Solar power

[nursebee]

On Friday I am meeting with a salesman to discuss a new system. Does anyone have experience with these that cares to discuss the pros and cons?

[Swobee]

What is your goal? Go 'green'? Save $$? Make $$? Save energy?

IF the goal is to save money, I have some bad news for you. Even with Federal Tax incentives, small scale solar costs far more than the economic benefits will offer. A good system capable of handling the needs of an entire home cost a considerable amount of $$. To the tune of $30K to $45K or more. The tax credits will help, but that is somethingyour tax consultant can help with better than I will.

Going 'green' is always the right thing to do and if I was wealthy, I would go very, very green. Unfortunately, I have to live within a budget and economics drive most of my decisions and going truly green unfortunately comes with a price tag that has to be justified for many of us.

Saving money is not accomplished by going solar. If I invest $40K into a system that can handle my home and take me off the grid for most all but base-line power needs, I have to consider what my needs and system capabilities are. The payback will take much longer than the sales person's figures and brochures will display. We deal with people all the time who've invested tons of cash into wind turbines and become angry when their payments from the system won't 'buy lunch' figuratively speaking. Sales people will say the darndest things, don't they? Their will be some maintenance, but less with solar than with a wind system. The capacities they will quote will be under ideal conditions - how often during a typical day is your location truely ideal for solar?

Some things to consider: Do you live in an area with excellent solar capacity potential? Is the location of the panels going to be effected by shading? I met a gentleman recently who invested a ton into solar, but didn't consider the site he had available - it's shaded often during the day and his system performs very poorly. The sales person signed him up anyway without advising his location was less than ideal. (Gee, didn't see that one coming, a sales person convincing a customer to make a poorly informed decision... unheard of!)

Saving energy is never, never accomplished by choosing an alternative source of energy. It is instead, deferred to perhaps a lower cost energy source. Make sense? In other words, make your home or business more energy efficient before considering any alternative sources of energy. It is far more imperitave to reduce energy uses than it is to replace them with another - in the latter, nothing is gained in the ultimate goal, which should be reducing the need for energy.

I would suggest you go to our website to check options and estimated cost assumptions for alternative energy sources, but we have much more on wind than solar to date. The whole purpose is to help the consumer make an informed decision and be able to ask the right questions before it's too late.

Now that I've said all that - are you looking at solar domestic water heating? This is perhaps the better application than solar PhotoVoltaics, both economically and functually. The costs are very low compared to PV, provide a return on investment that is more reasonable than PV and no connections to the grid are necessary.

The final thing to do is consult your local utility. If they are a customer owned cooperative, you are in luck. They will be much more customer-user friendly than an I.O.U. (Investor owned utility). They will offer advice from a standpoint of your responsibilities and anticipated cost benefits. Even if they are an IOU, they will have an energy consultant division of some sort to help you understand each other's role in the alternative energy game.

I applaud you for looking to alternative energy uses for many reasons. In high school, I won medals at state speech competition for converting homes to solar heating among other energy related items. My day job is to help customers make decisions on reasonable & reliable energy improvements. I have little tolerance for anyone who is not interested in energy reduction, but wants only an energy alternative instead. There is a huge difference and it needs to be understood. I see people every day who invest into high efficiency HVAC appliances, yet leave their homes poorly or un-insulated. Their money would have been better spent in shell improvements first, then in system improvements.

Best luck - just remember to ask a lot of questions and evaluate the responses thoroughly. Right now, energy alternatives are an easy sell, but there a lot of disappointed customers left in the aftermath. If I didn't have a conscience, I would be wealthy peddling energy 'saving' mythical things. Everyone wants the little magic "black box" that will solve all problems. Problem is, that box doesn't exist. But people buy those "boxes" very day, then some call me later on wondering why they're still paying so much for energy. I end up being the guy who delivers the bad news because someone sold a concept that may not be quite right. It often takes a great deal of effort to deprogram the consumer to see the light.

[justin]

it depends if you are on or off grid, what your location is like, and what your power needs are. i have built 3 houses that were solar/back up propane generator for others and, the cheapest was over $15,000, and the sites were mediocre for direct sun. all of them were well advised to not skimp on batteries and all 3 systems are working well meeting the needs of the houses. there is a company here that we send homeowners into with their house plan, then the guys come and do light tests at the building site and size the system accordingly. i have not dealt with the "selling power back" systems, where we are most on grid houses are on electric co-op's and they are not required to buy back the electricity. justin

[nursebee]

What website should I check out Swobee? Our website is not linked. Thank you

[Countryboy]

Are you looking at solar photovoltaics for electricity production, or are you looking at solar hot water heaters?

Solar hot water heaters can pay for themselves pretty quickly. Photovoltaic panels can take 25+ years to pay for themselves.

It is 5 times easier to conserve energy than to make it. For example, you might spend $5,000 on solar panels or a wind turbine to create the electric you would save by buying $1,000 worth of additional insulation in your home.

See how much energy you can save. After you get your energy usage cut to bare minimum, THEN look at producing your own electric.

www.otherpower.com is a great site for the renewable energy enthusiast.

[WannaBee]

Nope we no nothing about solar

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r114/providencefarms/play021.jpg

[Countryboy]

Appears to be about 1200 watts worth - probably $5000-$7500 for the panels.

With an average of 5 sun hours a day, that's a whopping 6 KwH per day, or 180 KwH per month.

[nursebee]

My house is insulated concrete form for exterior walls. As far as air tightness, we are likely too tight, the guy that did our blower door test said we are one of the tightest 5 or 10 homes he ever tested. Additional insulation on our 2003 house will not help us.

Our water heater is a propane instant hot water heater. There is virtually no benefit to switch away from this paid system to something else.

Solar power desired=electricity=photovoltaic system.

The incentives are very good right now. 35% state tax credit, 30% federal. In the end 35% comes from me.

NCGreenPower pays 15 cents per Kwh, local utility pays 5cents. I pay 12 cents for what I use, get 20 cents total for what I generate in a dual meter system aka buy all sell all. "Subsidy" might not last, so then it converts for $500 to a net meter system. Local utility will not pay for what I produce in excess of what I use in a year but I can be without a power bill. The guy we talked to suggests we need a 5kwh system@8K each. OUCH!

I can go with panels or thin film as this will be acceptable on new garage construction. Thin film is cheaper but requires more space. Inverter might end up being some kind of mini-inverter with each array of panels to facilitate expansion as desired, otherwise expansion of panels might require a new inverter.

We consumed 8080 kwh last year, 673 month, 22.1 per day.

[Swobee]

That is a very commendable anhnual electrical energy use in my opinion, but I have no idea how many in your home, size of home, HDD, CDD (Heating and Cooling Degree Days), habits, hobbies, etc. among other pertinent data. The blower door test may have told you that an ERV or HRV is necessary. Did the auditor performing the test recommend one due to the air tightness of your home?

How is your LPG usage? If you can, look at non-heating months' averages if possible to estimate the annual water heating costs vs space heating. It's tough with LPG, as you typically don't get a monthly metering to really know where the energy is going. Maybe with your kWh usage, some solar may work out, but make certain the location is conducive to solar first. Have the sales person give you a good walk around and listen very, very, very, very carefully. With the stimulus funds throwing money around like water at some things, there are going to be a lot of questionable things promised and sold. Best luck to your project.

Our website has some good info on wind, but not much on solar regarding costs. I think one could substitute solar panel installation costs vs. net gains. Look at www.mweenergy.com, Customer Resources, look at the wind energy section and maybe you can play with some numbers a little bit. I don't go there very often as once a person gets a bid for a wind or solar system the sticker shock usually puts their fire out, even after incentives. I still applaud you for considering green energy and your choice of home building methods. Standard stud construction really needs to be banned or at least improved to the point it offers some energy conscience reductions. Building the way we have been since WWII has simply got to stop. In our area, recent years of relatively cheap energy has resulted in some really poor building methods. We see some relatively small homes use a lot more energy than necessary. That bothers me immensely, but I am powerless since I don't get called in up front, but instead after a year or more of high energy use or comfort issues.

[nursebee]

Thanks for those that helped out. If interested in this check out my new blog sharing this process. Panels likely get installed manana.

The blog has a link to my fathers blog detailing his system install.

http://encsolar.blogspot.com/