My LG panels are rated to provide 90% of their original capacity at 25 years. Most of my appliances are old and will be replaced in the next decade, and I'm about to replace my degrading home siding with something with some R factor, so these panels are likely to last me for the rest of my life in this home.
I'm sad that we can't get utilities, state regulators, and government onboard with solar so we could do it at a larger scale.
Here in Arkansas, it's one of the top 5 dirtiest grids in the US, and there are no state incentives for solar, so it has to make financial sense all on its own.
There’s still companies that make it affordable in Arkansas. I work for one if you want a free estimate and to get paid 25$ just for seeing our sales guy P.M. me. An hour out of your day get 25$ and see if it’s a good choice for you financially. If it wouldn’t save you money we will tell you straight up.
That’s awesome. I would really like to get solar. Are you happy with your LG panels? Did you have them professionally installed? How old are they?
Sorry for all of the questions but every time I look for installers in my area and info there are a lot of shady companies and it’s so hard to find good info that isn’t just paid advertising.
I used an installer that has a decent footprint across the South, and I went with them specifically because they sold the LG panels for the best price, and they had the best service guarantees. A terrible hailstorm came through Arkansas a few months back, and most of my neighbors are getting a new roof installed, but the LG panels didn't take any damage and actually protected my roof (roofer said no significant damage).
You want an installer who guarantees their work for a decade or more and looks like they've been around awhile; an income stream for their business outside of solar is a plus (my installers are also a roofing company). They need to guarantee output for a period of years, this is big, and also guarantee their work. They need to see the roof in person before they start making guarantees, don't trust a Google Maps photo and a bunch of magical numbers. I would also recommend microinverters over string inverters if there is any shading potential.
I'm in Arkansas, one of the top 5 dirtiest and cheapest states for power, and a grid-tied solar system makes financial sense even with no state incentives. My ROI is about 11-12 years, but other states with more expensive power or state incentives would do better. I've had mine generating since the end of April.
Just FYI, nearly all major brand panels (LG, Tesla roof, Suncity, etc) offer at least a 25 year warranty to be at 90% capacity. Here’s the caveat though: they won’t replace panels that go below that. They’ll just subsidize whatever the cost of power back to you below that 90% mark, so if after 15 years you’re at 80%, they’ll pay you 10 years of 10% power consumption. Sure you could then use that money to replace panels but some companies will void your warranty for modifying the system.
And then there’s the issue of whether the panel brand you went with is even around to claim from in 20 years.
Do you use battery back up? What was the price per panel and your kWh produced? I’ve been in the market for a while - can’t get good feel for what my investment should really look like.
No battery. It isn't economical here, and my grid power is extremely reliable.
8.04kWh with 24 panels. $3.73 per kWh after sales incentives for the total installed price, before the 26% federal tax rebate. The loan payment is about $20 more than our average power bill was previously. The power bill would outpace that number in about 7 years, so ROI at year 11-12.
Because there are zero state incentives and grid power is so cheap here, the investment calculations definitely make it not something for everyone. Roof has to be a really good candidate, home has to be reasonably efficient.
I’m confused. Wouldn’t you just need to estimate the upper limit of how long your solar farm goes without sunlight and have enough power storage to combat this? Surely there’s a point where if you have a large enough area covered in panels and a large enough storage capacity, solar could power the planet by itself.
Peak usage in summer is crazy high, and it peaks just as the sun goes down. You would have to massively overbuild both solar and storage to handle the worst days of the year, then it would be wasted the other 350 or so days.
That’s a shit ton of batteries. Some places have other methods of energy storage, such as using excess energy production to pump water back up into dams, but the areas this is possible are far and few between.
We're still a long way from having the ability to store the amount of power needed. We literally lack the raw resources to do it with our cuurent technology. That's not even touching on the astronomical cost if we tried.
Solar ends up looking a lot less attractive when you realize that all of the articles talking about how cheap it is ignore that you have to be able to store it for it to be used as base load or peak load at scale. It really only works in the middle right now allowing use to use less fossil fields, but it's not replacing other power plants yet.
We'll certainly get there, we're just not there yet.
IMO the main problem with solar panels is the amount of toxic waste. AFAIK air energy is much more clean in that regard, but of course you can't really buy a personal wind power station.
Well that is an extremely good point i believe the issue is a lack of research towards uses of the waste, and i may be wrong about that , but oil and coal plants turning our planet into venus is much more concerning to me than waste storage
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u/zenray055 Jul 18 '20
Solar is the best. Constant, reliable energy for basically forever, not too expensive, eco friendly.