We are considering installing solar panels on our roof to reduce our electric bill and reduce our reliance on “the grid”. Wondering about pros and cons of this kind of investment — significant, vs. other ways of saving energy – CFLs, waterless tank, new energy efficient appliances, etc. Pros are: long term investment in home value, last chance at state tax credit (supposed to run out an moment), and others I can’t think of at the moment. Any feedback appreciated.
More Pages:
- Solar Power: Is Solar Power Worth The Investment? (1/24/2012)
- Solar Panel: Is It Worth Installing Solar Panels On My Roof? (9/27/2011)
- Solar Energy: Would This Apply For A Company Building A Home With Solar Panels? (4/11/2012)
- Solar Energy: John MC Cain Filibustered Wind Energy In 2007, How Can He Now Say He Will Support It? (11/22/2011)
- Solar Energy: Why Are Politicians Not Solving The Energy Crisis With Solar Panels On Homes.? (9/9/2011)
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
If you have the money to change to solar panels do it electric rates will never go down NEVER as
more people go totally green rates will soar do to the cost to keep the infrastructure of the public power grid fewer customers mean higher rates just to keep going up. If you do go with solar go all the way an get free of the public power grid totally. On days you don’t have enough sun you will have to have back up like your own generator[powered by gas , natural gas,bio fuel,diesel] or use battery for the night. change lighting to LE D’s where possible.There are sacrifices you will have to make but the payoff is worth it.
I’m in nor cal and know people with them and they work fine as long as your not on the coast with foggy days.
and, if given the tax credits, you’ll see a faster return on investment in CA than I would have in Western PA (I was given a 10 year return number without factoring any tax credits). Plus you’ll be doing something good for the environment. My brother put his house for sale which had solar panels for hot water, and was offered good money for the solar panels independent of selling the house. If anyone has a any “no” answer that doesn’t involve the initial expense, I’m looking forward to reading it.
I woild just move out of california and live in a state with cheaper power. I guess solar panels are worth it in califonia with high price of power there. but it migght take years make back your money on the panels.
Your question is rich in detail. I have a lot of comments.
Reducing reliance on the grid – most solar put in today is tied to the grid, and if the grid goes down, your house will not have power, either. This isn’t a consideration for us in San Jose, Ca – the grid is reliable, and if it does go down, it tends to be only for a few seconds.
Reducing electric billl – Our electric bill is now about $ 5 a month (PG&E). Formerly, it averaged $ 50 a month, so we were never big users of electricity in the first place. A low-energy house like ours takes a long time to recover the cost of installing solar electric. It would take 20 years to recover the cost for our system. If we installed a similar system today, the payback time would be more like 10 years. If were were big energy users, more than baseline, we might get the cost back in as little as 3 years.
Conservation measures – CFL’s are a no-brainer. With the PG&E subsidy, they’re cheap, and use a fraction of the electricity that incandescents do. It has generally been cheaper to spend money on conservation and efficiency than generating more electricity. Someday that might change, but I believe it’s still true today.
Added home value – given how much the price of homes has gone up and down, it would be hard to say whether solar panels added to the sales price of a home or not. With rational home buyers, an energy-saving feature is supposed to be worth 20x the annual energy savings, according to one assessor’s guide. So a system that saves $ 1000 in electricity per year would theoretically add $ 20k to the value of a home. But buyers aren’t so rational. Some will think panels are ugly, others will think they’re cool, a third group won’t care.
We put our system in 4 years ago, and I’m pleased with it. However, if we had waited until today, we could have put it in for half price. I don’t know what the price trend will be in the future. Surely the native technology price will go down, but as the economy improves, a manufacturer might still raise prices on panels. Also, labor costs could go up.
State incentive – I wouldn’t worry about it. The state incentive is already at a trivial level because so much solar has already been installed. Take the state incentive if there is one, but I wouldn’t base any decisions on that. The federal tax credit will be your major incentive, 30% of the cost of the system, with no cap.
There is a map here showing other solar installations in the SF bay area, if that’s where you are http://www.svenergymap.org/UX.php . If there’s someone near you, you might knock on their door and see how they feel about it. Every owner of solar that I know of has been proud to talk about their system.
Our system is described here http://roderick.hostcell.net/solar/photovoltaic.html . If you are nearby, you’re welcome to visit.
How many trees do you have around your home that shade your roof? Are you willing to either cut the trees down or trim them?
There are some rebates for solar and for other energy efficiency improvements.
A good place to start is the Go Solar website. It contains a section on getting started that includes an energy efficiency audit .
There are worksheets that can help figure out how much electricity you need, how much your property can produce, and how long the payback would be.
Nope.
If your goal is to reduce your costs, solar panels are not the way to do it.
Depending on how you compute the costs, solar panels are still 5 to 30 times more expensive than utility power. Don’t believe a word you hear from solar panel salesfolks. They have to lie like crazy to make their product even marginally enticing.
Your best bet is to install fuorescent lighting wherever possible.