Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 02/21/2010 8:57:43 PM PST by Lorianne
Then there is the space required to install and access that equipment, and provide reasonable temp & humidity controlled conditions for it.
The ones I seen, or that some locals have, are also not a "hands free" system, but very much "hands on".
Load monitoring.
When seasonally applicable, snow/dirt/ice/leaves/?? clearing from the panels. We also get hail up to 3" in diameter; or 'normal' hail several inces deep.
Battery maintenance. The batteries are typically fussy about any topping up fluids...maintenance free batteries IIRC do not last as long or perform as well in these systems as specialty batteries do.
Can you see typical Mr. & Ms. Suburbia doing all this on a regular basis? Worse, think of the teenagers home alone for a weekend or a week. And that is just for starters.
So much misinformation in this thread that it is ridiculous.
I have a PV system that was installed last year. I spent $12 grand on it in cash. My return of investment is going to come after about 6 years. If the government passes Cap and Trade or some other nonsense, it will come a lot sooner.
My property was appraised 6 months back and the panels have actually helped increase my home value by about $10k. So almost instantly I have a return on my investment.
As far as maintenance goes, there really is none. The panels I have installed are Sunpower, top of the line panels, rated for hurricane force winds and able to handle as thick as you can imagine hailstorms. Every few months I spray down the panels with a hose, standing in the ground below.
I don’t use batteries, the utility company for all intents and purposes is my battery. Whatever energy my system produces that I don’t use goes back to the utility and they credit me for it.
So now, with the utility increasing rates every year, I could really give a damn as my power is paid off for over 20 years. The system itself has a life expectancy of 35-40 years.
I’m also hardly the “rich” guy that people seem to rail against in this thread.
From what I’ve heard in conversations with my installer and other solar companies, contrary to popular view, most people investing in solar tend to be in the middle-class range, people seeking energy independence, trying to get away from continually increasing utility rates.
I don’t think that this situation is ideal, and government subsidies are certainly only inflating the actual costs of solar, but I’d much rather they spend money on this than on some abomination like Cap and Trade that will honestly bury our economy. The way I look at it, we’re in the preparation stages for Carbon trading taxes. They had these same kinds of incentives in Germany and Spain before they passed carbon-based taxation.
Believe me, if Cap and Trade passes, you won’t be bitching about the high cost of solar anymore.
Once again, if the government passes Cap and Trade, believe me, solar, without any incentives, will become pretty damn economical. This is the whole direction that these people are moving in.
The attitude I don’t get from some conservatives is that “well, the government is using my tax dollars to fund solar systems, to show them how POed I am, I’m going to sit back and do nothing while my three or four neighbors are having solar put on their roofs, I’m going to wait until my electric bills double before I consider solar.”
The way I look at it, solar is a huge step towards overall independence. On they legalize grid-switching in various states, you’ll be able to produce and rely on all your own power in event of a massive power outage/terrorist attack, other national security type event.
If the government is going to use my tax dollars to fund these programs, I’m not going to sit back with a Holier than thou attitude, I’m going to make use of the money that I’ve been paying in taxes to care of my family.
The way I look at it, this money is going to be spent, one way or another, whether you or your neighbor Bob take advantage, the end result will still be the same.
Explain “marginally useful” for something that has an ROI of around 6-8 years? I’ve already saved over $2k on my electric bills in just one year of solar, with a system that cost $12k total.
Welfare for the rich, I saw this with solar in the 1970s and 1980s, the rich got their subsidized solar water heaters and then they paid us to remove them when everything got old.
Taxpayers that can’t afford stuff like that paid much of the bill for the wealthy Southern California, coastal crowd.
When government makes energy more expensive through endless regulation it costs us more to produce everything and our standard of living is lowered. Just because government really jacks the prices of energy up making PV more economical in comparison, the end result is still that we are all poorer.
Our goal should be to lower the cost of energy across the board. That increases our productivity, lowers the cost of the products we produce and improves our standard of living.
In short the government is creating an artificial market for “green” energy that wouldn't exist if government weren't driving the cost up of “non-green” energy damaging our economy across the board as a result. We also misuse our capital tying it up on PV cells to produce less for more money leaving less for other business activity. It is bad economic policy that mis-allocates resources to solve a problem that doesn't exist.
What about maintenance?
What about the cost of money?
As time goes on, the solar cells are going to produce less and less electricity.
What happens if government changes policy that currently forces many utilities to buy your power?
And in real terms, what did your system really cost including all the subsidies that were applied to it?
Great Green Leap Forward!
I live in FL. Nobody I know has them.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I believe in the free market. If solar roof were as great as these greenies claim, I would see a few more, especially here in the sunshine state.
My location, with ~25% of our average monthly usage replaced by solar has been calculated, as reently as last year, by engineers using local data, to cost us just over $13,000 after “incentives”. Break-even was calculated to just under 28 years. 100% replacement runs the post-incentive cost to over $52,000, with the same break-even point.
In below 0 weather, one does not “hose off” anything! Hosing off 8-15 inches of snow in sub freezing weather is also no mean feat. This led to a recommendation of a ground mounted array, rather than a roof system, which adds to the cost somewhat.
By using the grid as your “battery”, there is no storage capacity for outages; maybe in your location that means less. However, it would leave us no better off than we are now with a standby generator.
Being on a co-op, which owns its own generation plants (one of which is rated as being the cleanest in the nation and has its own on-site coal mine to fire it) we are much better protected against rate hikes, though by no means immune.
We know people locally who are off grid, with both solar and wind systems, and considering the cost alternative to bringing lines a mile or two, it makes economic sense, but is niether carefree nor ‘fun’, if they wish to keep the systems optimized.
Uh, nobody is being "forced" to participate in the program.
Already done. See "Nanosolar" and "First Solar" both of which are selling PV cells for just under $1/watt.
IF photovoltaic solar panels last their full estimated life span of 20 years you MAY come somewhere near breaking even on the cost of solar panels versus the cost of buying electric from the grid.
If there was a real financial savings to be realized from the installation and use photovoltaic solar panels the government would not have to pump billions of taxpayer dollars into subsidizing the industry in various ways - consumers would be lined up to buy them.
The same facts apply to electric powered vehicles and hybrids, only more so.
Lowest cost suppliers of solar cells are not Chinese. Both are American (Nanosolar, First Soler, both <$1/watt).
This company Atlantis Systems is doing well with its solar slate product. http://www.atlantisenergy.com/
If you men wholesale, then you better start lacing up your track shoes, because Nanosolar and First Solar are both now selling for slightly under $1/watt. Right now, Nanosolar is only selling into the municipal/small utility market (which is what their first plant is optimized to produce cells for, but they are building another plant that will produce cells optimized for home installation and use). I don't know if First Solar is producing to the home market, as I haven't followed them as closely as I have Nanosolar.
nice, have you read the thread?
Yup, read every post. And your point is?????
You have probably received subsidies worth 75% of the systems cost.
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