Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Modern solar panels are rated for 25 years, after which they'll still "work", you won't have to throw them away just need to accept that production will be below the original rating.
The real scam is the batteries needed to run when the grid is down. Those have a much shorter useful life, and fail in bad ways.
I wouldn't call it a scam, exactly. It's more of an ideological thing. Solar is still too expensive to justify for most people; you have to buy it mainly for "green" reasons. Right now there's a global warming or climate change mentality among affluent suburbanites, and they buy solar to have a clean conscience for 10 years from now when the world ends. (Or is it 9 years now?)
Unless: you can rig up an off-grid system using second hand panels and used Tesla car batteries. I've seen one or two homesteader channels where they did that. It helps to have an electrician background though.
Modern solar panels are rated for 25 years, after which they'll still "work", you won't have to throw them away just need to accept that production will be below the original rating.
The real scam is the batteries needed to run when the grid is down. Those have a much shorter useful life, and fail in bad ways.
In a hot climate (especially a hot garage) I'm sure they would have a short life.
I wouldn't call it a scam, exactly. It's more of an ideological thing. Solar is still too expensive to justify for most people; you have to buy it mainly for "green" reasons. Right now there's a global warming or climate change mentality among affluent suburbanites, and they buy solar to have a clean conscience for 10 years from now when the world ends. (Or is it 9 years now?)
Unless: you can rig up an off-grid system using second hand panels and used Tesla car batteries. I've seen one or two homesteader channels where they did that. It helps to have an electrician background though.
Tha majority of people get them to save money on electric bills, IMO. Not to be green. Rich people do it to be green, not middle class or blue collar people who these solar lease companies target.
Tha majority of people get them to save money on electric bills, IMO. Not to be green. Rich people do it to be green, not middle class or blue collar people who these solar lease companies target.
If I lived in the southwest of USA and had a large home then it would probably pay to have solar. Our home is in south Louisiana and our highest electric bill is around $120 for our 1300 sq/ft home. We had insulation blown in the attic, replaced the entire central air system including the air ducts, and had storm windows installed over our single pane aluminum frame windows. All our lights & TVs are LED.
I was interested in solar with a battery backup system for the whole home. It would be cheaper to have a natural gas powered emergency generator with automatic transfer switch system installed. A portable generator would have to be powerful enough to at least power a refrigerator. Small generators can run things like fans, TV, charging electronics, but aren’t powerful enough for a refrigerator. We have natural gas line to our home. Disadvantage is the cost of a service contract to maintain the generator as well as the cost of the natural gas to run the generator (local natural gas price is high right now). With a solar panel system and battery I wouldn’t have those additional cost but with the infrequent amount of time we lose power it seems like a high cost for comfort.
If I lived in the southwest of USA and had a large home then it would probably pay to have solar. Our home is in south Louisiana and our highest electric bill is around $120 for our 1300 sq/ft home. We had insulation blown in the attic, replaced the entire central air system including the air ducts, and had storm windows installed over our single pane aluminum frame windows. All our lights & TVs are LED.
Totally agree, for you and many if not most others it doesn’t make financial sense. We are in the west, with the highest electricity rates in the lower 48 and also with an optimum positioning of our house and mostly flat roof to the ever present sun and a generous net metering program. Our modest sized 4kWh array was $11k after rebates and our ROI (not a completely accurate term) was just under five years. We are six years in, 100% offset and our electric bill for the past year in our 1800sf, 100 y.o. non-insulated house was $25. We’ve got another 15-20 years of that, it was a no brainer for us.
Modern solar panels are rated for 25 years, after which they'll still "work", you won't have to throw them away just need to accept that production will be below the original rating.
The real scam is the batteries needed to run when the grid is down. Those have a much shorter useful life, and fail in bad ways.
I'd think toxic smoke and flames is a bad failure mode
Quote:
Originally Posted by ice_mike1234
Quote:
The real scam is the batteries needed to run when the grid is down. Those have a much shorter useful life, and fail in bad ways.
What do you mean by “fail in bad ways?”
Absent gross physical damage, most solar panels will slowly degrade in output, the 20-25 years quoted is the point at which they no longer produce their rated output, but they're not dead, just slightly degraded. and almost never set themselves on fire.
Different battery chemistry leads to different failure modes. Worst case, halt-and-catch-fire.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I'd think toxic smoke and flames is a bad failure mode
