Hard to call them “exaggerated” since I didn’t put any numbers or describe the level of significance. I just said they were “things to consider”. Unless you’re saying that calling them “things to consider” is exaggerated and that they really should not be considered. I would strongly disagree with that.
So that means that even ignoring the “degrade slowly” part, the 20-25 lifespan alone means that 4%-5% each year is return of capital. A poster earlier used some numbers suggesting that the return is 7.1% per year, in which case most of that “return” is really return of capital and not a true return. Adding in degrading makes it even worse.
I would.
The poster who calculated the 7.1% return (for a 5.6kW system) based it on an after-tax-incentives cost of $13,357. Another $3,000 would increase the cost by 22.5%, and would reduce the return from 7.1% to 5.8%.
Yeah, that was me and thanks for the correction. The return on these is pretty bad.
Our house is about 18 years old and I believe it has the original roof, so we’re likely replacing the roof in the next decade or so. That’s probably the time to look at solar again and see where things are.
By that time, you can probably replace the roof with a solar roof which will give a lot more bang for the buck. This is the coming thing is solar energy. In a decade I expect it to be fairly common for new construction, especially in states like California but hopefully everywhere.
In the meantime, check with both your electric and gas companies and see if they have any deals on efficiency upgrades.
I spent $7000 last year on the insulation and water heater upgrades. The insulation was maybe R6 at best and we’re now R45ish. The water heater was fairly significant also. With this deal we got a $2000 grant/instant rebate and the remaining $5000 is paid back over the next 7 years interest free. We also were eligible for a $500 tax credit. So a really good and efficient way to save money, help the planet and before doing this the HVAC system couldn’t always keep the house cool on very hot days. Also sometimes struggles with heating, especially near the attic door.
If there are panels on the front side of a house, we won’t go up there. We will lug ladders around to the back & go up there. However, there are lots of hills in this area, which means lots of sloping properties. It’s kind of common to have one side of a house be two stories exposed while the other side will be three stories exposed (ie. first floor is at ground level in front but be second story in the back due to a walkout basement), which means a longer ladder is needed to be deployed to even reach the roof. If that’s three stories, we need a bucket or ladder truck to even get up there.
Good to know. My house is the slope of a north facing hill, so the panels would be on the front, which is one story, but the back is 3 stories above ground, and the hill is steep enough that you could not easily lug a ladder back there very quickly.
My answer to the solar panel door-to-door salespeople: "You want to put a money-making machine on MY Roof and give me a little discount on my electricity and not share in the profits you make?!? Then I tell them that my electric bill is less than $60.00 for 7-8 months of the year and my maximum summer bill was $189.00 and they tell me I don’t qualify.
No one has done the work to tell me how much energy would be generated by solar panels on my roof. (I feel the panels would be set up to generate more power than I use and they get the money for the excess power generation) And they are a “for profit” company, so I know I’m not getting the best part of the deal. I guess I could buy stock in their company and I would get some benefit from their income!
When I had panels installed here in Colorado, I had to give them my last two years’ worth of usage numbers (I think it was two) from the electric company. The panels had to be sized to provide no more than 110% of my average usage. Every kilowatt I send to the grid is accounted for in my bill, and excess beyond my usage is banked. That bank is drawn down on days that I don’t produce excess.
On average, I usually don’t pay anything beyond the grid connection fee (about $20).
Given the number of unsolicited sales calls that I get, consider solar to be a high-profit item. High-profit items tend to find shady sales staff that make exaggerated claims. The 7.1% return is, most likely, optimistic. It may not include the cost of fresh solar panels after ten years. For an investment that has risk, 7.1% is a poor return.
I considered a hybrid car four years ago for an extra $2000. I estimated the savings to be about two cents a mile. After 100k miles, I’d save that $2000, What the salesman failed to mention was that I’d need to replace the battery after 100k miles.
Where did you get the 10 year number for the panels? That is grossly inaccurate. I’ve never seen panels rated for only 10 years. I had a set still producing well after 18 years and they were suppose to be 25-30 year expected life. That is the norm.
Which hybrid needs it batteries replaced after 100k miles? Which car was the hybrid version only saving 2 cents a mile? Your calculations might not be very accurate or you looked at a crappy hybrid.
We installed a 8.32 KW system (32 260w panels) on our house in MA in 2013. Payback due to generous state incentives and the 30% ITC was 5.5 years. After that free electricity and continued “SREC” money now totaling almost 22K in year 9 of 10. MA incentives somewhat less generous now, but still very good.
In my experience, solar companies give you reliable performance numbers and if you get several vendors to give you projections with the same assumptions, they will be very close and most will provide a performance guarantee. Our system has performed as projected.
The panels are guaranteed to provide 80% power at year 25. The micro inverters have a 25 year guarantee. The installation company provided a 10 year labor guarantee. We’ve had no issues.
Our system was sized to provide 108% of our usage and it has done so, we built up to over $1,000 in credit on our electric bill until this winter when we drew down a bit because we installed heat pumps and used our Gas boiler less for heating.
We were 10 years into a 40 year asphalt shingle roof when we installed. I expect that the shingles under the array will last a lot longer and possibly when the other side of the roof needs doing I might be able to just do the edges around the array which covers just about the entire south side of roof. On the other hand, replacing the system might be worthwhile to produce extra power for heat pumps and electric car charge and inductive stove because we will probably trying to get off fossil fuel and make as much solar power as we can.
In 2013 there were no battery systems available that were reasonable for solar, but now there are several and they can serve both as backup power and to reduce use of utility power if net metering not available.
PS we used “Sunlight Solar” in MA and the are headquartered in Oregon. We have referred three to them who did full systems and all were very pleased with the work and their systems. I’d recommend you call them for a proposal as well
We are in Oregon and Sunlight Solar is the company that provided the numbers I used in the first post. If your system paid off in less than 6 years then the economics have changed drastically in the last 10 years, or something else is going on. Maybe you have very high electricity costs compared to us? Our cost is ~$0.12/kWh.
Digging through the power company website, it’s a $9.50 base charge, then $0.09371/kWh for the first 1000, and $0.10542/kWh above 1000. That’s cheap! No wonder solar doesn’t pencil out here.
That makes a lot of sense. It does vary a lot by area. The other side of the coin is in the South West, generation of solar power is usually much better. More sun helps. I would guess North West is maybe the worst area in the US for solar generation.
Do you mind me asking what your average electric bill was when you made the decision to install solar?
When I toy with the idea for my own home on one hand yay solar, but on the other my average electric bill is less than $100 a month, so it’d take eons to break even. Now, if there was a way to do something similar for heat instead to avoid paying $365/month for propane…
2018 Honda accord. $2.95 per gallon in 2018 @ 36 MPG = $0.082 per mile. Hybrid got 48 MPG, that’s $0.061 per mile. And I 've heard some Tesla people change their batteries after 70k miles. Yeah, they may last 250k miles, but the MPG will be greatly reduced.
Yeah, ground source heating/cooling with a heat pump. Of course, that’s another $x,000 in infrastructure that you have to amortize out.
Also of course - there is a potential non-financial pay back to you (your bit fighting global warming), plus you untether your self from propane supply problems. It’s not all about the Benjamins (but of course, they are a big part of it).