the subsidies you received for the installation and feed-in tarif. Oh and if you want to prove your case, please state your location and the supplier of your system...
What is far more annoying than your convenient omission of subsidies is all the idiots solar fanboys moderating you informative when they have absolutely no clue about the real cost of Solar PV energy....
[1] http://www.irena.org/DocumentDownloads/Publications/RE_Technologies_Cost_Analysis-SOLAR_PV.pdf
[2] http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_5_03
http://www.transparency.org
The occasional refurbishing. The fundamental reaction is reversible, but eventually the plates become uneven and potentially short - even if the batteries are well-treated to avoid corrosion of contacts or sulfation. The lifetime of a lead-acid can still be decades though - car batteries routinely last the life of the vehicle, and those are subject to really poor environmental conditions. Compare to the leading battery tech for high-energy-density applications, li-ion: Even if you store them perfectly and don't use them, they'll lose half their capacity in three years and might as well go in the bin by ten.
...and yet somehow, despite these issues, European cities tend to bury their cables and then rarely suffer from power cuts. It might be more expensive but it is clearly not too expensive and it might be considerably cheaper than the installation and maintenance costs of solar cells on every building. As for ground shifts and animals this is clearly an extremely rare occurrence: I experienced more (and longer) power cuts in one year in the US that I had in 21 years in the UK and 10 years in Canada combined. So even if the cost to fix per incident might be higher the vastly reduced number of incidents means it is far from clear which way is the least expensive to maintain.