Hypocrisy isn't political, it's just an epidemic.



The Jedi Master

And who was being hypocritical anywhere in this thread??

My first exposure to solar power was back in the eighties when my grandpa was experimenting with it at his cottage. He was a man ahead of his time, though grandma thought he was a man lost in his time he he

Me!
Pfft. I drive like a drug-addled a-hole being chased by giant imaginary space weasels.

Wait... What are we talking about?

edit: I was originally thinking of discussing the systems and technology, not going the gov't discussion route.

Don't know about the US but here in Germany a lot of newly-built houses feature solar panels of some sort.

And there's barely any farm around here that actually hasn't its roof plastered with them.

I looked into getting a solar roof recently and even had them come to my house for an estimate. I was told the main part of my roof does not face south and it would not generate enough energy to be economically viable. You need to have a large portion of your roof facing the sun and no trees blocking.

Rob

Well, let's see ... with all the stuff you run at home, you'll need a $40000 system up-front to power it all. That's a minimum of $40k, last time I looked.

You will have to maintain and/or replace the batteries on a regular basis. They're not cheap, and they don't resemble anything 'green' in any way, shape or form. They're quite toxic

You will have to maintain the solar panels, and add panels or replace panels as power drops off with age - in other words, you might say 'this panel lasts for 25 years', but it's likely that those panels won't be able to supply the electricity you need throughout their entire life. Of course, you can buy a bigger, more expensive system to help deal with that.

Don't bother buying an electric car. You won't be able to charge it AND run your house.

Solar panels suck up a lot of space, and I mean a lot of it! You might simply not have the area required to pick up enough energy to run the house!

I think a good compromise would be a house still connected to the grid, but also with a smaller solar-powered battery system as well as one or two of those small wind-powered electric generating systems tied into it (the small vertical blade ones).

Wind I will consider. Even project-building a small vertical turbine is more appealing to me than solar.

Speaking of regulations... IIRC some areas have ordinances against residential wind power, so you've got to check.

I was just making a reply to the statment by David concerning building codes and having homes with solar energy capability a requirement. No PWEC intended!

IMHO...it's fine, I love it when I don't have to be the 'bad guy'.
If members keep moderating themselves, I can take a nap.....lol....

And BTW...no way could I ever go with solar panels.
What about guys like me, living in the forest with 150' trees?
And on the north slope, in northern Michigan.

No way that's ever gonna happen.

I'll chime in with someone who knows something about this and has two years of experience with the results. We installed a 7.5kW whole home solar array on our roof because it is angled almost perfectly (190�) and almost perfect pitch. Upfront cost was $31,000 of which the Federal government gave us a 30% rebate and the state 35%. So our out of pocket cost was about $11,000. I won't comment much on the politics of using incentives - but I'll say that every energy source you use has energy costs and incentives that indirectly or directly affect them. Cheap oil? Well, it costs money to wage wars and shape governments to keep that stuff cheap. Long story short - if all energy sources were level playing field (oil, nuclear, coal, solar) we'd be able to really compare their costs. That will never happen. Whether it costs me more or less is irrelevant - it makes me feel good that on most days, the entirety of my home is being powered purely by the sun, and I'm usually producing more than I'm using, so I'm also sending power back down the lines.










Power generation is monitored in realtime via the web (for free). It isn't a battery powered/storage system, it is purely a power generation system that doesn't store any energy. So whatever the house uses, it consumes, and any residual it sends back through the meter to Duke Power for them to use. So my generation - my usage = credit or debit to Duke Power. It is called net metering.

The local news did a spot on our house last year:

http://www.wsoctv.com/news/news/local/duke-energy-ceo-calls-move-power-giant-potential-t/nW45b/

The result? My house is 100% electric (no natural gas, oil, or any other alternative fuel for water or anything) so our bills in the summer were running around $280 a month for running the whole house (not a big house - 2000 sq. ft). Now they are down around $80 a month. In the winter we heat now with a wood stove and our electric bills have gotten down to around $30-$40. We figure we will break even on the install in about 8 or 9 years. We've found that going solar was not only a direct electrical generation thing, but also a philosophical change. We don't waste power anymore, and we've replaced all our lights with LEDs and are generally just more power savy than we used to be. It isn't hard.

Batteries would add a cost and complexity that we aren't really interested. So we still need the power company to provide us power at night - so they will never go away. Peak electrical demand is usually during the day (particularly in the summer), so solar is great for that. An alternative will always be necessary for nights and poor weather. Even on cloudy days our system puts out 1500 to 2000 kW..

The federal and state tax subsidies are likely to go away soon as oil, gas, coal lobbyists start to get their way. <shrug> I don't much get into the debates over why we are still burning fossil fuels to generate power. It is extremely profitable and that will always drive decisions. The power and energy companies will give lip service to renewables, but it is most definitely not in their best interests to pursue it, and instead suppress it by getting incentives rolled back. They will claim it's leveling the playing field, but like I said, they get plenty of help directly and indirectly by the government.

Those interested in the technical details, this is what we had done:

1) Radiant Barrier throughout attic or crawl space (reflects heat out in summer/ keeps heat in during winter)
2) Solar Attic Fan
3) Fronius IG+ 7.5kW Inverter (spec sheet attached) w/ Data Monitoring
4) 28 Mage Powertec 250 Watt Solar Modules (spec sheet attached) -30 year warranty
5) Mage "Solar Mount" roof mount and flashing - rated for 90-120 mph winds
6) A/C & D/C Disconnects for safety
7) All wiring, conduit, and breakers necessary to connect panels to inverter into main service

If anyone has any questions - PM them to me and I'll be glad to explain or help..

BeachAV8R

To clarify, I was self-policing and retracted my own comment.
I was following the rabbit down the hole. LOL

on that note, I have a Big Roof, one side faces sun rise, one faces sunset....

so during mid-day I'd prolly have poor performance if I simply put solar panels over top of the roof.

If the cost was decent, I'd put a huge panel in my backyard on the timed motor... but the city here does not allow it (against some building code.)

Awesome Beach

Beach, what would have been looking at with the batteries? Would you have had less grid dependance (to a meaningful degree), or been able to manage normal household usage through the night?

The people I know do get through the nights and cloudy days with their batteries, but as I said, it won't do kitchen appliances.

Also, when sending power back down the line, do you recover any money/credit against your bill for that?

Excellent info, thanks for taking the time!
Lucky about the house facing the right way. That's part of why I think planning that from the build stage would be smart--position it right from the start.
Do you notice your attic being noticeably cooler in the summer? Around here, that's much of what you're fighting in the hot months (most of the year)--the attic heat. When we had our roof done a few years ago we put in both passive "whirly bird" vents as well as ridge vents to try to get it cooler up there. It made a big difference. I'd imagine most of the south facing roof covered with panels would help some in that respect too.
With our moderate winters, it doesn't take much to heat our house. My wife's grandmother has a stand alone wood burning stove/fireplace type set up with venting throughout the house to carry the heat (not smoke). You can't stand to have the blowers on for more than a few minutes before the place is uncomfortably hot.
I didn't know the incentives were that good. Certainly helps, but I bet you're right about those days being numbered.
I'm mainly surprised that you don't see builders specializing in homes built to save money and energy in the long run. I haven't seen the concrete home builders in a while now, but I liked that idea too. I guess people are more interested in granite counter tops (which are nice too).

In 5 or so years when mortgage is done on my home it will be remodel time, Extensively, Im talking major re-construction.

I'll prolly look into a solar panel, if building codes change in Va Beach by then, the system we wanted put in in 2004 was not allowed.

I wouldnt mind having everything powered by solar during the day and anything running at night off local Power Company.

I do know a friend in a neighboring city that has a good size panel above his deck that rotates as the sun rises/sets, and stores power in a battery. He rarely uses local power. and whenever we have a big storm that knocks out the grid (ie Hurricane) he still has power for the most part from his panel.

I believe in VA it's a significant Tax Break too..,

one thing that gets me a little bit is if every new home had a couple of panels on its roof it'd help ease the burden of the power stations. Sure it wouldnt run the house, but if it reduces the need for that house to take energy from the grid a little .. then times that by X amount of new houses ... it'd add up into a fair chunk.