Posted on 06/26/2012 7:26:24 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) claims that "solar hot water systems are great because they provide an easy and low cost way to create hot water in a clean and sustainable way."
On the Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star website, we read:
"While the initial purchase price of solar water heaters is high compared to standard models, they can be cost effective. That is because the sun's energy is harnessed to reduce operating costs up to 90 percent."
To overcome this "initial purchase price" obstacle, government grants are needed so all these wonderful cost savings can be realized. To this end, a myriad of tax credits and rebate programs has been created in federal, state, and local governments. The Department of Energy has assembled a few of these programs in its Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency (DSIRE). Picking at random from a page-long list for Massachusetts, we find the Commonwealth Solar Hot Water Residential Program, which gave out grants of up to $3,500, or 25% of the installation cost over the last year and a half, with $1 million budgeted for residential and $1 million for commercial locations. The Commonwealth Solar II Rebates program offers a $4,250 rebate for residential photovoltaic installation.
A recent e-mail from a municipal agency called the Cambridge Energy Alliance (CEA), not listed with DSIRE, in association with the MassCEC, offered rebates of up to $2,000 to install a solar water heater (SWH) on my roof. I spent the afternoon crunching a few numbers and concluded, as suspected, that solar hot water systems are not "cost effective" and do not "provide an easy and low cost way to create hot water." The calculations are simple, but the relevant data is often obscured, as we shall see.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Kind of expensive if you don't need all that elaborate stuff. Here we get by with one stage ~ just pump the water through the collector. All you need to make it work is a large tank inside that feeds water to your hot water heater that sets the temperature standard, and takes care of those times when your system is iced up.
One of my cousins lives at roughly the same latitude in Indiana. She has an inground heat exchange system that feeds her heat pump ~ gives her year round heating and cooling for a few bucks. The capital costs are a tad higher though. She uses gas for water heating though.
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I fixed this to be accurate:
To overcome this "initial purchase price" obstacle, money stolen from taxpayers is needed so all these wonderful cost savings can be realized
Depends on if it’s a tax exemption or a grant. If it’s just a tax exemption it’s your own money. If it’s a grant you got it from my pocket and I want it back.
My wife and our sons are contantly amazed about how incredible stupid, supposedly intelligent people are when it comes the stupid and expensive green energy.
We know this family of supposedly highly educated UC Berk people with a successful small winey and vineyard.
They just took money from their 401ks which were hammered during the meltdown to finance solar electric for their home, the winery and other sites.
They asked me about it, and I asked them what they were going to live on when they gave up their current jobs and had they talked to their CPA about the increase in taxes this year to pay for the very expensive outlay due to the heavy withdrawal from their 401k to pay for the solar cost.
They are smart and very dumb liberals. Their eyes just glazed over. They admitted that they hadn’t talked to their CPA.
Their eyes glazed over again, when I asked them what they would do in 10 years when they were in their mid 70’s to replace their worn out solar system.
My wife had shot down their wet dream about an all electric car a month ago. Now she feels that they will now buy an all electric car to use their new solar electricity.
I asked her when they were going to charge an all electric car because at night, the sun didn’t shine a whole lot to make electricity. They still work and in the fall and winter, they often get home after dark. That is too late to use solar electricity to charge your all electric vehicle.
If it’s a tax exemption the revenue to the government has to be taken from someone else’s pocket.
Either that or the Benbernank has to print it.
I think the only place this comes close to working is Hawaii where there’s no anti-freeze issues AND electric is 20 to 25 cents per kwh - more than double the mainland avg. I’ve seen case studies where if they get enough subsidy / credits it actually might pay off if there aren’t any big maintenance costs.
Anything that reduces government revenue is something that needs to be cherished mightily.
I got something similar to this from an HVAC company who wanted me to sign up for a long-term program where they come out every year and “tune” my HVAC system. Under their program, I pay the “reduced” price of $150 per service, but for this year, there was a rebate which reduced the price to $78. I kept reading, and they started touting the “huge” savings in my utility bills of “up to $75 a year.”
I said to Hubby, “Oh look, a program for people who can’t do basic math.” I’ll tune up my own HVAC, thank you very much. Idiots.
Yes, but what they did FEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELS like the right thing to do. AND that's what's important.
10 years from now, your kids (or grandkids) can work a second job to support them.
Don't get me started on how worthless "Alternative Energy" sources are. About the only thing that, IMHO, is marginally acceptable is anything with a massive water tank built in - the tank serves as a battery to hold the energy (heat). It still isn't great, and is better than nothing. But I'd not expect to get rich off what I save on hot water bills.
I’m in Kentucky and I have a solar hot water heater. It works absolutely wonderful, the only time the electric backup kicks on is on cloudy days which are usually in winter.
Average savings savings for us is around $75 per month. That is based on electrical usage pre and post solar hot water heater installation.
I also had a solar unit in Florida, Two actually, the first panel went bad after five or so years the second panel was still good seven years after it was installed. The technology improves on those things all of the time.
The first panel and the second panel used a separately powered pump to move water through it. My current panel uses a separate solar DC panel to power the pump. The current model uses propylene Glycol for the heat transfer fluid and a transfer coil in the Hot water tank to heat up the water. My Florida units used to heat the water directly.
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