Solar Panels Vs Wind Power For Kau/HOVE Property? (Hilo: Valentine's day, how much)

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by MattieJensen

You have wasted your money on solar panels if the payback period is more than ten years. I installed a wind generator and house batteries in our home in Paia about 25 years ago and it's already paying us instead of us paying the electric company. In fact they now buy our excess. You will never accomplish that with solar.

It's hard to understand what you mean, if your own system took 25 years to achieve full payback.

It seems to me that most of the people who put in solar PV systems recently are looking at 6 - 8 years payback, with systems that are warranteed for 20-25 years.

[hotzcatz]

Originally Posted by MattieJensen

You have wasted your money on solar panels if the payback period is more than ten years. I installed a wind generator and house batteries in our home in Paia about 25 years ago and it's already paying us instead of us paying the electric company. In fact they now buy our excess. You will never accomplish that with solar.

I've never met anyone who has managed to get the paperwork done for the "Feed In Tariff" or whatever they call the program for when you sell power to the electric company. Although this is the Big Island, maybe Maui is different.

If you are doing a stand alone system (not tied to the grid) then solar panels and a wind generator might be nice. The wind generator can pick up winds at night, hopefully?

[davephan]

Originally Posted by terracore

In some cities the power companies keep jacking up the price they charge for net metering, claiming its necessary for the financial burdens the power contributing customers are adding to maintaining the grid. Some places are seeing net metering prices so high the customers are complaining because it's approaching the cost of what they were paying for buying electricity before their solar installations. I don't trust that helco is going to keep their net metering rate around the $20 level.

Our family of 3 spends about $110 a month for electricity. We do have solar hot water, line dry our clothes, and do over 1/2 our cooking in our outdoor kitchen which uses propane. When we researched solar electric the estimate was that we would recoup our investment in 31 years.... assuming the net metering and electric prices never increase. They will probably both increase. If they cancel each other out, it will remain 31 years. At any rate, at my age I may or may not live another 31 years but our teenager will be leaving the house soon so our electricity usage will probably drop to the under $100 range which would push the solar electric payback time closer to 40 years.

For us the best decision was to install solar hot water (in most homes electric hot water heaters are the #1 electricity consumer) and wait until technology delivers a better option than what is currently available. I believe in the long run it will save the most amount of money.

That's interesting that the solar PV system payback calculates at 31 to 40 years for you. Is this because of your specific location? The microclimate where you live or shade from trees? I've heard that the payback time is closer to 5 years or a little longer on the forum and talking to locals when visiting Hawaii. I assumed that the quicker payback time was primarily due to the extremely high electricity cost in Hawaii. I saw a lot of solar PV commercials when watching the local TV news while visiting Hawaii. I've also checked out rooftops with Google Earth, and solar systems are fairly popular. If the long payback times were common, then solar PV systems wouldn't be popular in Hawaii. The typical solar PV system payback in Minnesota is about 20 - 25 years and the electric rates are about 8 cents per KWH. There are solar PV system installations in Minnesota, but they are very rare.

Solar and wind are not options for me where I live now, since our city prohibits roof top solar because they think it is unsightly and prohibit wind power because they think wind power is too noisy. Although, the city does allow geothermal systems to be installed, which would save on heating and AC costs, but has a payback time of about 10 years. The city doubled their office building size from about 14,000 square feet to 28,000 square feet and converted to geothermal. Even though the building size doubled, the heating and AC costs stayed the same. They also installed geothermal in two other city buildings.

[whtviper1]

Originally Posted by davephan

That's interesting that the solar PV system payback calculates at 31 to 40 years for you. Is this because of your specific location? The microclimate where you live or shade from trees? I've heard that the payback time is closer to 5 years or a little longer on the forum and talking to locals when visiting Hawaii.

Let's take some numbers -

A system to generate about $200/month in electric is going to run you on the upper end about $35,000 upfront, if you are in a very sunny area, it will cost quite a bit less.

$5,000 from the State of Hawaii credit. $10,500 Federal credit. Your high end system is now costing $19,500.

$19,500/200 = 8 year payback max (on a high end system), it can be much less in a sunny area. And, your house is worth money with the system on it.

Solar in an area that has little to no sun probably doesn't make sense in places like Hilo/Puna, the payback would be much higher, although 31 years doesn't sound right.

[MattieJensen]

Originally Posted by OpenD

It's hard to understand what you mean, if your own system took 25 years to achieve full payback.

It seems to me that most of the people who put in solar PV systems recently are looking at 6 - 8 years payback, with systems that are warranteed for 20-25 years.

I guess you can't read. We put in the system 25 years ago, before it was fashionable. It was paid back in five years. Only requires minor maintenance.

[MattieJensen]

Originally Posted by hotzcatz

I've never met anyone who has managed to get the paperwork done for the "Feed In Tariff" or whatever they call the program for when you sell power to the electric company. Although this is the Big Island, maybe Maui is different.

If you are doing a stand alone system (not tied to the grid) then solar panels and a wind generator might be nice. The wind generator can pick up winds at night, hopefully?

Well, there's a lot of us. You slow on uptake - big on mistakes.

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by OpenD

It's hard to understand what you mean, if your own system took 25 years to achieve full payback.

Originally Posted by MattieJensen

I guess you can't read. We put in the system 25 years ago, before it was fashionable. It was paid back in five years. Only requires minor maintenance.

No actually, overlooking your gratuitous rudeness for a moment, I read just fine, well above my grade level. It's just that your comment was not well written, so it was hard to understand what you were trying to say. "I installed wind generator... 25 years ago, and it's already paying us..." seems to imply that you just started getting paid, which would be a very long payback indeed.

Originally Posted by hotzcatz

I've never met anyone who has managed to get the paperwork done for the "Feed In Tariff" or whatever they call the program for when you sell power to the electric company. Although this is the Big Island, maybe Maui is different.

Originally Posted by MattieJensen

Well, there's a lot of us. You slow on uptake - big on mistakes.

Overlooking your gratuitous rudeness for another moment, I took hotzcatz's comment to be a little bit tongue in cheek, as is customary, with one nod to the opaqueness of bureaucracy, and another to the fact that many things ARE different on the Big Island.

Also, a lot of things have changed in recent years, so who knows if you could even do the same here today? The current net-metering agreements offered by HELCO to new grid-tie customers in Hawai'i County only allow excess energy fed into the grid to spin one's bill back to zero, not to get paid for any surplus beyond that, with a limited carryover of residual credit from month to month within a year, at which time it resets.

OK, now that those moments are over, lets look at your rudeness, with 2 out of 3 of your comments in this thread alone falling into that bucket. It's not only unnecessary and unwelcome here, it's actually against the rules you agreed to in opening your CD account.

Looking at your other previous posts, I see you like to sprinkle around the word "haoli" (sic). Overlooking the fact that you consistently misspell the word, that's a pretty good indication that you have a chip on your shoulder, which really is not a good thing here.

Be kind. We're all natives of the same planet, and we're all here for just a very short time. It's hardly enough time to pay back all that it took for us to be here.

Aloha
OpenD

[Dreaming of Hawaii]

Thanks, OpenD. I was hesitant to post here, because I'm just another dumb "haoli" incurring MattieJensen's wrath.

Anyway, we recently installed 16 solar panels at our house and calculate an eight-year payback, based on the amount of money that we paid for the system and the very low ($20) monthly fee that we now pay to HELCO. Obviously we would save even more if we were totally off the grid. Here on the Big Island HELCO does not buy back any electricity generated by individual solar systems.

We paid around $20,000 for the system, not $35,000 that someone quoted earlier.

[smarino]

If you can, and it is possible for sure, design things so that you are 100% off grid for solar and do not need to deal w/ HELCO. They are demonic! Worst company that I have ever dealt with. Worse than AOL, which is saying something. We moved from the Big Island some years ago but I still fume when I think of that crooked place.

[tpirsig]

It's a hard call, off-grid or not. I'm off grid, and have the Achilles Heel of batteries to deal with. They're very expensive, require regular maintenance, and last only 10-12 years at best.

On the other hand, I'm a few poles from where HELCO ends, and in 1999 the estimate for HELCO hookup was about $12k, for two poles and SSPP -- all that, just for the privilege of paying their crazy-high rates.

It wasn't a hard call to make, but I still wish I didn't have the batteries to deal with.