ESLR is just plain old silicon. They seem to have nothing to distinguish themselves from the competition other than the ability to hemorrhage vast amounts of cash.

It is not trivial -- a friend of mine installed solar panels on his home, and even with rebates and 'energy coupons' he still had a lot of up-front costs. Figure spending ~ $50k for a solid setup.

There are several elements to solar power that most folks don't understand. For example:

1. Utility charges -- there are two main parts of electric charges on your utility bill: actual utility costs( kilowatts) and delivery costs (infrastrcuture & grid).

2. Most homes use the most electricity at night.

3. Solar power 'freeds the grid' during the day. IE: if you have solar panels on your roof, during the day, that power not only powers the minimal electricity you use, it also send the additional electricity back into the grid. Basically, your electric meter spins backwards.

4. If you make 100 kilowatts of power during the day, and you use 100kilowatts of power at night, you will NOT break even, since you have to still pay the delivery costs. (infrastructure & grid -- see #1 above).

5. Thus, the best way to take advantage of your own solar power is to maximize power use during the day to reduce the amount of delivery costs overall. So -- doing your laundry and dishes during the day while you are making electricity makes sense. Your meter won't spin backwards as much, but you will pay less for the delivery of electricity.

6. My understanding of NJ rebates/incentives was that corporations were required to either implement green energy methods, or to pay private individuals who have implemented green energy. Ex: If I have a solar panel on my roof, a company can give me $$ for that panel, and 'claim' that panel as part of their 'green energy' initiative. I believe this program will soon end. (So get your solar panels up before it all ends!!)

As always, YMMV,
-Z-man.

John - you'll need to get a quote for your area (PDX?) - labor and incentives vary a lot

in PDX you may be able to get a zero rate loan (yes, 0) + state & federal tax credits

also may be an option to lease the system

As Z said, not trivial.

Lets talk a 4K system using 200Watt panels.

So you have 20 panels at $300 each = $6000 (Nominal 30V, Nominal 6.7A)

A 4K inverter = SMA Sunnyboy Grid Tie = $2000

2 rack of 10 panels or 4 Racks of 5 panels = $1000

Rack to roof ties = $400

Solar Cables = $200

2 x 30A DC disconnects on the Solar side $200 (I have a REALLY cheap source)

A couple hundred feet of 240V metal covered exterior cable and a couple of spare breakers - $500

Installation: Someone has to go on the roof and properly install the roof ties, assemble the panels to the racks, carry them up to the roof, install them, connect the cables, mount the inverter, install the disconnects, wire the inverter and disconnects, run the armored cable to the electrical panel, install the spare breakers and wire into the panel.

Roof work, here in Texas, about $2K. The electrical work, about $2K. On the west coast, a lot more.

IF my installation numbers are correct, the total is $14,300, or around $15K

This setup will produce 20-28kWh of electricty per day on a fixed roof. At my house, 20kWh costs $1.60. If you have TOD metering and you live in California where the electric company has to pay you the exact same rate you pay them for electricty, then you'll get .35/kWh which is $7-$10 per day. IF you can get $10/day, $15000 will pay back in about 5 years. With the Tax credit, this is reduced to 3 years. If there are local tax credits, it is even less.

For me? It takes about 18 years to pay it back...

With off grid, the batteries are about 60-80% of the cost of the system, to give you continuous power.

And I'm probably going into business on single panel/inverter systems. These will produce about 225W @208-240VAC. I'm trying to get the total price, ready to wire into two spare 1.5AMP breakers, well below $1K.

The microinverter, fuses and disconnects would be mounted to the backside of the panel. These could be "ganged" together for more power. The cost of this system for a 4KW would be $13-20K but the installation would be easier/simpler. And since it is modular, you can add extra panels simply by connecting then together.

post more when you start that up...

My GF installed a couple of additional panels last year. I did the installation.

She lives off-grid. She uses those deep-cell, 6V "golf cart" batteries. Pretty economical. She has all the power she needs.......ten months per year. If she cut some trees down, she'd raise that number to 12. She's thinking.......

Wow, Supe, she must have some serious internal conflict on that one.

No doubt those two months are the darkest, and coldest.

Indeed. She does bemoan that dark period. She prefers to cook on her wood stove, and she's VERY good at it, so it's just a matter of lighting and whether or not she can watch a movie or listen to music. Silence and oil lamps are nice, very nice actually, but monotonous. Her place is not the slightest bit cold. Just dark.

She knows she can come to my place. I'll light her fire, keep her warm and entertain her, all in one simple activity.

Portland has a feed in tariff program. It opens periodically and fills up same day. $0.46/kW I think, locked for 15 years. Residential rate appx $0.11, so that's pure profit. I ran a payback calc, used $2K for install so that was too low, anyway the payback if I got into the feed-in tariff would be very quick. I have to look into the other local incentives.

I'm still wondering, though - suppose you have 10 years left on your roof, is it sensible to put on a PV system without doing the roof at the same time? Or will the PV panels basically halt deterioration of the roof beneath them?

Here in Canada we are subsidizing at $0.80 per K/hr! I only pay $.059 off peak and .0109 peak. Unbelievable. My concern on this is what happens when wind damage or vandals wreck your panels. I know of a guy who has $50 G into a system and he just lost a bunch of panels in a wind storm. I don't think insurance will cover this without an expensive rider. I guess subsidize are the way to get the ball rolling.

Cheers

Maybe she can do a wind generator?

Something like 90% of the buildings in Chinese cities have solar panels on the roofs.

At that price, the entire system should pay for itself in a year. Scottbombedout talked about the subsidies in England. I think yours are higher.

My next house is going to be "Super Insulated". I plan to install enough panels and batteries to be self sufficient. I also plan to run the A/C with a circulated ground or water loop instead of an air cooled condensor.

There will be 2 type of outlets and wiring, low voltage DC and AC.

Interesting -- I was just talking to a person at the local utility co. about a super-insulation retrofit.

Great minds think alike...


(and so do we).

How long for a large home based system to pay for itself? Last time I checked it was over 20 years. That really doesn't make a lot of sense, unless you enjoy the process, as I doubt a system will last a lot longer than that. Also, who knows that they stay in their house for 20+ years? What if you sell? Is it going o make you anything back?

Same for a good hot water heating system btw. I checked into those seriously. About 7k. Saves me $20 in gas a month currently. You do the math, even with gas prices doubling ...

Cheers,

George

George,

What are you paying for electricty?

Tell me about the super insulation thing? I have an old house - not a lot of insulation.

Typically R60 or greater roof/rafters and R40 or greater walls, thermal imaging to attack infiltration points/cracks, deliberate elimination of thermal bridging in door and window frames, where possible in exterior wall assemblies, etc. The idea is to make the building so "tight" that supplemental heating is all but unnecessary and most heating can be provided via things like lights, computers, appliances, people, etc.

One potential downside is there has to be attention paid to ways of evacuating moisture to prevent mold and other humidity-related issues since these buildings are not able to "breathe" or exchange air as well with the outside. I've also heard some concerns about air quality but haven't seen anything conclusive one way or the other.

This is something I'm considering too but it all depends on my long-term plans to stay here - it would take between 7-10 years to pay back the cost of all the upgrades to bring my house up to this level (1940s era construction with relatively poor insulation as is now). Energy savings as I've projected would be considerable, but so would the cost of insulating...