My wife got curious and booked x2 guys to come look at our house and get quotes.

South side of the house gets %100 sun. Zero trees.

What should I ask them that I don't know to ask them? Roof is 11 years old. I know I could use a new roof before as it's the one the builder put on. Outside that? What don't I know?

go to Tesla https://www.tesla.com/energy/design put in your info and get an online quote, best pricing and nobody in your house.

Go to your power provider and download the last two years of power use, find out your average use per month and look at the peak and low months.

This way you can properly size the project, a good solar rep will want this information as well.

You'll need to decide if you are going 100% or not, not everyone does 100%.

PowerWalls are options (batteries) for down times,

YOu'll want to know what state incentives if any exist from your State or power companies in addition to the federal tax break.

I don't have roof Solar panels, but several neighbors do. So...

Whatever company you choose, don't skip a bird/critter guard kit. Some critters that roost on roof tops and under Solar panels love to feed on panel wiring.

1) Efficiency of panels--current models are approximately 20% efficient
2) Power Optimizer vs Microinverter
https://www.energysage.com/sol...vs-power-optimizers/
3) Installer--local or out of state
4) Incentives--check State, Federal and local utility incentives.

I would try and get the most efficient panel for the $$, installed by a local company that will maintain the panels.

I went through this exercise recently.

Tesla's quote for solar panels was lower than any competitor bid (of which I got several) by a WIDE margin. I no longer recall the exact numbers, but something like $12k vs $22k or something similarly ridiculous.

I advise you to get a quote from Tesla.

Example of local solar quote

Here is an estimate for 16.12kW:

Total price before credit - $43,524
26% Tax Credit - $11,316
Price after tax credit - $32,208

Tesla Quote same size system

16.32 kW Solar Panels $32,800
Cash Price $32,800
Federal Tax Credit -$8,528
Price After Incentives $24,272

If you have Costco Membership

www.costco.com search Sunrun, you get Costco Card as a pct of purchase, as well as if you are Executive member benefits, going to see if I can put it on my Costco Visa and get another 4%

I would take a long look at the ROI (return on investment) before committing to anything.

It could very well be that it's a poor investment in your area and under your circumstances. I know it is where I am.

Something that made sense to me on an intutitive level, without doing any analysis, so I could very well be way off: Here in sunny Florida, it seems to me that the sunnier it is, the more we need the air conditioner. How about enough solar to handle the HVAC system? Gut feeling tells me that should make a significant difference in the electric bill. Is my thinking sound?

I purchased a new home 13 years ago with a small PV system integrated into the roof. Rated at 2.4 kW DC. $18K. Lot's of cool tax incentives.

The first inverter died soon out of warranty. $1550 to replace. I can't get the inverter to reliable work with my home network, so I can't tell you how much power I create vs. use. But last time I checked it was about 30%.

Or course technology has improved and prices dropped ($/kw), so I wouldn't hesistate to buy again.

However, you've got to know how much your currently paying for power. Are you on a flat rate, tiered rate, etc? Take your total bill (monthly, annually) to come up with a rough estimate of $/kW. Compare that to how much power your system will generate, how much it will cost, incentives, lifespan, and your simple payback.

In CA, solar is a no brainer due to some of the highest power cost in the nation plus lots of sunshine.

In GA, my guess is modest power cost plus decent sunshine.

Don't trust the vendor's calculations willy nilly. They're there to sell their product!

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
Something that made sense to me on an intutitive level, without doing any analysis, so I could very well be way off: Here in sunny Florida, it seems to me that the sunnier it is, the more we need the air conditioner. How about enough solar to handle the HVAC system? Gut feeling tells me that should make a significant difference in the electric bill. Is my thinking sound?

Depends, does your solar (peak output) exceed your demand (AC, fridge, plug loads)? That's fine at 4pm. But what at 9pm when your demand is the same but solar power supply is nil? Batteries? If you don't have batteries and you have excess power, will your utility compensate you at the retail rate they'd charge you? I don't believe they will.

Solar is good and viable.......a good portion of the hours.

Maybe my thinking was oversimplified.

I was thinking in terms of isolating the HVAC system and feeding it from the solar system (the one on the house, not the one with the planets). Now that I think about it again, I guess it would require some sort of automatic switching, to reconnect the HVAC back to the power company's feed when the sun goes down.

Nothing is as simple as it sounds at first.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
Maybe my thinking was oversimplified.

I was thinking in terms of isolating the HVAC system and feeding it from the solar system (the one on the house, not the one with the planets). Now that I think about it again, I guess it would require some sort of automatic switching, to reconnect the HVAC back to the power company's feed when the sun goes down.

Nothing is as simple as it sounds at first.

They are all that way, no problems with it at all.

The cost of an installed system may be $20-$30k, however the wholesale price of the hardware itself is probably 1/4 of the total price. If you installed your own system, and were able to buy the panels at a wholesale price, your overall investment would be very low.

Also most new systems use microinverters, which is one per panel. They have many advantages, I would look at systems with micro inverters.

quote:

Originally posted by c1steve:

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
Maybe my thinking was oversimplified.

I was thinking in terms of isolating the HVAC system and feeding it from the solar system (the one on the house, not the one with the planets). Now that I think about it again, I guess it would require some sort of automatic switching, to reconnect the HVAC back to the power company's feed when the sun goes down.

Nothing is as simple as it sounds at first.

They are all that way, no problems with it at all.

See? Just shows how much I (don't) know about the whole topic.

Keep in mind that a tax credit is subtracted from your tax owed.

So, if the tax credit is $11,000 but your taxes are $9,000, you only "get" $9,000.

I'm in AZ. I'm interested. I get solar pitches all the time for "no cost" install. They even claim I can get the tax credit.


Thoughts?

Thanks

How much does it cost? Install and panels and all the extra gizmos?
How long do the panels work before they begin to degrade?
Who has to repair them?

Someone here in the neighborhood bought into it and she was going on about how she doesn’t have an electric bill...till I asked how much her payment to the solar company was and how much her electric bill was before the install......she got a funny face and walked off.

These solar guys roll through the neighborhood about once every two weeks....I’ve given up and just tell them I rent ....they move on

Before I retired, I and my crew took care of commercial size rooftop solar installed on our public bldg. There are four separate monitored sections of 20 panels each. Monitoring each section can be online or at the control displays.

We learned that regular cleaning is required to keep the output at the top. We purposely left one section uncleaned and quickly saw a significant drop in output compared to a cleaned section right next to it.

Cleaning must be done after snow, forest fires, tree pollen season, and on a schedule for general environmental dirt. And a large installation like this is not easy to reach. Not to mention all the OSHA rules for work on roof. Then there is the roof itself that has been affected by the panels. The roof is TPO.

quote:

Originally posted by Russ59:

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
Something that made sense to me on an intutitive level, without doing any analysis, so I could very well be way off: Here in sunny Florida, it seems to me that the sunnier it is, the more we need the air conditioner. How about enough solar to handle the HVAC system? Gut feeling tells me that should make a significant difference in the electric bill. Is my thinking sound?

Depends, does your solar (peak output) exceed your demand (AC, fridge, plug loads)? That's fine at 4pm. But what at 9pm when your demand is the same but solar power supply is nil? Batteries? If you don't have batteries and you have excess power, will your utility compensate you at the retail rate they'd charge you? I don't believe they will.

Solar is good and viable.......a good portion of the hours.

Many places do "net" metering. You pull power from the grid as you use it. You push power into the grid as you generate it. You get a 1-to-1 kwh credit for power generated. You bank any excess you create. You pay on your "net" usage.

Here, for my utility company, you settle up and pay your bill once every 12 months. This allows for seasonal differences in generation and usage, and I only pay for the "net" power consumed at the end of the year.

Battery storage makes no sense at this point, other than as a sophisticated backup system to grid power. Most solar installs just push power back into the grid and bank credits instead of trying to store power for later use.

In our commercial case above, excess power over bldg load would make the utility meter run backwards.

Or so they said.....