I am putting a new roof on my house soon, and I’ve been told that’s a great time to install solar panels or anything else that needs roof mounting. I have always wanted to use alternative energy like solar voltaic and/or a wind generator, but every time I investigate these, the cost is wildly prohibitive and the payback is 25 years. This is in spite hearing 50 years of promises that the cost is coming down.
Does anyone have any experience with small – individual home – installations like this? Is it practical, even if it doesn’t supply the whole house with power, but just supplements it, and makes the owner feel like he is doing his duty to save the planet?
I have adequate power from the grid, but we’re at the extreme end of a feed, and severe storms can knock us out for hours to days. That is a consideration, but not a major one, as a gas generator would solve that problem at far less cost than a roof with solar panels.
How much do you spend per kilowatt hour now and how many kilowatt hours do you average per day or month? What sort of heat do you have?
Also, understand that any grid-tied system like you’re interested in will shut down as soon as it senses that the grid is down. The only way to keep power during an outage is with additional equipment and a battery bank. It’s possible but it’s an added complication that won’t be included in a basic system and often frustrates homeowners if they’re not aware of it.
Well I don’t know if 10% efficiency is good or bad but I like the idea of a solar shingle..
I would consider wiring it to a DC-direct LED lighting system so there is always light in the event of an emergency. I’m not too keen on the individual LED lights on the market today because each unit contains it’s own AC/DC converter. It seems more logical to install lights that are just DC and either power them directly from a solar panel/battery system or at the very least use a common AC/DC converter.
4.510 kW DC
3.891 kW AC
Annual estimated production 6,675 kWh
$28,811 total cost
Minus $7,382 in rebates from CA
Minus $6,429 in tax credits
Total Out of Pocket $15,001
I have not paid for electricity since it was installed.
So my tip is to call Solar City - they will ask for your address, call up a satellite pick of your house, send you a proposal in .pdf including a photoshopped copy of the house with where the panels would go. It is a good place to start IMHO.
while your up there. solar domestic hot water has a good payback. you heat a tank of water that becomes the incoming water to your hot water heater tank. if it hot enough then you don’t need to burn fuel to heat it. if it isn’t hot enough then you only have to heat it a much smaller amount. most of the energy in making hot water is taking it from water main or well temperature to the hot temperature. it has maybe a five year payback, depends.
Thanks, Algher, I’ll try your suggestion, although a $15K net cost would take about 12 years for payback. And I don’t know if WI has the same rebates as CA.
Which isn’t all that bad, but 12 years from now, when it starts to be a positive thing, it will probably require repairs and might be so obsolete as to not be worth repairing. Think of other household appliances and their longevity.
johnpost, I’m going to shy away from plumbing on the roof for now. It seems error-prone, and running pipes from roof to basement is a lot different from running wires, both in initial cost and maintenance, IMHO. The idea is intriguing, though.
Personal antecdote: A friend installed a rooftop PV array. He then got pissed off that his neighbor’s tree was shading his panels a lot. He asked the neighbor to remove the tree, which, of course, he had no interest in doing. (I’m on the neighbor’s side as far as that goes).
Just wanted to make sure your sighting is well thought out. Good for you, go for it!
Yes, the largest part of my roof faces south-southeast, and while I have a few tree limbs that could stand to be trimmed a little, anything in the way of the sun is on my property. My lake view is in the same direction, so I don’t let trees grow much, and they don’t grow at all on the beach.
It wouldn’t be a bad place for wind power, either, although the prevailing winds are from the west, where the forest is.
Be very careful about anyone trying to sell you a rooftop wind system. Here’s a link to start researching with. A lot of people are selling roof top wind generators but that’s what they get paid to sell so they sell them. That isn’t the same thing as it being a good idea.
I’m not seriously considering wind generation at this time, but I know of several neighbors who have free-standing, triangular cross-section antenna towers, perhaps 30-40 ft high, that could be used for turbine mounting. They are essentially obsolete, as cable TV has removed the need for a tall TV tower in this fringe area, but some people find it cheaper to leave them up than remove them. I imagine I could buy them cheap.
I just started looking into this as well (solar panel array), and have a couple friends that have done it. One had the panels installed on his roof and the other has a fenced-in area of his backyard for the array. They both rave about it. We live in NJ and until 12/31/2011, there was a loan program in the state that allowed the utility to pay for the installation and then the homeowner would pay back the utility over time by selling back REC’s (Residential Energy Credits) to the utility. I think you can sell one REC for every kilowatt of energy that your system generates that you don’t use; the buyback price for the REC is fixed at the time your system is installed. Or more accurately, the floor price is fixed, but it’s possible that the buyback price could go up over time. Once the loan is paid off, all proceeds from the sale of your REC’s go into your pocket. I don’t think the NJ state loan program is still in effect, but you can still sell your REC’s to reimburse yourself for the cost of the system.
In addition, there is still a 30% federal tax credit on the net price for such a system, good through 12/31/2016, I believe. We took advantage of that tax credit a couple years ago when we installed a geo-thermal HVAC system. Saved ourselves a little under $10,000 in taxes that year.
So far, in spite of tax credits, the numbers don’t look attractive. I could only justify a solar or wind system as a hobby or experiment, not a profit-making center.
I’ve sent a note to one of the owners of the abandoned towers asking if I could buy it for the price of removal.