Let's talk about solar power... (Phoenix: taxes, living in, linear)

[lewdog_5]

Originally Posted by Juram

What I did was make a single lump payment about 2 months after my installation had been completed. When I calculated what my costs would be paying the monthly option for 20 years, I decided that prepaid was the more financially viable choice, although mind you this is back when leasing made sense financially.

Makes sense. The house we just bought came with solar already installed from Solar City. The previous owners had locked in a 20 year lease but not sure if they did 0 down or paid something up front as I just agreed to the monthly lease payment when we purchased.

[MalteseJane]

Originally Posted by Juram

What I did was make a single lump payment about 2 months after my installation had been completed. When I calculated what my costs would be paying the monthly option for 20 years, I decided that prepaid was the more financially viable choice, although mind you this is back when leasing made sense financially.

We made a single lump payment. I think prepaid lease is still the best financially viable choice. Think about all the interest that you are going to pay on that lease over 20 years. We prepaid the lease, 15,500$. We don't have any monthly lease payments for 20 years. And the leasing company is responsible for the maintenance and insurance of the panels. At the end of the lease in 20 years, we have the choice of buying the panels at market value or have them remove the panels at no cost to us. Those panels won't have any value in 20 years and we might be able to buy them for 1$. At today's CD interest payments, it was not worth letting that cash sit in the bank and pay interest for the lease.

[HX_Guy]

I did a mockup in Photoshop with the to-scale panels (from the Solar City guy) to come up with a different configuration and have all the panels facing south vs 28 panels south and 12 panels east.





Seems like they should fit but from an installation perspective, is it good to have them separated all over like that (especially those 2 by themselves)? It would mean more wiring I assume.

Our electric meter is on on the NW corner (marked with the X).

[MalteseJane]

Our panels.

[HX_Guy]

Jane, something to looking into...I spoke with Solar City this morning and asked them what happens to the leased system at the end of the lease. The guy told me that normally, you can buy the system at any time after 5 years at "fair market value" but in Arizona, they are not allowed to do that so the system has to be removed at the end of the lease. I don't know if that's a new thing and maybe you're grandfathered in but something to look into maybe.

As for pricing on our system, they gave me a price of $43,500 for a 10kW system. Seems very expensive as someone I know bought a 10.71kW system 10 months ago for $32,000 through a local solar company.

[hikernut]

HX_Guy,

Have you looked at any alternatives that are not grid connected? I like the idea of solar, and panel prices are pretty reasonable today. But I don't like the idea of being at the mercy of a utility company, with respect to payments received for net metering.

One idea... it seems that AZ would be ideal for having an A/C system that could be powered either by solar or by utility power. I know some manufacturers offer this option, but I haven't looked at it seriously.

hikernut

[Juram]

Originally Posted by HX_Guy

I did a mockup in Photoshop with the to-scale panels (from the Solar City guy) to come up with a different configuration and have all the panels facing south vs 28 panels south and 12 panels east.





Seems like they should fit but from an installation perspective, is it good to have them separated all over like that (especially those 2 by themselves)? It would mean more wiring I assume.

Our electric meter is on on the NW corner (marked with the X).

It won't work. Depending on the voltage of the various panels, you generally need strings of 4-6 at a minimum. In the top drawing you have two up to the far right just by themselves and that's really a no-go unless you are going to be using micro-inverters.

[Juram]

Originally Posted by hikernut

HX_Guy,

Have you looked at any alternatives that are not grid connected? I like the idea of solar, and panel prices are pretty reasonable today. But I don't like the idea of being at the mercy of a utility company, with respect to payments received for net metering.

One idea... it seems that AZ would be ideal for having an A/C system that could be powered either by solar or by utility power. I know some manufacturers offer this option, but I haven't looked at it seriously.

hikernut

Unless you don't have electric power at your home to begin with, going off-grid doesn't even slightly begin to make financial sense. From what I've seen, you're looking at double the cost of a standard install with the need to replace batteries every 5-6 years.

A grid-tied solar backup system with batteries makes even less sense financially. I looked into it initially because I thought it would be a pretty cool idea but when the company came back with a price tag of around $7 a watt, I was less enthused. A 10kw grid-tied backup system would have run me about $70,000 at the time.

[hikernut]

Originally Posted by Juram

Unless you don't have electric power at your home to begin with, going off-grid doesn't even slightly begin to make financial sense. From what I've seen, you're looking at double the cost of a standard install with the need to replace batteries every 5-6 years.

A grid-tied solar backup system with batteries makes even less sense financially. I looked into it initially because I thought it would be a pretty cool idea but when the company came back with a price tag of around $7 a watt, I was less enthused. A 10kw grid-tied backup system would have run me about $70,000 at the time.

Hi,

Sorry, I didn't explain my thought very well. I agree that batteries are a non-starter, at least with today's technology.

The idea is to find some application where one can use most or all of the PV solar on some dedicated task. Eliminate components and cost where possible. The goal is not to eliminate the utility bill, but rather to find some way to use PV so that (1) the utility company is out of the loop, and (2) the "break even" time is relatively short.

The perfect application would be able to use all of the PV energy produced, in DC form, whenever it's created. Sure, that application probably does not exist, or it's not a big enough demand to be very interesting. Pool pump is one possible application, but it's not a huge load, and one can use grid power at night when rates are lower.

A/C seems like a potentially interesting application, since demand is highest in summer when the sun is up, and that is when rates are highest. No batteries... one would still need to run the A/C with grid power when solar output drops too low. But with tiered-rate plans this might be a big win. I have not tried to "run the numbers", however. I was hoping someone else had done some legwork here

Trying to think outside the box a bit.

hikernut

[HX_Guy]

I just wrapped up my first on-site estimate from a local company. Unfortunately their salesman wasn't very good and I don't even know if I can trust his information but he gave me two quotes with panels/inverters that I've never heard of, though I have no experience with this so that doesn't mean much.

The first was a 10.6kW system using 40 Sun Edison panels and a Fronius inverter. The price was $43,000 (before credits) and he said it included an electrical panel change which will be necessary according to him. We have a 200 AMP panel and he said we'll need a 400 AMP panel, does that sound correct?

The second was a 10.5kW system using 42 Canadian Solar panels and also a Fornius inverter. Price was $33,000 (before credits) and also included the upgraded panel change. Obviously much better price, but he didn't know the model numbers of the panels or inverters.

Any input on those?