Why is it so expensive? Up here in Ontario I can get a 10 kilowatt system installed for $32k + tax.
Good question, that is what the companies in Texas are charging.
$40K for a 10 kilowatt system.
BTW, if anyone is in Texas and knows of a better deal, speak up. If the cost were in the 25K range and it was a real company doing it (not a guy and a truck), I'd give it another look.
You're saying it as if $32k + tax were cheap. It isn't. For that kind of money, you could have a 30 kilowatt system in some places.
No, it isn't cheap... He says $32K, my quoted cost was about $40K, both prices are too high.
If I could have a 30 kilowatt system installed for $32K, I would do it. That is close to $1 a watt, at that price, it makes sense, even with our lower power prices...
Here in the Bay Area, one of the few regions where Sunroof actually is operating, residential electric rates start at 16c/kwh (Tier 1), but rise to 19c, 28c, and 34c (Tier 4) as your usage increases over "baseline". If you size your system to knock out Tier 3 & 4 usage via net metering, the payout's much quicker.
Holy crap that is insane... reminds me of why I don't live in California...
Around here, 7 cents per kWh is a reasonable cost, it goes as high as 10 cents per kWh depending on what plan, how much you use, or if you're in a co-op, etc...
If you combine net metering with time-of-use metering, the payout time can be even sooner, as the Weekday (Monday-Friday), "summer" (May-October), Tier 4 rate reaches 49c/kwh at times of high demand and 38c/kwh at medium demand. The high demand period runs 1pm-to-7pm, and medium-demand runs 10am-to-1pm and 7pm-to-9pm, so the sweet-spot daylight times for solar are generally net-metered at medium-demand and high-demand rates. Notably, this means that west-facing solar panels get a sweeter payback than either east-facing or south-facing on a typically-sloped roof.
Fair enough, so solar makes sense there only because of the completely nuts system of power rates that California has.
In other words, solar doesn't make sense on its own, but it does if you mess around with the market enough to make it work.
The wholesale cost of power in Texas is in the 2.5 cent per kWh range, give or take, the rest of the cost is delivery and profit for the two companies that provide service (the retail power seller and the power delivery company that runs the lines).
Electric power just isn't that expensive to make. If you want 100% wind energy, double that cost, it is about 5 cents per kWh wholesale, Texas makes more wind power than any other state.
If you oversize your system and try to get a net payment from the utility, they only pay about 3c/kwh for excess power.
Yes, because that is what power really costs... They are raping you at those higher levels...
How did you get 40k? A 10kW system costs about 16k in parts (http://www.wholesalesolar.com/grid-tie-packages). Are you seriously saying installation is another 24k?
I have had it quoted... After that I called another company and they were about the same price...
Perhaps there is a business opportunity here if those costs are unreasonable, but that is what the local market is charging...
Of course this also probably explains why no one around here has solar, to the point where I've never seen a house in person with solar on it.
*I'm always running around the house turning off lights in rooms that are unoccupied, ceiling fans running when nobody's home, stuff like that.
:) Ceiling fans probably could use a nice boost to energy efficency, but as for the lights, go with LEDs. The cost and quality have finally reached the point where they make total sense, the payback is a year, 2-3 for rarely used lights, less for often used lights.
My kids often leave the bathroom light on at night, 4 of those round clear 40 watt bulbs. I replaced them this summer with 5 watt LEDs, more light than the old clear bulbs and a whole lot less power. Now instead of 160 watts (and heat that has to be cooled), it is now 20 watts and they are always cool to the touch.
I was feeling really bad about the 780kW-hr or so we used at my house last month, but now I don't feel bad about that at all. Anything over about 20kW-hr/day makes me think we need to conserve more*. But an average of well over 100kW-hr/day? Wow.
I have a 3,800 sqft house that is tall with 20+ foot open ceilings and poor insulation and cheap windows. I keep meaning to get the insulation done, but the windows are going to be really expensive to replace. I've had the house checked with a thermal camera and the windows are my number one issue. Only problem is it'll cost $20K to replace them with something that doesn't suck. It probably will take $50-100 a month off my bill however.
The flip side is that we don't leave stuff on needlessly, only 2 computers run 24/7, the rest are turned off at night most of the time, it is really the AC that hurts. 2/3 of that power use in the summer is cooling this place down to the 72 degrees that I prefer to set the temp at, which I'm aware is low, but if you don't, it gets too warm upstairs due to the open spaces.
Last week it hit 106 degrees in the afternoon, cooling the house to 72 is expensive...:(
Economies of scale: Per kw, whatever ROI you can achieve, it's safe to assume the local power company can generate a lot more energy to both resell and profit cheaper than what you can. That, and you don't have to worry about the 20 year lifespan of equipment, maintenance, and payback. If solar technology is really being mass-produce on the cheap, I'd expect a wider adoption of utility provided solar vs the home owner taking on this investment.
I agree with you... And if it makes economic sense to do it, then by all means, I fully support it...
There is something to consider... the power transmission cost is worth considering...
My home is in a co-op, so I get no choice of power there, but my business is not, it is part of the Texas-New Mexico Power Delivery Company, which runs the power lines you see on the streets. It doesn't sell power, it sells transmission line access.
The actual cost of power that I pay is between 3 and 4 cents per kWh, the difference is transmission line cost.
So solar has to be in the 2 to 3 cent per kWh range to compete with coal, natural gas, and nuclear.
It might get there at utility scale, but I honestly don't see that happening for home installation.
If a utility can get the cost down to 2-3 cents by installing 50 acres of solar, then by all means, please do so, I'm 100% on board with that.
Why would you require "a major breakthrough" when the cost decreases by several percent every year? Or, to put it differently, you've been living in a continuous breakthough that has been happening over the past forty years.
The panels could become free tomorrow, it would only cut the cost to install them by 25% or so...
The cost is in the labor, not the panels...
I could have a complete PV system installed for half of the "labor and inverter and other costs" alone. The US is apparently the only major country in the world with this "labor issue".
Maybe so, the cost to install a home system here is about $4 a watt, all up. I have no idea how that compares to other countries...
Most of the US also has really cheap power, making it hard to make any sense out of it. My home pays about 11 cents per kWh, my office pays even less, under 7 cents per kWh.
I totally get that in places that charge 25+ cents per kWh, solar makes sense. The question becomes, WHY do they charge so much? That is a question worth asking...
Once you factor in things like government subsidies, solar make economic sense for almost everybody, no matter how small your budget. A 20 year pay off is still a 20 year pay off, period.
You have an interesting view of economics.
A 20 year payback might as well be forever... The same money could be better spent in many other things. The money isn't either spent on solar, or nothing...
For example, we replaced our 11 year old 13 SEER HVAC with a 16 SEER dual speed, dual stage unit. It was $18K including some ductwork for a pair of TRANE units, a 5 ton and a 3 ton. The payback period is 10 years on that, less if the cost of power goes up. My electric bill 2 years ago in August was $700, this year it was $500. In the winter it saves a ton of natural gas on heat, not quite as much, but it is a good amount.
But the thing is, the old unit was broken and needed $3,500 in repairs, so it wasn't really $18K for a new one, it was $13K for a new one, $1,500 for some needed ductwork, and the rest in money that was going to be spent anyway.
It isn't a matter of "spend money on solar or have no power", we have power now. Without an HVAC, we'd have no AC, so the math works differently there. 10 year payback is pretty darn good considering we need it anyway and the old one was only going to get MORE OLD.
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Regarding the "20 year payback is a 20 year payback" comment, few people stay in their house for 20 years anymore, if you sell in 5 years, you don't get the 20 year payback. Sure, sure, you say it increases the value of your home, and it probably does somewhat, but that also depends on your market.
Where I live, no one has solar. Or let me be more clear, in a city of 250,000 people, about 150 of them have solar. I have actually NEVER seen solar on anyone's roof, ever. It is that rare around here. So having it doesn't mean as much for property value as it probably does in San Fran (which I'll grant you, probably does do more there).
It simply doesn't make sense for most people, the fact that you do tells me that you see the world quite differently than most people do. Which is fine, but you might want to consider that your blanket statement... might be in error...
Yeah, but the most important number is the cost of electricity, which is _assumed_ to hold constant, rather than go up in price.
That is a fair point, and it is how you get my numbers down to just 7 years... by assuming that massive price increases are around the corner.
They might be, my crystal ball isn't working, so I really don't know.
The biggest challenge is that the cost to install a system large enough to make it worth doing is equal to a really nice car. I'd need a 10 kilowatt system just to replace maybe 1/3 of my energy use.
Of course this past month has been pretty high, with the AC running all the time, but we used 4,189 kWh last month. Between that, the natural gas used (cooking, hot water, clothes dryer, etc.) and the monthly fee, the bill was $500 for last month. Now that sounds high, but my total usage for the past year was 29,051 kWh, so my average is 2,420 kWh per month.
$40,000 would install a 10 kilowatt solar system and it would offset about $110 a month of my electric bill.
Depends on where you are. Here in Oregon, there are additional subsidies - both state and non-governmental. With these subsidies, my break even point is between 6 and 7 years, so it is a much less risky proposition.
Fair enough... of course, that doesn't mean there is a future in solar being 20% of our nations power any time soon, unless a major breakthrough in cost arrives.
But there is the thing... it already HAS arrived... the cost of the panels isn't that expensive, it is the labor to mount them to your roof, tie them into the grid and your house, add all the other items that are needed.
The panels are what, $1 a watt, give or take? The labor and inverter and other costs are $3 a watt, give or take.
The panels could be free and it would only cut the cost of the install by 25%.
This might never make sense, due to the labor issue...
To be sustainable, selling to the grid makes more sense done at wholesale rates, not at retail rates.
I totally agree, but then the numbers for solar REALLY don't make any sense... The payback varies between 12 years and 17 years for me, depending on the assumptions, and that is WITH net-metering. Remove it and the payback period likely exceeds the useful life of the system.
It will cost, give or take, about $40K to install a 10 kilowatt system on my home.
Returning the 30% federal tax credit back to me puts me at a cost of $28K.
Based on my location in Texas and my current utility rate (total cost) and that I have net-metering, I'll save about $1,400 a year in electricity with such a system.
That puts me at an even 20 year payback period. Now, in fairness, electric rates are not likely to stay the same, adding solar does add something to my home's value, so there is that.
Lets say that electric rates will rise with the rate of inflation, which the government currently says is nearly zero, but will probably rise, then add something to the value of my home, and you get about a 12 year payback period, if you use numbers that favor solar and 17 years if you don't.
What those numbers DON'T take into account is the loss of net-metering, which is a real risk. If too many people go to solar, it will have to go away. If everyone installed solar on their roof and ended up with no electric bill, the power companies would go out of business. Clearly they would actually go out of business long before then, maybe at 20%. You can talk about batteries all you want, but the reality is they likely will get lawmakers to remove net-metering before then.
Regardless, it is a terrible investment, it makes no sense whatsoever from a financial point of view, at least for me. If you pay more than I do for power, then it might make sense for you. I have family in Australia who recently installed solar because they pay more than 25 cents per kWh, so the numbers are quite different there.
I live in Arizona, which is one of the very best places to do solar since it is very sunny, very hot, and a significant portion of your electrical use is for cooling so the panels generate the most when you need it the most AND shade your roof. However they aren't available in this area. Really? I'd the the desert of the southwest would be the first place since, well, that is THE place for solar. I mean ya solar can be used and have some benefit anywhere in the world but the hot, sunny, dry places are where it really works well.
What do you pay for power?
It appears that what Google did is pick two high cost cities to make the project look good at launch. San Fran probably has higher than average electric rates, I would imagine that Arizona has lower than average rates.
... just contact a local system installer. The insolation data for a particular region is already known and publicly available. What will affect your particular system are things like local shading, roof pitch and orientation and cost of installation as affected by your house and lot particulars. Local installers will also be familiar with your utilities solar programs.
I have, the payback period is currently running more than a decade... If you play with the numbers and depending on your assumptions, they were able to get the numbers down to 7 years payback, but there are a lot of "what-ifs" put in there, all in favor of solar.
Put the numbers against it and the number approaches 20 years. The average was 12 years, but even then it could go either way.
That is, frankly, not a good investment, which is why no one around here is installing solar. I imagine in places with higher electric prices, those numbers would change a lot and it does make sense elsewhere.
My point is he's the poster boy for corruption, the very ugly side of America and not someone to be proud of. People who have done far less but don't have the right connections are in jail.
Hey now, stop talking about Hilary... this topic was about Trump!
That doesn't mean they aren't bubbles, or even fully legal. Heck, he operated "Trump University" without a licence. Gee, wonder what business practices where taught there...
This just goes to show that you don't know what you're talking about.
He doesn't run Trump University, he licencees his name and receives royalty payments for its use. I'm sure his name is listed as someone important there, but I'd be shocked if he has given it more than a day or two of his attention.
No, the key point is that after he nearly was forced into personal bankruptcy, he stopped investing much of his own money into any other risky businesses (including those that went bankrupt).
So you're saying that he is smart, learns from his lessons, and protects himself from the downsides to deals?
I guess his point was that he doesn't pay his debts.
Right, so his point is that anyone who has ever filed for BK for any reason is pond scum, unworthy of anyone's consideration for anything.
That is complete crap, the BK laws exist for a reason, to allow an orderly resolution of a person or a business who is unable to pay their debts to resolve the issue and carry on with life.
You really, really don't want to have a nation without BK laws. Russia is a good current example, it is nearly impossible to make debt go away there and it more or less destroys lives and kills business investment.
he thinks that he is smart like that and that it is "legal" and being "honest" has no place in business so why the fuck not...
He is totally honest, perhaps to a fault. He said during the first debate, "I used the laws to my advantage".
So what, you do the same thing when you take tax deductions for your house, kids, etc.
stable and feature-complete Linux desktop which worked well for me
For what it is worth, I think you could have that tomorrow and it wouldn't matter.
The real issue isn't if Linux works and does the job, the real issue is, "why should I switch from Windows to Linux?"
Linux can't have as its primary benefit, "It's not Windows". That reason is not going to move the needle on desktop acceptance of Linux. All the posts in the world here from people saying, "but I've put my wife/girlfriend/parents/etc. on Linux and it is fine" doesn't mean squat. This site is not representative of the cross section of the public, so of course it will have more than its fair share of Linux fans.
What would get people to move from Windows to Linux is having Linux do something that people actually want, that Windows does not do. Back in the Windows 95/98 days, there might have been an argument for that. Even in the early XP days, there were.
Vista was a mess at launch, but the issues were fixed over time and by 2009, both Vista and Windows 7 were fine. For the past 6 years, Windows 7 has grown to more than 50% of the total desktop market because it works very well. Windows 8 got a bad rap, some of it deserved, but by the time 8.1 came, it was largely fine.
So now that 10 is here and is free to the majority of current desktop owners, I'll toss this out... Linux doesn't actually do anything for the average consumer that Windows does not. That is why it no longer has a chance.:(
The assets vanished and resurfaced elsewhere. I don't know why you are standing up for this criminal.
You seem really sure of that information, perhaps you should call the authorities, or better yet, the IRS. They have a reward program for people who turn in tax cheats, and anyone using BK illegally is almost always a tax cheat.
Otherwise, you just have beliefs based in jealousy and envy, and neither is very becoming.
Linux will have a user base of some small size for a long time, but when Mac OS X which costs an arm and a leg (or two) for the hardware has three times the marketshare of Linux (which is free and runs on anything), you know Linux has a problem.
Heck, I'll bet that Windows on Mac has a larger marketshare than Linux Desktop does. How sad is that?
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Why is it so expensive? Up here in Ontario I can get a 10 kilowatt system installed for $32k + tax.
Good question, that is what the companies in Texas are charging.
$40K for a 10 kilowatt system.
BTW, if anyone is in Texas and knows of a better deal, speak up. If the cost were in the 25K range and it was a real company doing it (not a guy and a truck), I'd give it another look.
You're saying it as if $32k + tax were cheap. It isn't. For that kind of money, you could have a 30 kilowatt system in some places.
No, it isn't cheap... He says $32K, my quoted cost was about $40K, both prices are too high.
If I could have a 30 kilowatt system installed for $32K, I would do it. That is close to $1 a watt, at that price, it makes sense, even with our lower power prices...
Here in the Bay Area, one of the few regions where Sunroof actually is operating, residential electric rates start at 16c/kwh (Tier 1), but rise to 19c, 28c, and 34c (Tier 4) as your usage increases over "baseline". If you size your system to knock out Tier 3 & 4 usage via net metering, the payout's much quicker.
Holy crap that is insane... reminds me of why I don't live in California...
Around here, 7 cents per kWh is a reasonable cost, it goes as high as 10 cents per kWh depending on what plan, how much you use, or if you're in a co-op, etc...
If you combine net metering with time-of-use metering, the payout time can be even sooner, as the Weekday (Monday-Friday), "summer" (May-October), Tier 4 rate reaches 49c/kwh at times of high demand and 38c/kwh at medium demand. The high demand period runs 1pm-to-7pm, and medium-demand runs 10am-to-1pm and 7pm-to-9pm, so the sweet-spot daylight times for solar are generally net-metered at medium-demand and high-demand rates. Notably, this means that west-facing solar panels get a sweeter payback than either east-facing or south-facing on a typically-sloped roof.
Fair enough, so solar makes sense there only because of the completely nuts system of power rates that California has.
In other words, solar doesn't make sense on its own, but it does if you mess around with the market enough to make it work.
The wholesale cost of power in Texas is in the 2.5 cent per kWh range, give or take, the rest of the cost is delivery and profit for the two companies that provide service (the retail power seller and the power delivery company that runs the lines).
Electric power just isn't that expensive to make. If you want 100% wind energy, double that cost, it is about 5 cents per kWh wholesale, Texas makes more wind power than any other state.
If you oversize your system and try to get a net payment from the utility, they only pay about 3c/kwh for excess power.
Yes, because that is what power really costs... They are raping you at those higher levels...
How did you get 40k? A 10kW system costs about 16k in parts (http://www.wholesalesolar.com/grid-tie-packages). Are you seriously saying installation is another 24k?
I have had it quoted... After that I called another company and they were about the same price...
Perhaps there is a business opportunity here if those costs are unreasonable, but that is what the local market is charging...
Of course this also probably explains why no one around here has solar, to the point where I've never seen a house in person with solar on it.
a commitment to a just and fair society.
Society is not and never will be fair. Maybe it should be, but it just won't be.
*I'm always running around the house turning off lights in rooms that are unoccupied, ceiling fans running when nobody's home, stuff like that.
:) Ceiling fans probably could use a nice boost to energy efficency, but as for the lights, go with LEDs. The cost and quality have finally reached the point where they make total sense, the payback is a year, 2-3 for rarely used lights, less for often used lights.
My kids often leave the bathroom light on at night, 4 of those round clear 40 watt bulbs. I replaced them this summer with 5 watt LEDs, more light than the old clear bulbs and a whole lot less power. Now instead of 160 watts (and heat that has to be cooled), it is now 20 watts and they are always cool to the touch.
I was feeling really bad about the 780kW-hr or so we used at my house last month, but now I don't feel bad about that at all. Anything over about 20kW-hr/day makes me think we need to conserve more*. But an average of well over 100kW-hr/day? Wow.
I have a 3,800 sqft house that is tall with 20+ foot open ceilings and poor insulation and cheap windows. I keep meaning to get the insulation done, but the windows are going to be really expensive to replace. I've had the house checked with a thermal camera and the windows are my number one issue. Only problem is it'll cost $20K to replace them with something that doesn't suck. It probably will take $50-100 a month off my bill however.
The flip side is that we don't leave stuff on needlessly, only 2 computers run 24/7, the rest are turned off at night most of the time, it is really the AC that hurts. 2/3 of that power use in the summer is cooling this place down to the 72 degrees that I prefer to set the temp at, which I'm aware is low, but if you don't, it gets too warm upstairs due to the open spaces.
Last week it hit 106 degrees in the afternoon, cooling the house to 72 is expensive... :(
Economies of scale: Per kw, whatever ROI you can achieve, it's safe to assume the local power company can generate a lot more energy to both resell and profit cheaper than what you can. That, and you don't have to worry about the 20 year lifespan of equipment, maintenance, and payback. If solar technology is really being mass-produce on the cheap, I'd expect a wider adoption of utility provided solar vs the home owner taking on this investment.
I agree with you... And if it makes economic sense to do it, then by all means, I fully support it...
There is something to consider... the power transmission cost is worth considering...
My home is in a co-op, so I get no choice of power there, but my business is not, it is part of the Texas-New Mexico Power Delivery Company, which runs the power lines you see on the streets. It doesn't sell power, it sells transmission line access.
The actual cost of power that I pay is between 3 and 4 cents per kWh, the difference is transmission line cost.
So solar has to be in the 2 to 3 cent per kWh range to compete with coal, natural gas, and nuclear.
It might get there at utility scale, but I honestly don't see that happening for home installation.
If a utility can get the cost down to 2-3 cents by installing 50 acres of solar, then by all means, please do so, I'm 100% on board with that.
Why would you require "a major breakthrough" when the cost decreases by several percent every year? Or, to put it differently, you've been living in a continuous breakthough that has been happening over the past forty years.
The panels could become free tomorrow, it would only cut the cost to install them by 25% or so...
The cost is in the labor, not the panels...
I could have a complete PV system installed for half of the "labor and inverter and other costs" alone. The US is apparently the only major country in the world with this "labor issue".
Maybe so, the cost to install a home system here is about $4 a watt, all up. I have no idea how that compares to other countries...
Most of the US also has really cheap power, making it hard to make any sense out of it. My home pays about 11 cents per kWh, my office pays even less, under 7 cents per kWh.
I totally get that in places that charge 25+ cents per kWh, solar makes sense. The question becomes, WHY do they charge so much? That is a question worth asking...
Once you factor in things like government subsidies, solar make economic sense for almost everybody, no matter how small your budget. A 20 year pay off is still a 20 year pay off, period.
You have an interesting view of economics.
A 20 year payback might as well be forever... The same money could be better spent in many other things. The money isn't either spent on solar, or nothing...
For example, we replaced our 11 year old 13 SEER HVAC with a 16 SEER dual speed, dual stage unit. It was $18K including some ductwork for a pair of TRANE units, a 5 ton and a 3 ton. The payback period is 10 years on that, less if the cost of power goes up. My electric bill 2 years ago in August was $700, this year it was $500. In the winter it saves a ton of natural gas on heat, not quite as much, but it is a good amount.
But the thing is, the old unit was broken and needed $3,500 in repairs, so it wasn't really $18K for a new one, it was $13K for a new one, $1,500 for some needed ductwork, and the rest in money that was going to be spent anyway.
It isn't a matter of "spend money on solar or have no power", we have power now. Without an HVAC, we'd have no AC, so the math works differently there. 10 year payback is pretty darn good considering we need it anyway and the old one was only going to get MORE OLD.
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Regarding the "20 year payback is a 20 year payback" comment, few people stay in their house for 20 years anymore, if you sell in 5 years, you don't get the 20 year payback. Sure, sure, you say it increases the value of your home, and it probably does somewhat, but that also depends on your market.
Where I live, no one has solar. Or let me be more clear, in a city of 250,000 people, about 150 of them have solar. I have actually NEVER seen solar on anyone's roof, ever. It is that rare around here. So having it doesn't mean as much for property value as it probably does in San Fran (which I'll grant you, probably does do more there).
It simply doesn't make sense for most people, the fact that you do tells me that you see the world quite differently than most people do. Which is fine, but you might want to consider that your blanket statement... might be in error...
You _just_ explained how it was a rational investment.
I did? Hmm, I seem to recall doing just the opposite...
A payback period of between 12 and 17 years is horrible!
It isn't remotely a rational investment.
Yeah, but the most important number is the cost of electricity, which is _assumed_ to hold constant, rather than go up in price.
That is a fair point, and it is how you get my numbers down to just 7 years... by assuming that massive price increases are around the corner.
They might be, my crystal ball isn't working, so I really don't know.
The biggest challenge is that the cost to install a system large enough to make it worth doing is equal to a really nice car. I'd need a 10 kilowatt system just to replace maybe 1/3 of my energy use.
Of course this past month has been pretty high, with the AC running all the time, but we used 4,189 kWh last month. Between that, the natural gas used (cooking, hot water, clothes dryer, etc.) and the monthly fee, the bill was $500 for last month. Now that sounds high, but my total usage for the past year was 29,051 kWh, so my average is 2,420 kWh per month.
$40,000 would install a 10 kilowatt solar system and it would offset about $110 a month of my electric bill.
See the problem? :)
Depends on where you are. Here in Oregon, there are additional subsidies - both state and non-governmental. With these subsidies, my break even point is between 6 and 7 years, so it is a much less risky proposition.
Fair enough... of course, that doesn't mean there is a future in solar being 20% of our nations power any time soon, unless a major breakthrough in cost arrives.
But there is the thing... it already HAS arrived... the cost of the panels isn't that expensive, it is the labor to mount them to your roof, tie them into the grid and your house, add all the other items that are needed.
The panels are what, $1 a watt, give or take? The labor and inverter and other costs are $3 a watt, give or take.
The panels could be free and it would only cut the cost of the install by 25%.
This might never make sense, due to the labor issue...
You're payback is much longer than that unless you have the $28K stuffed in a mattress.
True, but I can borrow the money at 3.5% on my house on a fixed term, so while that isn't free, it is really cheap.
Put your money in a mutual fund and the payback is never, even with the subsidies.
And there is the other side of the coin, what else could you use that same $28K for.
Keep in mind, it really isn't $28K, it is $40K with all of you nice people chipping in $12K to help out.
It really, really, really makes no sense.
To be sustainable, selling to the grid makes more sense done at wholesale rates, not at retail rates.
I totally agree, but then the numbers for solar REALLY don't make any sense... The payback varies between 12 years and 17 years for me, depending on the assumptions, and that is WITH net-metering. Remove it and the payback period likely exceeds the useful life of the system.
It will cost, give or take, about $40K to install a 10 kilowatt system on my home.
Returning the 30% federal tax credit back to me puts me at a cost of $28K.
Based on my location in Texas and my current utility rate (total cost) and that I have net-metering, I'll save about $1,400 a year in electricity with such a system.
That puts me at an even 20 year payback period. Now, in fairness, electric rates are not likely to stay the same, adding solar does add something to my home's value, so there is that.
Lets say that electric rates will rise with the rate of inflation, which the government currently says is nearly zero, but will probably rise, then add something to the value of my home, and you get about a 12 year payback period, if you use numbers that favor solar and 17 years if you don't.
What those numbers DON'T take into account is the loss of net-metering, which is a real risk. If too many people go to solar, it will have to go away. If everyone installed solar on their roof and ended up with no electric bill, the power companies would go out of business. Clearly they would actually go out of business long before then, maybe at 20%. You can talk about batteries all you want, but the reality is they likely will get lawmakers to remove net-metering before then.
Regardless, it is a terrible investment, it makes no sense whatsoever from a financial point of view, at least for me. If you pay more than I do for power, then it might make sense for you. I have family in Australia who recently installed solar because they pay more than 25 cents per kWh, so the numbers are quite different there.
I live in Arizona, which is one of the very best places to do solar since it is very sunny, very hot, and a significant portion of your electrical use is for cooling so the panels generate the most when you need it the most AND shade your roof. However they aren't available in this area. Really? I'd the the desert of the southwest would be the first place since, well, that is THE place for solar. I mean ya solar can be used and have some benefit anywhere in the world but the hot, sunny, dry places are where it really works well.
What do you pay for power?
It appears that what Google did is pick two high cost cities to make the project look good at launch. San Fran probably has higher than average electric rates, I would imagine that Arizona has lower than average rates.
How many homes around you have solar on them?
... just contact a local system installer. The insolation data for a particular region is already known and publicly available. What will affect your particular system are things like local shading, roof pitch and orientation and cost of installation as affected by your house and lot particulars. Local installers will also be familiar with your utilities solar programs.
I have, the payback period is currently running more than a decade... If you play with the numbers and depending on your assumptions, they were able to get the numbers down to 7 years payback, but there are a lot of "what-ifs" put in there, all in favor of solar.
Put the numbers against it and the number approaches 20 years. The average was 12 years, but even then it could go either way.
That is, frankly, not a good investment, which is why no one around here is installing solar. I imagine in places with higher electric prices, those numbers would change a lot and it does make sense elsewhere.
Just because a judge ruled that he is liable doesn't mean he runs the company or actually does anything with it day-to-day.
Try again... your liberal bias is showing... Go run back to Hilary and her e-mail server full of deleted secrets...
My point is he's the poster boy for corruption, the very ugly side of America and not someone to be proud of. People who have done far less but don't have the right connections are in jail.
Hey now, stop talking about Hilary... this topic was about Trump!
That doesn't mean they aren't bubbles, or even fully legal. Heck, he operated "Trump University" without a licence. Gee, wonder what business practices where taught there...
This just goes to show that you don't know what you're talking about.
He doesn't run Trump University, he licencees his name and receives royalty payments for its use. I'm sure his name is listed as someone important there, but I'd be shocked if he has given it more than a day or two of his attention.
No, the key point is that after he nearly was forced into personal bankruptcy, he stopped investing much of his own money into any other risky businesses (including those that went bankrupt).
So you're saying that he is smart, learns from his lessons, and protects himself from the downsides to deals?
Why is this a bad thing again?
To me suspend is a nice to have, not a must have.
Yes, because you are not a normal computer user, you're an extreme user who doesn't reflect the mean.
The mean and most people to either side of it want suspend.
I guess his point was that he doesn't pay his debts.
Right, so his point is that anyone who has ever filed for BK for any reason is pond scum, unworthy of anyone's consideration for anything.
That is complete crap, the BK laws exist for a reason, to allow an orderly resolution of a person or a business who is unable to pay their debts to resolve the issue and carry on with life.
You really, really don't want to have a nation without BK laws. Russia is a good current example, it is nearly impossible to make debt go away there and it more or less destroys lives and kills business investment.
he thinks that he is smart like that and that it is "legal" and being "honest" has no place in business so why the fuck not...
He is totally honest, perhaps to a fault. He said during the first debate, "I used the laws to my advantage".
So what, you do the same thing when you take tax deductions for your house, kids, etc.
stable and feature-complete Linux desktop which worked well for me
For what it is worth, I think you could have that tomorrow and it wouldn't matter.
The real issue isn't if Linux works and does the job, the real issue is, "why should I switch from Windows to Linux?"
Linux can't have as its primary benefit, "It's not Windows". That reason is not going to move the needle on desktop acceptance of Linux. All the posts in the world here from people saying, "but I've put my wife/girlfriend/parents/etc. on Linux and it is fine" doesn't mean squat. This site is not representative of the cross section of the public, so of course it will have more than its fair share of Linux fans.
What would get people to move from Windows to Linux is having Linux do something that people actually want, that Windows does not do. Back in the Windows 95/98 days, there might have been an argument for that. Even in the early XP days, there were.
Vista was a mess at launch, but the issues were fixed over time and by 2009, both Vista and Windows 7 were fine. For the past 6 years, Windows 7 has grown to more than 50% of the total desktop market because it works very well. Windows 8 got a bad rap, some of it deserved, but by the time 8.1 came, it was largely fine.
So now that 10 is here and is free to the majority of current desktop owners, I'll toss this out... Linux doesn't actually do anything for the average consumer that Windows does not. That is why it no longer has a chance. :(
The assets vanished and resurfaced elsewhere.
I don't know why you are standing up for this criminal.
You seem really sure of that information, perhaps you should call the authorities, or better yet, the IRS. They have a reward program for people who turn in tax cheats, and anyone using BK illegally is almost always a tax cheat.
Otherwise, you just have beliefs based in jealousy and envy, and neither is very becoming.
I had to have a chuckle at that one...
Linux will have a user base of some small size for a long time, but when Mac OS X which costs an arm and a leg (or two) for the hardware has three times the marketshare of Linux (which is free and runs on anything), you know Linux has a problem.
Heck, I'll bet that Windows on Mac has a larger marketshare than Linux Desktop does. How sad is that?