Solar power

I've got a friend who lives in Modjeska Canyon, CA, and he just had the Tesla battery system installed. Solar panels weren't an option as the tree canopy there blocks much of the sunlight. But the batteries are quite convenient in an area that increasingly has fire-danger electrical shutdowns. And lately he's been charging the packs during the wee hours, when electricity is 27 cents/kWh (versus 43 cents/kWh from 4 pm to 9 pm) and running the house off the packs during high demand. Helps to recoup some of the cost over time, for sure.
 
I've got a friend who lives in Modjeska Canyon, CA, and he just had the Tesla battery system installed. Solar panels weren't an option as the tree canopy there blocks much of the sunlight. But the batteries are quite convenient in an area that increasingly has fire-danger electrical shutdowns. And lately he's been charging the packs during the wee hours, when electricity is 27 cents/kWh (versus 43 cents/kWh from 4 pm to 9 pm) and running the house off the packs during high demand. Helps to recoup some of the cost over time, for sure.

27 and 43 cents/kwh WTF? That's ridiculous, I'd cut the trees.

I'm paying around 12 cents and thought that was getting up there.
 
The company I’m talking too claims a 25 year warrantee. BS?

I’m also interested in the continuity benefits. We lose power more than once a year in this area. After a hurricane it can be out for quite awhile.

Panels degrade with UV, the warranty isn't worth the paper it's written on. You will be lucky to have 60% of the listed output in 25 years.

Most panels only output 90% of listed output from Day ONE. It is "acceptable" in the industry to have +/- 10% output, which way do you think they go?

I make my panels for less than 20 cents a watt for panels above 360w, and still can't make the ROI work. We even looked at putting a ground mount rack up for our new warehouse and couldn't make it work out financially. (My commercial insurance would nearly double on my warehouse if I put them on the roof. Too many fires at Walmarts I guess, and my panels are made with what is called a Class 1, Div2 rating, which means they are built to be around oil and gas wells for explosion resistance. ) The problem isn't the panels, it's the cheap MC4 connectors that are frying and burning down houses and commercial structures. We don't use them at all.

I probably will put panels on the new warehouse we are designing, but only because I keep getting questions from too many customers why I don't use my own panels. I tell them the truth, as their applications require solar panels as they service oil well/pipeline/railroad switches and municipal water district sites offgrid.

These companies selling solar to residential customers are like car warranty companies. They are just there for the marketing. Don't believe me, go to a big solar show like Solar Power International, I go every year to see the new technology. Thirty percent of the booths are for lead generation services. What does that tell you?

Even Elon Musk had to bail out his solar company, because they were losing so much money.
 
27 and 43 cents/kwh WTF? That's ridiculous, I'd cut the trees.

I'm paying around 12 cents and thought that was getting up there.

I think we're around $0.15/kWh, but that's inclusive of all of the taxes/fees and on averaging.
 
I think we're around $0.15/kWh, but that's inclusive of all of the taxes/fees and on averaging.

Mine includes all charges. We are lucky to have a small well run municipal electric company. They installed a solar farm a while ago, the cost is pretty much a wash with any savings for the power, except it usually helps during peak power days. The real income comes from selling carbon credits to larger monopolies who are required to buy them to offset their carbon use. You guys with high power rates, thank you.
 
Mine includes all charges. We are lucky to have a small well run municipal electric company. They installed a solar farm a while ago, the cost is pretty much a wash with any savings for the power, except it usually helps during peak power days. The real income comes from selling carbon credits to larger monopolies who are required to buy them to offset their carbon use. You guys with high power rates, thank you.

Well, part of that is my house being an older home relative to others in the area (mid-60s build) and having terrible insulation (none whatsoever in the living room). A more modern home built with even standard insulation per building code would probably drop my cost down considerably. I think we average about 2,500kWh per month (~3K sq ft) from June-September which pushes our average cost up a bit. I've been trying to convince the wife to let me have the living room vaulted/tongue & groove ceiling covered with spray foam and drywalled/paneled over. Would probably pay back in utility bill savings within a few years.
 
We're at $24/mo for service and 7.74cents KWh on the Oregon coast. Guess we have a good deal.
 
When you talk rates, make sure you are talking the same language.
Some locations only have a single variable charge plus a fixed.
Others which are deregulated can have generation, distribution and transmission charges which may have fixed, variable and time of use charges (let alone ratchet fees).

During the whole Texas electric debacle for not preparing this past winter, it was posted in multiple locations that the generation average in Tx was 11 cents but the national average was 10 cents. I am paying 9.5 in MA for generation.


Tim

Sent from my HD1907 using Tapatalk
 
When you talk rates, make sure you are talking the same language.
Some locations only have a single variable charge plus a fixed.
Others which are deregulated can have generation, distribution and transmission charges which may have fixed, variable and time of use charges (let alone ratchet fees).

During the whole Texas electric debacle for not preparing this past winter, it was posted in multiple locations that the generation average in Tx was 11 cents but the national average was 10 cents. I am paying 9.5 in MA for generation.


Tim

Sent from my HD1907 using Tapatalk

For generation only, I pay 7 cents for the first 500 kwh, then 8.2 cents above that. Residential rate.
 
A couple years ago a fellow came to the house and we discussed the solar situation. I really wanted to do it, since I'm a woke high-minded vegetarian tree hugging libtard with aspirations of a lowered carbon footprint. During the discussion it became clear that the break even point for this stuff, i.e. the point where my energy savings would pay for said solar panels, was 20 years in the future. I passed on the opportunity.
 
A couple years ago a fellow came to the house and we discussed the solar situation. I really wanted to do it, since I'm a woke high-minded vegetarian tree hugging libtard with aspirations of a lowered carbon footprint. During the discussion it became clear that the break even point for this stuff, i.e. the point where my energy savings would pay for said solar panels, was 20 years in the future. I passed on the opportunity.

One of my best friends makes you look like a MAGA-hat-wearing-dyed-in-the-wool-red-conservative person. He lived off-grid 100% with solar/wind, even had a company helping others do the same. He hugs more trees in a day than you do in a decade.

But, every time I ask him about adding wind/solar, he says "Don't do it, it's just not worth it." This has been going on for 15+ years since buying my first house. I suppose closer to 20 years when I was even thinking about it for an eventual house in the future.
 
One of my best friends makes you look like a MAGA-hat-wearing-dyed-in-the-wool-red-conservative person. He lived off-grid 100% with solar/wind, even had a company helping others do the same. He hugs more trees in a day than you do in a decade.

But, every time I ask him about adding wind/solar, he says "Don't do it, it's just not worth it." This has been going on for 15+ years since buying my first house. I suppose closer to 20 years when I was even thinking about it for an eventual house in the future.

How about reducing dependence on fossil fuels, even if I never get my monetary investment back? Is there a value/cost we can place on that? Of course, how much fossil-fuel based energy goes into constructing solar panels and batteries? Maybe there's no break-even point whatever way you look at. That makes me and the trees I hug sad.
 
How about reducing dependence on fossil fuels, even if I never get my monetary investment back? Is there a value/cost we can place on that? Of course, how much fossil-fuel based energy goes into constructing solar panels and batteries? Maybe there's no break-even point whatever way you look at. That makes me and the trees I hug sad.

Said tree-hugging friend looks at the macro view. The reality is that, while power plants aren't ideal for various reasons, they are quite efficient at what they do compared with the level that an individual can do at his or her house. When you factor in the inefficiencies in production of the panels, transport, their own efficiency, etc., the math gets complex. In his opinion (something he'd researched far more than me), there wasn't any cost justification to do it, and that the real math behind it didn't really show a net benefit for the environment when you looked at the economies/diseconomies of scale. For example, it made sense for something like heating my pool, where I would otherwise have been using propane/natural gas for the same task (I wouldn't, but let's say I would) it was an energy benefit. But for electricity, it wasn't.

There are other things at play that I think are harder to determine and you have to go with more of a gut than raw scientific/analytical numbers. For example, moving demand of a product helps to get it more efficient since that's the way of all technology as competition increases. So to that end, more consumer solar means more opportunity for companies to come in, competition, industry growth, technology growth, lower costs, more efficient production technologies, and then the equation shifts later on. Then you have the extra benefits such as rooftop solar, while suboptimal from a solar power perspective since you have the inefficiencies of the roof itself, helps to insulate the roof from the sun's rays, helping to lower your summer cooling bills. This was the biggest benefit of our solar pool heat. How would PV panels work in that situation? I'd imagine they'd have a similar effect although not 1:1. And we aren't getting another pool. But, I would like them on my shop as I feel like the combination of improved shop comfort and reduced electric bill would make it worthwhile... if I can actually find someone who's halfway decent.
 
How about reducing dependence on fossil fuels, even if I never get my monetary investment back? Is there a value/cost we can place on that? Of course, how much fossil-fuel based energy goes into constructing solar panels and batteries? Maybe there's no break-even point whatever way you look at. That makes me and the trees I hug sad.

90% of solar cells are made in China with electricity from coal burning power plants with no polution controls or scrubbers on them. Also, the US Government just put restrictions on Polysilicon wafers that are made in Xinjiang because they are made from forced labor.

Sealed Lead acid batteries is a very dirty business, so dirty that China put an export tariff on them to force the industry to places like Vietnam and Indonesia. Don't get me started on Lithium.....one of the dirtiest industries that is out there.

All in the name of "Green" energy.
 
I'll offer one point most folks overlook. When you have an off-grid power system that relies on batteries and solar? Your energy consumption habits change very quickly. My family has applied the reduced energy habits to our on-grid homes, too. My wife monitors our utility consumption daily. She's an energy teacher and a bona fide energy nerd. No tree hugging required. Energy conservation is just good practice.
 
There are other things at play that I think are harder to determine and you have to go with more of a gut than raw scientific/analytical numbers. For example, moving demand of a product helps to get it more efficient since that's the way of all technology as competition increases. So to that end, more consumer solar means more opportunity for companies to come in, competition, industry growth, technology growth, lower costs, more efficient production technologies, and then the equation shifts later on. Then you have the extra benefits such as rooftop solar, while suboptimal from a solar power perspective since you have the inefficiencies of the roof itself, helps to insulate the roof from the sun's rays, helping to lower your summer cooling bills. This was the biggest benefit of our solar pool heat. How would PV panels work in that situation? I'd imagine they'd have a similar effect although not 1:1. And we aren't getting another pool. But, I would like them on my shop as I feel like the combination of improved shop comfort and reduced electric bill would make it worthwhile... if I can actually find someone who's halfway decent.

China went all in on Solar in 2009, subsidizing the SOE (State owned enterprises) and facing the wrath of the Obama administration with 156% tariffs after their own subsidized effort (Solyndra) failed massively.

At the founding of Solyndra the prices were $1.50 to $2.00 a watt for solar, now it is less than $0.20 a watt to manufacture . The Chinese, as with any new industry there, overbuilt production by a factor of 3. There was a huge glut, which drove prices down to the point that companies that were selling panels here and in Europe were going out of business because their inventories were dropping in value every single day. Hard to make money when you buy a panel at $0.50 a watt and by the time you get around to selling it, you have to meet the market at $0.40 a watt. You can't make that up in volume. The manufacturers were subsidized so they didn't care if they were losing money, they all wanted market share. The race to the bottom

It's also why the big players got out of the business. When you see a brand name you know on a solar panel, they usually don't make it, it's a marketing deal with the Chinese to use the name of the big corporate client to generate sales. The big company charges a fee for the use of that name, thus guaranteeing themselves a profit and distancing themselves from the volatile nature of the business.

What that did is force the American owned distributors out of business, so now you see the Chinese own the whole supply chain, from wafers, to panels, to distribution in Europe and America. With that control, and the government in China cracking down on some companies outright fraud, the market has stabilized in the last couple of years.

I saw the first EVER increase in prices to manufacture this spring. That is good for the industry, as China is weaning it's SOE's away from the subsidized model. More stability and a known price equation will allow for a change in the industry as a whole.

We moved all of our production of solar out of China in 2013, the tariffs and hassle were just unbelievable. I pay a lot more, but I can sleep at night.
 
I'll offer one point most folks overlook. When you have an off-grid power system that relies on batteries and solar? Your energy consumption habits change very quickly. My family has applied the reduced energy habits to our on-grid homes, too. My wife monitors our utility consumption daily. She's an energy teacher and a bona fide energy nerd. No tree hugging required. Energy conservation is just good practice.

That's certainly a valid point. I was thinking similar on our latest RV boondocking trip as it applies to water. The generator uses a small enough amount of fuel that I don't really worry about it, but it makes noise so I don't like to run it unless I need it for cooling or heating. And refilling the propane tank (which heats the water a lot faster and quieter than electric - the water heater is both electric and propane) is a pain, and the water pump is electric. So at night if I'm going to be able to shut down the generator and open the windows, I have the inverter on but only powering the fridge, we don't open it much, don't leave other appliances on, all of that.

With HVAC accounting for something like 50% of energy usage, that's the biggest thing I think most people do something with. My wife is less tolerant of higher temps in the house than I am, but when she's at work if the weather allows it, I'll just turn off the HVAC and open the windows.
 
We looking into it for our last house in NH. NH doesn't do the solar rebates like MA or other states do/did (live free or die!), so it was going to cost us a lot more for solar electric. But what we almost bought into was solar water heating since that house had a well. Using solar to warm up the water 10-15deg before it was put into the oil boiler -> hot water storage tank would have eventually saved us some money by using less heating oil to heat water.

Speaking of inefficient... home heating and hot water with oil boilers, burning #2 oil, and either venting directly outside or up a chimney... Sure they claim 95% efficiency with modern boilers, but they get dirty they first time they fire up and efficiency drops. Also the exhaust doesn't go through a converter like it does for a car, just vents out & up... Almost all houses in NE are heated via oil boilers. #2 is also dirtier than car/truck diesel, and no catalytic converters on chimneys.
 
We have solar water too. It's ok - a lot of people here in Northern AZ have let their systems go. We still use it and it does a good job, just doesn't seem as popular for some reason. It's basically a pre-heater that requires a second water heater. This heated water then goes into the 2nd water heater that is powered by electric or gas (it's our last propane accessory except for our fireplace that we've never used). Our propane tank lasts over a year between fills and lets us buy when it's cheaper in the off-season.

Both of our solar set-ups came with the house, which was a nice bonus.
 
Back
Top