Grid-tied Solar Panel System…Good Investment?

[DustyJGParticipant 15]

I recently bought a modest retirement home for myself (I’m 46 and plan to fully retire at 58) and I’m debating adding a grid-tied solar panel system to offset my electrical bill. The cost of electricity in my area is one of the lowest in the country and will take longer for the investment to start paying for itself. On the plus side, it’s an opportunity to embrace a little bit of the Green Movement without going too crazy and becoming a hippie. The installation of the system will be locally sourced by an electrical contractor who’s CEO is also MGTOW. So I can support that business with a clear conscience. Has anyone else out there gone this route? And if so, what are your thoughts…pros and cons?

Thanks for the honest feedback…

[Solo MAN’S WisdomParticipant]

I understand your motivation, but consider the downside.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/08/11/nevada-starts-to-pull-plug-on-solar-subsidies.html

When women lead, destruction is the destination. -- Me.

[TuneoutParticipant]

Welcome brother and yes anything that can lower your costs AND support MGTOW is a great idea.

I live in the country,far enough north to be away from civilization and take advantage of things like wind power and geo-thermal heating.

The ironic thing is I’m right in the middle of the oil&gas region,lol

Lifes a bitch,but you don't have to marry one!

[RoyDalParticipant]

I’m for it.

I have retired in a rural area. Power outages here are a fact of life. We are at the arse end of very long power lines. (Ditto phone and internet.)

Therefore: Make sure your solar panels keep a bank of storage batteries full, enough batteries to keep your refrigerator going for a few hours, and make sure you can disconnect from the grid at will.

Society asks MGTOWs: Why are you not making more tax-slaves?

[DustyJGParticipant 15]

My aim is to electrically diversify. I want to stay grid-tied for those seasonal lows when the panels aren’t generating enough to sustain my needs and the added benefit of selling back surplus electricity. And I’d rather not have the added expense of installing and maintaining a battery bank just yet. That will come later once the panels have paid for themselves. So for emergency situations I’ll keep a portable gas generator at the ready.

[BoarParticipant]

Read the fine print on tieing into the grid. Some distributors may credit you or outright buy the electricity you produce at wholesale rates, not retail. Your investment may take a lot longer to pay off.

Untamed wrote: Quit complaining and Go Your Own Way in whatever manner suits you best.

[DustyJGParticipant 15]

That’s why I haven’t signed on the dotted line and am still doing the research. Thanks for that tip. I hadn’t thought about that little nugget of knowledge.

[RoyDalParticipant]

Whatever you do, be prepared for the fact that the grid cannot be there for you when the lines are down.

In winter, you MUST keep yourself and your loved ones from freezing to death.

In summer, well being hot is a drag, but our pioneer ancestors got by without air-conditioning, and so can you.

Society asks MGTOWs: Why are you not making more tax-slaves?

[DustyJGParticipant 15]

After 5 gov’t sponsored year long vacations (military deployments) to the middle-east, the heat doesn’t bother me. For a winter emergency I have a kerosene heater just in case. Augment both with a gas generator to power the fridge and some fans and I’ve got this.

[Jan SobieskiParticipant 28791]

Do the math. I coworker is doing it.

Love is just alimony waiting to happen. Visit mgtow.com.

[BeerParticipant 11832]

Jan Sobieski wrote:

Do the math. I coworker is doing it.

That is the smart thing. I know plenty of people up here who crunched the numbers and the payoff time is never. Its not worth spending 30k on a panel set up that might save you 50-100 bucks a month. The panels don’t last for ever…they decay over time and will need replaced in about 20 years, and you are constantly at the mercy of the weather and the time of day. If you put in a battery backup system, they are constant maintenance and will need money put into it over time. Unless you are getting a decent government subsidy for it, I doubt I’d bother. If I really wanted some capacity to sustain myself off the grid I’d rather just get a wood stove and a generator and use as needed.

[Jan SobieskiParticipant 28791]

Good point. His have a warranty. Will that warranty be honored in 15 years? I don’t know.

Love is just alimony waiting to happen. Visit mgtow.com.

[LivinitupParticipant 135]

You will need to calculate this through with a very sharp pencil…. whatever numbers people give you, calculate with a WIDE margin of error for your own safety, be it the years it´s supposed to function or the amount of Electricity it should generate at your location. Both tend to be “slightly” exaggerated. Buyer beware.

Chances are, that Solar Set up will be toast before you can even re-coupe the initial investment, much less “save” anything.

Offset the electrical bill? You don´t offset it, quite the opposite! It´s more like paying all your electric bills for the next 10 years right now instead of when they are truly due.

How much will that setup run you? 5k? 10k? Think it through: you could probably pay a lot of your future Electric bills with that kinda money… or not?

You might as well just put that kinda cash into your safe with a tape around it that says “Electric Bills” and only use it for that. Same/Same in the end. No wait, NOW you DID save money by not paying sales tax for a 9000$ item that will cost you 10k because of taxes…

It´s like throwing 30k at a new car so you can “save” a couple dimes at the gas station here and there. It´d probably be a better investment to throw a couple hundred each year towards maintenance for the old car, keeping the old gaz guzzler in top shape. If you save 1000$ on gas each year with your new vehicle, it will take you 30 years to break even…. You´re not saving anything. Neither your money, nor the planet… 😉

You will NEVER “save” money by mindlessely throwing money at NON-Problems in the hopes of saving anything.

Your electric bills are too high for your comfort? Use less electricity! Shut off the computer, TV, lights… build a fire in your backyard and char some dead animal instead while enjoying the dancing flames, the stars above and the nighttime sounds….

Washing machines, Dryers, fridges and Electric cooking stoves (as well as heating) are the big offenders where you can save the most though…. If you want to save money, see what you can live without. Air drying on a line is an easy way as well as not using three sets of clothes a day or letting run the washing machine half empty.

Don´t get me wrong, solar is great but NOT for money saving. For emergency use and stuff or off grid, it´s totally amazing. But it will cost you.

If emergency lighting plays a role for you, get on amazon and buy one of those Caravan lighting setups with like 3-4 LED Bulbs.

give us liberty, or give us death!

[BoarParticipant]

Livinitup wrote:

You will NEVER “save” money by mindlessely throwing money at NON-Problems in the hopes of saving anything.

Whimyn, take note!

Untamed wrote: Quit complaining and Go Your Own Way in whatever manner suits you best.

[FrankOneParticipant 1417]

IF photovoltaic (PV) solar were economically viable, major electricity generators, would be building large farms, and replacing legacy coal, gas, and nuclear plants. Solyndra wouldn’t have gone bust or needed a half billion dollar$ of subsidies from Dear Leader Obama nor would it have gone bankrupt.

AEP and other large generators, aren’t building out solar except to meet mandates and get grant money. If it isn’t economical on the large scale, it won’t be on the small scale. Granted, the utilities have to provide 100% uptime, so must have batteries in their systems, or natural gas peaking IF it comprised a significant fraction of generation. But the reality is, solar is built out only with subsidies or when mandated by law. NOT to provide low-cost power.

Supposedly, solar is 0.6% of generation, I personally don’t believe it’s even that high as many people use the THEORETICAL generation on a sunny day to rate panel output… Not actual generation. You are MUCH better off with a gas generator and automatic transfer switch if you MUST have reliable power; this is cheap. Just need generator, diesel tank, and switch.

In an industrial setting, where ZERO interruption is tolerable, a UPS to take up the load before the generator can kick in is nice, but very, very expensive for inductive loads.

I live in an old house and here are a couple ways I save money:

I’m in a hot climate. I live alone. I air-condition ONLY my bedroom at night. No central air. Box units. Bedroom is maybe 1/15th the total area of house. My electric bill is less than that of an apartment.

I also run my huge attic exhaust fan routinely to draw cool air in, in the mornings, and clear hot air out of the attic. These were popular in the 1970’s; not so much so today!

For heat I block off rooms not regularly occupied (closing duct register air supply/returns) in wintertime.

I have a very old, inefficient furnace, and should replace it. I would look at insulation, sealing windows, etc as low-hanging fruit. Also zone heating and cooling. And replace air filters.

[GnosticParticipant 2491]

You have 12 years before you retire.

By the time technology advances and the cost ratio of the solar power will be even better. Or there are even better alternatives to solar power.

Decide if you want a solar panel then, not now because there is not much benefit in cost ratio of solar power now. And even if you get a better cost ratio now, you will get an even better cost ratio later when technology advance.

There is no magic in MGTOW, just recognition of the truth and logical decision how to avoid dangers. The red pill is but the truth, it is no magical potion. Do not think in this modern world men have no longer have natural enemies, men are prey to women and government.

[AttonParticipant]

In the case of my home I have a total of 7 KW via two grid inverters. It produces more power then my family uses, but the price the utilities give for it will butt f~~~ you. Either way with the advent of lithium sulfur batteries and the long range electric car batteries will cost f~~~ all. Until the I would say go with grid tie, but upgrade your appliances and use leds in ever light in your home.

A MGTOW is a man who is not a woman's bitch!

[Mr. SmithParticipant 686]

I have a smaller PV-system installed on my home, just 12kW. Over here in Europe it’s a little different, first because energy is much more expensive, second because there are several governmental programs to support PV here you don’t have in the USA. So it does not make much sense to tell you about my calculation. Yes, I sell the energy and it pays for itself, but one can never be sure for how long this works. A change in government, a new tax and all your calculations are worthless. So only buy it if you can afford it! Don’t buy it on credit!
But: I don’t see it as a moneymaker as most people do. I see it as a way to be independent. When I renovated my home during the last three years (I am still not completely finished, because I am doing everything myself) I took care there are not just the usual power lines installed, but also networking and low voltage lines, so I can connect LED and other low voltage devices directly to it.
Right now I have 24V on it (even my PV is running on 48V, I am using a step-down-converter) and my computer and all lamps are powered by it. This way I have no need of a transverter to generate 240V and this increases the efficiency extremely. I am buffering the PV with an old truck battery for testing purposes. It works pretty good and I had no need to charge it with grid electricity, yet. I know I need a bigger battery sooner or later, because in winter it will not work that smoothly.
There are many systems on the horizon for storing PV power, mostly very expensive and none has proven it’s durability. It is promising, but we will see what it reality looks like after some years. Right now I found an interesting alternative. Maybe some of you guys heard of Ni-Fe-batteries (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel%E2%80%93iron_battery). It is a very old accumulator technology, but also very interesting. They found some of those old batteries in sunk ships, replaced the acid and 100-year-old cells worked as they was new. The Russians (I guess others did as well) used it in some of their subs and now they are selling the cells on the global market. Some Chinese manufacturers do as well. Unfortunately there are no domestic manufacturers in Europe and neither in the USA I know of. I am working on a plan to have those as a better buffer able to power my home for at least a week. It’s not as impossible as it sounds and doable for less then 10000€ ($11-12000)
Additional to my PV-system I am planning to install a little wind generator, maybe 2kW. Usually there is wind if there is no sun and vice versa. A Darrieus-rotor is quiet and able to handle turbulent wind much better than typical wind generators. So it is better suited for environments without a high pole or surrounded by other buildings or trees, like one has often in urban environments.

As I said, I am not seeing it as a moneymaker, it is an investment for my independence. Whatever happens, I will have power in my home and a little preparation and planning enables me to get off the grid literally at any time. I will need a transverter, too, but that’s for later. As long as you prepare everything in your house, like wiring etc) it is not much trouble to install everything later.

"I need men, real men, men with balls, certainly not sissies. I would never ask them to take an enemy position, but I insist that they follow me to that position. If you are one of those men, raise your hand." Napoleon Bonaparte

[narwhalParticipant]

The upcoming election is likely to change the calculations fairly significantly, up or down. If Trump wins, that could end the cheap panels from China, and possibly push towards energy independence…likely to drive prices up a bit I think in the short term.

If Clinton wins, I don’t what I’d expect. I can see her pushing to end subsidiary programs, or leave them alone. I don’t think she’ll impact gas prices much, until she does something really f~~~ed up with foreign policy.

Ok. Then do it.

[Author]

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