Anyone Have Solar on his House?

[Chris81]

I have installed solar panels just a month ago.
I live in Spain and there are definitely many more sunny days than cloudy ones.
I started to get quotes for the installation last year, after the price of electricity here reached 250€/mWh.
I'm glad I did so and installed them before the price raised to 500€/mWh and over.
The cost of the investment will be covered in much, much less than expected with the current prices for electricity here.
It may be the case that you have to be rich NOT TO install solar panels.

 

[DanWil84]

I have 10 330wp all black LG panels and I'm glad I did install them. First year was exceptional with 3200kwh, last year 2900kwh which still isn't bad.

Today got the yearly electricity bill. Paid around 150 a month with the last 4 months bumped to 175 for both electricity and gas, got 500 back, last year was 800. I typically pay more than I should to have some reserve on the budget. Got a VAT cut on the panels, equipment and installing, net investment around 4500 so i should earn them back in a about 7 to 10 years. I want some extra panels on my shed, change the water heater to electric and change the cooking to induction. In the future get a home battery. Gas went up in my now 1 year contract from under 75 cents per m3 to almost 1.50 per m3, so your almost forced to invest.

 

[chilllucky]

We will be constructing a home and ag buildings on 9 rural acres in Southern Wisconsin starting hopefully next fall. Solar is absolutely part of the plan, tho I have not started the detailed research yet.

Because we have the space to do so, the panels will be mounted to frames on the ground (at ground level or on agrivoltaic armatures) for the reasons listed above: ease of maintenance and holes in the roof.

However, most panels I am aware of for on-roof residential install onto a frame. The frame does get attached with penetrations (or clamps to a standing seam style metal roof) and panels get clipped in and out of the frame. It can be done well without compromising your roof too badly. It's still ladder work, though.

 

[kola]

ROI on $100k solar setup?

 

[chilllucky]

ROI on $100k solar setup?

It depends on what your electricity bills are. For an existing house in a built up area, you just math out the cost of a system that would produce as much power as you used in a "base year". The assumption is that it would bring your bills to zero. Divide the cost of the system by your average utility bill and you have a figure in months of how long it would take to pay for itself. Presumes utility rates would never go up (ha!).

For a rural and or new construction project it gets a little more complicated because one also has to figure in the cost of bringing power to the house site and some building considerations.

If your point is that saving, say, 100/month on a utility bill would take a long ass time to equal 100k, you're not wrong. But it's not the only factor in such an equation.

 

[kola]

I have installed solar panels just a month ago.
I live in Spain and there are definitely many more sunny days than cloudy ones.
I started to get quotes for the installation last year, after the price of electricity here reached 250€/mWh.
I'm glad I did so and installed them before the price raised to 500€/mWh and over.
The cost of the investment will be covered in much, much less than expected with the current prices for electricity here.
It may be the case that you have to be rich NOT TO install solar panels.

Sweet, keep it simple... unless your bank account is unlimited.

I have 4 lithium batts at 12 volts hooked for 24v, 1300 watts in solar panels, a Controller and Inverter. I wired it, trenched lines and built it all to code. I have plenty of power leftover at the end of the day. And my batts are charged by 11am. We get 300+ days of sun in Colorado and it's rare to have to solid grey days in a row. I had to run my generator twice last year (in winter) Overall a $10-12k investment with $4k being in batteries.

 

[kola]

It depends on what your electricity bills are. For an existing house in a built up area, you just math out the cost of a system that would produce as much power as you used in a "base year". The assumption is that it would bring your bills to zero. Divide the cost of the system by your average utility bill and you have a figure in months of how long it would take to pay for itself. Presumes utility rates would never go up (ha!).

For a rural and or new construction project it gets a little more complicated because one also has to figure in the cost of bringing power to the house site and some building considerations.

If your point is that saving, say, 100/month on a utility bill would take a long ass time to equal 100k, you're not wrong. But it's not the only factor in such an equation.

Yeah, you have to be using a lot of juice. Is it a business or home, number of occupants, etc. I'm an miser on electric as I started out on a bare-bones set-up in the beginning. Until a person goes solar on a small scale, most don't realize how much power they waste. Or how little you can actually live off of.

 

[fireground_piper]

If you have the space to rack them on the ground, it makes great sense. Two of my neighbors have a roof system and enjoy them, but I’d never put them on a roof I owned. Besides future maintenance issues, they also pose a problem for emergency response if any response team needs to go on the roof. It’s never talked about but it is a problem.

 

[FDors2]

Before you start planning on how many solar panels to put on your home, you need to know what your goals are. This will help you determine how many panels you should have for your home - Solar calculator: How many solar panels do I need - Texas News Today - https://texasnewstoday.com/solar-calculator-how-many-solar-panels-do-i-need/594083/.

 

[mso489]

I live in a sunny state, although we do go through weeks long cloudy spells, but unfortunately I Iive in a little grove of ancient oaks that provide heavy shade. I believe solar panels would still work, but I think their efficiency would be halved, partly from shade and partly from fallen leaves in autumn.

In other words, my situation is not optimal for solar. Also, I would not be good at any technical digital dimensions, at which I am not adept. I got rid of my highly digital thermostat; it's still digital, but very basic.

 

[kcghost]

I've always heard that solar has quite a ways to go before beating out traditional methods of heating/cooling a house. I guess time has passed me by when I wasn't looking. For some reason one of my wife's cousins got hooked up to solar just recently and is loving it but he's kind of trendy oriented person. He'd rather overspend on something if it is considered the cool thing to do.

 

[DanWil84]

I've always heard that solar has quite a ways to go before beating out traditional methods of heating/cooling a house. I guess time has passed me by when I wasn't looking. For some reason one of my wife's cousins got hooked up to solar just recently and is loving it but he's kind of trendy oriented person. He'd rather overspend on something if it is considered the cool thing to do.

In my case I can heat and/or cool my house with the power my 10 solar panels make in a year, so it's very doable. My present 330watt panels are allready outdated, my parents bought a house which has 400watt panels. They don't even get a connection to natural gas, even if they want to they can't get it that easy, heating/cooling, cooking and water to shower etc are all electric powered. Output of the panels is estimated 5000kwh, estimated use is 7000kwh.

 

[crawdad]

These two young men were walking up and down the neighborhood the other day, going door to door. I was sitting down on the porch and about to light my pipe when one of them interrupts me. He was giving me a hard, aggressive sell for rooftop solar panels. He countered everything I replied with a quick, well practiced answer. It was just too rehearsed for me. I like to ponder on things, do my own patient research.

He ignored the hint to keep on stepping so I had to be blunt. “You’re ruining the pleasure of my smoke, son. Now I’m feeling right aggravated on my own front porch. It’s time you were leaving.”

Somehow my smoke was much more pleasurable in the wake of his departure.