Is now a good time to invest in solar?

Artman

Sold our first SRECs for $665.04 each. We had 3 qualifying so we made $1995.12 (minus the 3% service charge to SRECTrade for selling them) for a total of $1935.26.

That's more than a year's worth of our old electric bills ($1800).

OmCheeto

I am quite certain that I am reverting back to my nerd-like childhood.
Yesterday I did experiments on my solar panels whilst I could have been sitting at the beach.

a. Solar panel output is, not surprisingly, directly proportional to the face area of direct sunlight.
b. Nerdish fact that I'd forgotten: One must place a plane 60' out of perpendicular with the sun before area drops to 1/2.
c. at an angle of 40', Artman's panels would be absorbing 64.3% of the full energy reflected by the snow. (assuming an infinite backyard )
d. the albedo of my lawn is ~11.4%(8.76% output, fully shaded, @ ~56.3' angle from horizontal)

mheslep

There you are then; I suppose that explains the power boost w/ snow on the ground. That, and the cold temperatures which improve efficiency.

morris99

It is definitely a good time to take a solar heater.Since they already announced that you need to use the things like green energy sources this would be the best time...




Solar hot water

Artman

We just signed up to increase insulation in our attic, replace our AC unit with a High performance HP that can heat effectively down to 30 below 0, and install a Heat Pump Domestic Water Heater with resistance backup. The insulation, higher efficiency HP equipment, and switch to Heat pump water heater should allow for zero impact on our electrical usage and allow us to eliminate most fossil fuel use in our our house (Oil fired boiler would remain as a backup, but probably won't ever run.) Basically, we are soon to be all solar powered.

This all happened as a result of the required energy audit that was performed as part of the solar installation process. There is an Energy Star NJ rebate program that will pay $3000 towards the changes and another NJ State program that will give a $10,000 no interest loan for 10 years.

Conservative payback estimates are for 20 years, I would guess closer to 10 years just from our oil savings potential and more efficient AC. The Acadia Air-to-Air Heat Pump is supposed to be almost as efficient as geothermal, without the cost for wells.

Acadia Heat Pump

marcos248272

I have work in the big company and I'd like to propose to use this solar energy. Can you help how to make a proposal. Do you have a study that this is now a good time to switch into solar ? Please help.

russ_watters

There is no blanket answer to that question. Every case must be considered on an individual basis.

shilpaam1

Today the demand is so strong for electricity.We have to find other ways how to produce it.Solar Energy is the solution to this problem :)


Google Sniper

mheslep

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=414380

Artman

My experience is with residential solar, but I agree with Russ:

I can tell you this though, incentives in the USA are probably the best they will be, compared to the future, right now. They are already dropping and not as high as when I installed my system, less than a year ago. My state is considering doing away with their rebate program because of the incentive value of the SREC program. Also, the SREC prices are going to drop as more and more people install solar arrays (the predicted price for an 2011 SREC in NJ is $600, currently, 2010 SREC's in NJ are selling for $664).

You more than likely won't "Switch to Solar." Solar is an intermittent energy source, it needs to be added as a redundant system to conventional energy sources, such as a power grid for photovoltaic or fossil fuel for solar thermal or have some form of energy storage (batteries, heated water tanks, etc). Also, arrays designed to offset 100% of industrial loads could be very large and very costly (my 8.8 kW array is 12'x56' and made of 40 panels and cost approximately $74,000). "Supplement with Solar" would be a better way of phrasing what you would more likely be proposing.

Artman

Solar helps offset the demand for electricity during daylight hours only. Say a house with a solar array produces 3x what it uses, you might think that the power grid could be reduced in capacity by that amount, but what about cloudy days? Or nighttime? What it does do is to reduce the amount of energy used to create the electricity that powers the grid during the hours they are producing. Solar helps, but it is not currently the solution.

donbcg

The difference lies in cost benefit ratios.

A solar panel is by far the least economical in terms of power production. They can only generate at a 12% - 18% efficiency. The rest is lost to heat. Secondly, the amount of panels to create such a system would be in the nature of 1200 sqft. Lastly, they break. Not frequenly, but when they do it's very expensive to repair. And most systems are built with series circuits. If one goes down, they all go down.

I suggest that you do it understanding one thing, they are toys at best for now. It takes over 10 years for ROI, and by then you money and investment may be obsolete. The technology is such that it could very well be similar to computers. Some parts are interchangable, but the parts you need most are not.

Just my opinion. Alternative energy is what it says, alternative. Not replacement.

mheslep

By far? ~20 cents / kWh in sunny climates, large scale.

17-22%

Some is lost to heat in the panel, some is reflected.

They're built with both: parallel chains of panels in series. And everything breaks.

Flawed comparison. For products with low or zero cost to operate that generate a commodity (energy in this case) obsolescence doesn't matter much - the PVs still produce energy and cash flow.

Not yet. Five years, ten at the outside my guess PV probably becomes cost effective with coal up and until PV would cut into baseload needs, and that's a way to go yet.
http://www.1366tech.com/v2/company-m...ng-coal-parity

Artman

Still, it will be alternative energy until storage becomes feasible.

Solar yard lights are toys. My solar array is an 8.8 kW generator that can produce enough kWh in 6.5 hrs of decent sun to power my house all day. Agreed solar is not for everyone, requires a lot of space for serious capacity, and the technology is still in its infancy, but I know people who have been using it for years and are very happy with the results and so far, so am I.

There is zero ROI on using the grid for all of your electrical power. It's like renting a house instead of buying one. In ten years, my electricity will be free. True, the current technology will probably be obsolete, but the panel warranty is for twenty-five years and the panels are said to last for 40 years. That's long enough for me.

In fact because of incentives, my electricity is free now. The SREC sales are beginning to pay off my loan and my meter is 600 kWh to the negative.

mheslep

Well that depends on what you mean by alternative. Is wind alternative now, with a US capacity ~40 GW by the end of this year (highest in the world)? If you mean solar can't replace base load, 24/7 power without storage, I agree, but I suspect solar or wind can make up 20-30% of all US electrical power before the intermittent limitations of non-backed up solar/wind become intractable problems.

mheslep

Artman -

Regarding breakage from hail/tree limb/kids baseball, do you have some idea of how to handle replacing the panel? I would think with all the structure and wiring in place that you could easily replace one panel yourself by accessing half a dozen fasteners.

russ_watters

Plus, since solar's peak output corresponds well with the peak grid load, the types of power plants used for for meeting the peak demand are the ones being displaced: and those are almost exclusively fossil fuel plants. So it dovetails nicely with the type of energy we most need to displace.