You sign up with a company that installs high-quality panels on your property for no money down. Zero dollars! On sunny days the panels make electrons which run your meter backwards. The quantity of panels are sized to cover about 80-90% of your current electric bill, so that you should be expected to pay the utility only 10-20% of what you pay now. In addition to the much smaller payment to your electric grid company you will also now pay the solar company a fee based on the number of watts you send into the grid. This is how they make money to cover the costs of installing the panels and their profit. The rates they will charge you per kilowatt will be less than the utility rates, so your total bill for electricity will be less each month. (Not zero, not half, but less.) Because the solar company makes money by how much electricity your panels produce they have a clear incentive to maintain the panels' performance and keep them clean and the inverters going. After 15-18 years, you own the panels and set up free and clear.
Kevin Kelly notes that by going the financing route, you're exchanging the bulk of the energy produced for free installation, which means the savings you'll see are real but not dramatic:
While you may be generating 90% of your usage, because you are leasing the panels, your total combined bill will not be 90% less. It may only be 10% less per month. But since it costs you nothing or little up front, over 18 years that 10% adds up.
Visit his site for more information on how solar power purchasing agreements (Solar PPAs) work, and some links to companies that offer them.
"Zero-Down Solar Panels" [Cool Tools]
(Photo: OregonDOT)
Personally, I find that opening the house at night and closing the shades during the day keeps the house livable. On really hot days, we run the AC right up to noon, and then try to "coast" until six pm. We also have a kiddie pool, and on really, really hot days, we either just run it, or go to a movie or something.
I forgot to mention... we rolled the whole project into our mortgage refi. We ended up getting a lower rate, and thus a shorter term and lower monthly payments! Sweet.
]]>In 18 years I get the panels free and clear?
By then, those panels will be dinosuars.
Only option was to buy outright.
]]>Also I'm not sure I understand how the thin films would be simpler to install, you still have to attach them to the roof so they don't blow off in the wind and they still have to be connected to the electrical grid, it's not like you can just plug them into a wall socket and drape them over your roof like a blanket... although... I think maybe I came up with the next new million dollar product.
Anyway if Solar panels were like TVs where the homeowner could easily install and hook them up to the electrical grid you'd be right, install prices would go down as volume increased, but they aren't. Think of installing solar panels like installing a new heating system, ductwork and all- a technology that is very mature and still very expensive- solar will never be $3-$4 a watt or less installed unless through major subsidy.
]]>Should have added: that's not sarcasm; I'm serious!
]]>Yeah, I'm waiting for someone to invent some that are tiny and don't need all the accessories. Just wire them up and they zap enhanced power to your house!
And you can buy them at Walmart!
]]>First of all, you don't need batteries.
You should get on a Time of Use meter, where you agree to pay triple for electricity from noon-6 during the summer. That way, any juice you generate during those peak hours runs the meter backwards at triple speed.
On this plan, you also get a discounted rate during the rest of the day.
Cost for my three-bedroom house: about $22K, minus $7 subsidy. My electric bill is $700-$800 per year.
]]>Maybe I'm missing something. Isn't the company offering to replace broken panels, perform maintenance, etc.? Does your calculation of 30% IRR take that into account?
Just curious -- I'm not saying you're wrong.
]]>@HIV 2 Elway: Right. And the tradeoffs tend to be economically neutral. Either you produce a cheap panel with a reduced conversion rate (which means it produces less electricity) or you produce a an expensive, but higher quality panel that that will take just as long in ROI costs. So, much of the attention is trying to break this barrier in some way (either really cheap, but mediocre panels, or more expensive, but highly efficient panels, or something inbetween). So, the R&D companies have a variety of approaches to the problem.
]]>@rush0: The panels, they are hard and expensive to produce without impurities. Pretty much my whole undergraduate program focused on solar cell processing.
]]>I think we're on the cusp of a significant increase of cost per KW/H. A lot of new innovations in efficiency are finally coming online and so in the next few years, I think the cost of solar will become competitive with other power sources.
PS- In case this works its way on the boards- no, the energy required to make the panels is not higher than the amount of energy it will create over its lifetime. That may have been true 30 years ago, but it has not been that way for many years. Rush Limbaugh has lied to you.
Some other contries that allow energy companies to compete. So, if you want your power company to be all "green" you can have the Greenpeace power company. If you want your power company to burn baby seals and toxic plastics, you can have that too. But the problem with that is that we'd need to nationalize the transmission lines to allow competition. All socialism is bad. So, we can't be capitalist because of capitalism.
]]>This wouldn't really fly here in Montreal anyhow. While I'm told that snow doesn't have that big of an impact on solar panels, the fact that our electricity is far cheaper up here would really change the financials.
]]>@HIV 2 Elway: Ummm, you'd be surprised. Remember that turn out your lights for one hour thing a few months ago? A lot of Republicans (Fox News included) made it a point to turn on extra lights just as an FU. So they chose to spend a bunch more money on electricity that day to....well, I'm not sure what they were trying to do.
]]>I checked into this in the SF Bay area and found that you need an electric bill of at least $150 per month for it to be worth it. One other advantage is that at the end of the contract you can either own the current solar panel configuration or enter a new contract and get all new equipment with the latest technology. I am sure that solar panels 15 to 20 years from now will be more efficient and much cheaper than current panels.
]]>The only drawback I have is that I get no incentives and I footed the whole bill for the equipment. I can reduce some of the cost by doing a homemade inverter/switch for the battery banks and some other miscellaneous parts.
]]>[My numbers are necessarily fuzzy since I don't have specifics, but the financial logic is sound.]
]]>@HIV 2 Elway: You wouldn't have to pay anyone to put them in a big field. You buy a piece of desert out in Phoenix next to a transmission tower.
That is, if it's cost effective - which it isn't because solar panels aren't efficient enough yet.
It would never make sense to hook up thousands of individual connections (many redundant costs) if you could make one connection. The reason there's not just one connection is because solar isn't cost effective. So they try to get individuals to take on the payback period of 15+ years. That's all this is - getting someone else to finance the payback.
]]>According to the linked webpage, the company keeps the tax breaks. The lease is transferable to new owners, or possibly can early terminated at some buyout figure to be named later.
]]>@amuro98: What if the new owners are anti-solar
Yeah, fuck the sun, I fuckin' hate it too, long live the fuckin' beast.
Since the system is initially owned by the company, they get the tax incentives, not to mention the fact their actual cost of the system is much less since they're "buying direct" from themselves.
So what would cost me ~$15k probably costs them closer to $10k in just materials and labor.
I don't quite know what happens if you move within that period. Do you just transfer the contract to the new owner? What if the new owners are anti-solar, or want to install a system that they actually own from day one?
]]>Depends on where you live, and how many panels you'll use.
In California, a typical installation for a 2000 sq. ft. house is about $15k-$20k - that includes the state and federal tax incentives. Typical ROI is around 7-10 years.
]]>A lot of people do it when replacing the roof ANYWAY because you're shelling out the big bucks for the roof, and adding on some extra for the solar isn't as big a hit then.
(Our roof is pretty new, so it'll be a while before we get to the solar moment.)
]]>/never leased anything before (except apartments)
]]>I would love to be as green as possible, and to save as much money as possible, but the bottom line is, is it worth it over a 5-year time span. Unfortunately for me, the answer is going to be no.
]]>Of that $48,000, I qualified for, on a federal and state level, $22,000 in tax rebates. So a net of $26,000 in installs. But I had to front the entire $48k. And the solar panels were exempt from local property tax.
@Canino: They would have to pay someone to put them in a big field. The energy would also then have to be transmitted from said field. The efficiency is greatly improved by putting the panels at the same place that the energy will be used.
]]>@Canino:
Ouch. Yeah, I can see the allure of having someone finance it for you...you're basically just renting your roof space at that point - trading space for a subsidy on your power bill.
]]>@YouDidWhatNow?:
Here is some info on system costs and price of solar electricity:
[www.solarbuzz.com]
@YouDidWhatNow?: $30K - it isn't just panels. You have to have converters, banks of batteries (that have a life of 10 years so they have to be replaced), electrical work. Payback is somewhere between 15 and 20 years.
]]>Just to clear up one misconception in the article; on most houses you'll be lucky to get 3kW installed in the available area on your roof.
In Oregon west of the Cascades(the rainy part but oddly a pretty good place for solar, better than Phoenix) most years you will generate just over 1000kWh of energy per kW installed.
The average customer on the Portland General Electric system uses around 7000kWh per year of electricity.
3000kWh does not equal 90% of 7000kWh and never will.
Is solar still worth putting o your roof? Absolutely, but you aren't going to get near netzero energy use just by installing solar.
]]>woah - they're creating matter with these things - impressive!
//electrons aren't created - they just start moving more
]]>If the solar panel company could make money by hooking up their panels to the grid, they would just put them out in a big field and have at it. They wouldn't need to install them on individual houses. They can't make money on electricity (solar panels still aren't efficient enough compared to the cost), so they make their money on financing - much like auto makers (or like auto makers tried to do anyway).
]]>Since I am clueless and too lazy to go look for myself, what is the typical purchase and install price of this kind of thing anyway?
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