Debate switching to solar power

My electrician tells me that switching all the lights in the house to LED and using a PV-powered water heater will significantly reduce your electric bill. He also recommended disconnecting any wall warts that do not have to be plugged in. I'm mostly there on the LED thing and have done the water heater and wall warts so I'm almost entirely independent of the grid.
 
We installed a 7.5 kW system 3 years ago. Paid 25k cash. We are in southern California and got in before a deadline where we get net metering.
Once a year we settle up financially with the power company. First year we produced more electricity in every month except Jan and Feb.
Second year we turned on the AC in June with the stat set to 74. Turned it off in October. That year we ended up owing $60 for the year. This year we have been using the AC sparingly and expect another $0 year. I may need to replace the gas dryer and water heater with electric to use up some of my excess capacity.
 
mikey said:
My electrician tells me that switching all the lights in the house to LED and using a PV-powered water heater will significantly reduce your electric bill. He also recommended disconnecting any wall warts that do not have to be plugged in. I'm mostly there on the LED thing and have done the water heater and wall warts so I'm almost entirely independent of the grid.
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from memory lighting is ~10% of household consumption, water heating is 10-20%, cooking/ cleaning is 10-20% and the rest is heating/ cooling. So going from incandescent to LED, assuming the same usage pattern, will reduce your bill by ~8% on average. Going from CFL to LED will only net you a small reduction (1% or so), but you'll get much nicer light and longer lived bulbs, in general.

All our lights are LED and I think it helps, but it's one of those "small but additive" improvements, like putting new seals on external doors, shading windows, fixing attic leaks and the like. They all add up, but individually they're still small beans compared to turning up the thermostat in summer or throwing on some warmer clothes in winter :)
 
I would like to weigh in on this topic even though we don't currently have solar at our home. We did have a solar pool heater when we lived in Arizona though but this conversation isn't really about that.

My father-in-law built his up-north dream cottage about 40 years ago, being an "engineer" he designed the roof to have optimum angles for solar panel placement. Also being an "engineer" he has periodically done the payback calculations that kept him from ever installing a system even though he could have afforded it. There are plenty of good references and anecdotal evidence already in this thread to help with calculations on how much solar to install and how to figure payback rates, it's basically just arithmetic.

However, I would argue that there is a much more important factor to consider. The US is the largest energy consumer per-capita in the world, we have also recently become the largest producers of fossil fuels. There is no questioning that burning fossil fuels produces byproducts that will have an effect on our planet long past any of our lifetimes (please don't take this as an invitation to try to get into political debate with me, I won't bite). There's also no questioning that solar and wind power generation has increased in efficiency and dropped in cost significantly in recent years.

So, if your motivation for going solar is purely economic and only related to how much you will have to spend for energy over X number of years you can do a calculation like my father-in-law did and make a decision based on that information. If however you believe that being blessed with the wealth to make such a decision, it should be based at least partially on the perceived or actual benefit to others on our planet even after you are no longer with us you can factor that in as well.

Make your decision however you want but IMHO, having the power to make choices that benefit others is a blessing not to be taken for granted.


Cheers,

john
 
I've wanted to go solar since the 70's but was never in one place long enough and the cost was too high. 3yrs ago we needed a new car and I bumbled onto the Chevy Volt. It sounded like the best of both worlds as a plug in hybrid which means for the first 50-60mi depending on how you drive it's an electric car, not a typical hybrid which cycles the engine all the time. This has been a boon as we didn't even put any gas in the bitty 8gal tank for the first month and a half and 1,500mi. we had it. By its internal info 85% of the time it's running pure electric and over the life of the car we are averaging 162mpg. We now have 50,000mi and except for 2 oil changes(first one free from the dealer, the second I did) there has been no problems at all. I was skeptical as this is my first American car so we leased and when the lease was up just bought it.

But this also upped our power bill from about $65mo to around $140. I was using the 110v charger and it was taking 8hrs to fully charge as the car could be programmed to defer charging after 11pm when the rates go down. But it was was just barely through charging by 7am when my wife left for work. Pre Volt we were below where it's cost effective to go solar, now we were in range. My wife found a deal where they would install a top of the line 3.5kw system and throw in the 220v power station. They contracted with a local that I've heard nothing but good installer and when they came and did the inspection they took one look at my service panel that was junk and needed to be replaced and said that would be replaced as part of the original cost. I'd had it priced and low was $1800, high was $3200.

With the rebates it was less than $10k, we paid cash. I wish we'd gone bigger as our true up is $600 a year. We have lots of overcast here but according to the installers they love installs here because the output is good because of the moderate temps. I asked the installers what if I just went with you guys. They said they didn't even have access to the panels I was getting because you had to deal in volume and they were higher quality than the ones they used and same for the inverter. They all said they didn't know how these guys did it especially after replacing the service panel and the power station.

Reading through everybody's responses has been interesting and the whole ROI idea. I don't see how there is ever a ROI with just being hooked to the grid but I can see like in my case until your usage is above a certain point it makes no sense to go solar. It should be noted the first guy on our street to go solar works for Pacific Gas & Electric and has a 10kw system and just bought a Tesla with plans to get one for his wife when her car needs to be replaced. I don't know if he has a Powerwall, but I'd like to go that way someday too.
 
mattthemuppet2 said:
from memory lighting is ~10% of household consumption, water heating is 10-20%, cooking/ cleaning is 10-20% and the rest is heating/ cooling. So going from incandescent to LED, assuming the same usage pattern, will reduce your bill by ~8% on average. Going from CFL to LED will only net you a small reduction (1% or so), but you'll get much nicer light and longer lived bulbs, in general.

All our lights are LED and I think it helps, but it's one of those "small but additive" improvements, like putting new seals on external doors, shading windows, fixing attic leaks and the like. They all add up, but individually they're still small beans compared to turning up the thermostat in summer or throwing on some warmer clothes in winter :)
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I think it depends on the situation. My house has a lot of lighting because my wife is legally blind and needs light everywhere so she can sort of see. Switching to LED was made because of the better light output and whiter light and less about cost. Still, it helpsl her so I would have done it in any case.

Part of my decision to go solar was as John said, to go greener. I also plan to purchase an electric vehicle at some point. I was ready to go with Tesla until they began to run into financial/other difficulties. Now I need to reassess.

Going solar is expensive but for me, it was the right choice.
 
no disagreement here! I like LEDs for their instant on and better colour rendition, the power savings are an extra bonus.

I also agree with people above, including yourself, that have installed solar for personal reasons aside from financial ones. Once you introduce that, then the value or not is really down to you - if you value it, that's good enough. There's no way we could afford solar outright, so any investment in it would have to be offset by cuts elsewhere and it would have to be justified on financial grounds, whatever the environmental benefit. As it is, I'm first trying to pick all the low hanging fruit :)

Obviously, a plug in hybrid or full battery electric vehicle changes the metric considerably if you drive alot.

Personally, I'd be down with paying extra on my bill to get some of the electricity we use (ok, I know it doesn't work that way, but you know what I mean) from renewable sources, but that's not an option where we live unfortunately.
 
mattthemuppet2 said:
Personally, I'd be down with paying extra on my bill to get some of the electricity we use (ok, I know it doesn't work that way, but you know what I mean) from renewable sources, but that's not an option where we live unfortunately.
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Weird. I saw a doc a while ago where there was a guy getting farmers in west Texas to put in wind gens because they could make more $$ than farming.

The tech I'm waiting to see how it shakes out is this flow battery by a co. In Australia called Z Cell

 
Wow, a compelling case for solar.
Just think where this technology will be in 20 years.
 
My nephew installed a solar power system, as part of a major university subsidized energy study, involving 35 houses. He said it works, but just barely, he worked it out to about 35-40 year payback. They had numerous meetings, with 2 or 3 engineers setting around the kitchen table, going over blueprints, computer read outs and numerous charts. The nephew said he wished he never got involved,

I’ve been ask a couple of times to be involved in a rounds of testings, the last thing I want is people in ant out of my house, controlling my energy usages, based on their projections and schedules.
 
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