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Who's gone Solar

scratchpad

scratchpad

Active member
Joined
Jul 13, 2003
Location
SJV
Moto(s)
PAN AMERICA
For their home. Cant find any Solar threads here.

With the (California) net metering policy changing soon Solar has finally peaked my interest. Ideally, id pay for the system. More than likely still be tied to the grid. Not looking for any true up costs at the end of the year. Have very little to no monthly electric bill. I dont plan on moving out of state for at least 20 years.

All i know is that solar panels turn sunlight into usable energy for the home.
 
Interesting. From a few friends that have solar, they were complaining a lot about the new policy changes ... mostly it messed up their ROI as they will be getting a lot less $$ for the electricity they sell back to PG&E.

It seems having a massive battery system is a way to go ... but then, even more money. But at least that way you store the power you produce during the day to have available later. Vs selling your excess to PG&E for some low amount (that is subject to change (probably even lower) in the future).

Seems a basic system works great when it is hot and sunny and people are home during the day and want to use AC. You are making lots of power and also need it at that time.

But if it is a sunny day, say 65 ish degrees, and all people in the home are out of the house (working, riding motorcycles, etc), so really near zero electrical use ... then your generation goes to PG&E and they toss you some pennies. Then the family is home at night, cleaning up dirty FOX riding gear from their day time dirt bike ride, baking some pizzas, using electric dryer, hot water tank, maybe night is cool and turn on the heat pump for some heat ... so, you are then paying PG&E $$$ for electricity.

Seems all my friends that have done this are fairly wealthy and did it mostly for the "being green" aspect and tried to convince themselves they would break even or maybe come out a bit ahead. But for each of them it seems like a lot of issues/concerns and stuff to complain about. :)

I priced out a full Tesla system with batteries and all and I can't remember the exact dollar figure, it was shocking and unobtainable for me.
 
Being a retired Solar Contractor and living with it for 45 years (off grid on batteries) I've never had a single utility bill or power failure. For grid connected systems the economics are always favorable and the increase in home value will typically be higher than the installed cost. The monthly savings are enough to cover the cost of the loan. As far as have battery back up by far the best option is an EV that can do V2H (power the home if needed). As odd as it is you can buy an EV for LESS then the cost of the batteries in it, in many cases. The car is just icing on the cake! If you can't use the generous tax credits it can still provide a positive cash flow with a loan. Leasing is a no out of pocket option but with a much lower ROI but still positive. There is little reason not to go solar even with the utilities screwing it up.
 
My 2 cents. Solar will pay off long term. Both my daughters have homes with solar. Both were installed when they bought their homes used. The solar install did not raise the cost of their homes compared to other homes on the market when they purchased their home. Daughter in Texas has a plug in hybrid and a full electric car. My daughter in CA has not gone EVs yet. For me at turning 73 this year I do not think solar will pencil out.

I do have solar and 540 Ah of lithium on my RV. Love being able to run everything (12v AC) without starting the generator.
 
A BARFer hooked me up with ROAM Solar years ago. Very happy.
 
our solar experience

Back in August 20014 we started our Power Purchgase Agreement with Solar City (now part of Tesla). We paid about $14k up fron for a 4.65 kw System. We put if over an old roof. We did this becasue our electric 485 gallon hot tub heating bills were killing us.

Solar City replaced all of the system it under waranty. Its working fine now.

Solar City credits us about 10c per unit for under-production - though their acconting and mine do not agree - after 8 full years we differ by only about $50.

At this point we have broken even (under the old rules).

Now our roof needs replacing. We will not do that in winter - its raining! So we need do do it in for-sure sunshine (no rain) and will lose valuable summer production credit. My concern is that Solar City's crew is over-subscribed - and our loss of production time wil lbe a lot longer than is fair. So we are faacing the option of hiring a qualified contrator to remove-replace the PV system.

Frankly - its dumb to mix up roof and PV. Keep the PV out in the desert, and leave our roofs to be just that.

If you have a "Back-40" - put the PV system over there, separate from your roof. Or make the PV system your carport or shade structure.
 
Starpower said:
As far as have battery back up by far the best option is an EV that can do V2H (power the home if needed). As odd as it is you can buy an EV for LESS then the cost of the batteries in it, in many cases. The car is just icing on the cake!
Click to expand...

Are you assuming the EV is sitting at the house during the sun shine parts of day? What about the case where a person drives the EV to work and back. Leaves like 7:30am, gets home like 6pm, then this doesn't work??
 
I figure anyone that can afford a new EV can also afford to have a cheapy little craigslist civic on backup duty.
 
My wife runs a daycare in our house and the TV, lights, HVAC is running all day during the week. Our electric bill is often times $300 or more every month so solar would make sense for us but we’re thinking of selling the house in 2-3 years and moving somewhere cheaper so we can retire.
Kinda wondering if going solar would make sense for us at this point.
I think the monthly utility savings would be equal to the solar equipment payment.
 
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needles said:
You’d lock in NEM2 for the new owners?
Click to expand...

Yep, we’re the perfect candidate for solar since we use a lot of electricity every day.
I’m sure it would increase the value of our home too. I oughta look into it some more
 
I think the changes to net metering will drive prices down. The industry is going to have to get more efficient.
 
I have solar but it's 20+ years old. anyone that can help me figure out the best way to replace what I have with more efficient / higher output panels would be neat.
 
NEM2 will be continued for anyone who has it or gets it until new deal starts (April?).

We use around 2400kwh/yr. And got 7 panel system sized to 108%. Around 15% IRR. From Sun Power. No battery. Eventually probably end up w an EV that can be grid connected to power our home when there’s an outage. Most people don’t realize it, but EV batteries are about 7x larger than a Tesla backup battery.

It’s all just math.
 
Okay - its a bit different for me being in Oz, but the principle remains the same. Smaller PV panel system at 4kw, 5kwhr battery with blackout system.

Pool pump, washing machine, dishwasher all used during daylight hours only since we still pump power back into the grid once the battery has fully charged. There's enough power in the battery to see us through the night until morning when the system gets recharged. We use so little grid power, out bills are meagre.

The blackout system kicks in when the grid fails (which happens here every so often with trees over power lines etc). Not all battery systems will allow this - it will need to be specified when purchasing the system. Our neighbour doesn't have it and was green with envy when our house was lit up and his couldn't be when a truck took out a power pole.

I have each panel individually inverted as we have shadowing from trees on the panels at various times during the day. If one panel is in part shadow, it negatively impacts the output of the other panels if the are inverted in series. A small extra cost for more output. And buy the best panel you can afford - mine are Canadian are have excellent output. Some of the cheaper (Chinese) panels are very basic.

Its really a matter of being aware when to use and when not to use your finite amount of battery power.
 
Thanks for the great information. Im on SCE grid so im not sure how their rates compare to PG&E

Issue is my previous 12 month power usage wont be anywhere near accurate for what my future usage will be.

We are very frugal in the summer when its over 100 for 3 months straight with thermostat at 78 usually only turned on to get temp down to sleep. We use the pool to cool down mostly. But the bill is around $7-$800 just for those months. So, if we went Solar wed go balls deep on the AC thermostat having it run 24/7 at 72-74.

Additionally, would probably change the propane range, dryer, and maybe both water heaters to electric if we went Solar.

Im not sure how to calculate all that in. Im not too worried about power outages at this point. Only had 1 outage in the last 4 years and none of the power lines are UG here so generally it doesnt take as long to troubleshoot or fix.
 
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kiwi_outdoors said:
Now our roof needs replacing. We will not do that in winter - its raining! So we need do do it in for-sure sunshine (no rain) and will lose valuable summer production credit. My concern is that Solar City's crew is over-subscribed - and our loss of production time wil lbe a lot longer than is fair. So we are faacing the option of hiring a qualified contrator to remove-replace the PV system.
Click to expand...

Our son had the roof on his house replaced about 2 years ago - we had to co-ordinate Solar City/Tesla and the roofing company. First call was to Solar City/Tesla to schedule the removal of the system. Once that was scheduled we then scheduled the roofing company. Once the roof was done Solar City/Tesla recommends waiting a month to give the roof a chance to "settle" so he was without a system for about 5 weeks.
 
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