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Switching To Solar Power – One Month Later
Posted by
Soulskill
on Mon Jul 21, 2008 06:51 PM
from the bright-idea dept.
from the bright-idea dept.
ThinSkin writes "After an interesting article on solar panel installation for the home, Loyd Case at ExtremeTech has written a follow-up after about a month of normal use. Posting an $11.34 electric bill (roughly 3% of previous months), Loyd shares his experiences using solar power and how it can be fun for the geek, with computer monitoring services and power generation data. Of course, solar power isn't all fun and games, given the amount of required maintenance — even unpredictable maintenance, like wiping off accumulated ash from fires in Northern California."
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Switching To Solar Power — Six Months Later 591 comments
ThinSkin writes "Slashdot readers may remember an article regarding ExtremeTech's Loyd Case's experiences with solar power for the home after one month of usage. During that time six months ago, it sure seemed like a great deal, but the tables have turned significantly once winter approached. While it's no surprise solar power generation is expected to dwindle during the winter, Loyd compares solar power data of the last six months to determine if solar power is still worth the time and money."
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Switching To Solar Power, One Year Later 541 comments
ThinSkin writes "Slashdot readers may recall Loyd Case's series of articles illustrating his experiences after switching to solar power for his family home. Loyd shared his one month update, a six month update, and now finally concludes his series after one year of solar power. Despite the $38,000 initial cost for the setup, Loyd is very optimistic after a $3,000 savings in one year, meaning that in about 12 years he will break even — though he suspects ten years is a better estimate considering other factors. Other reasons such as feeling 'green,' increasing the property value of his house, and the 'spousal acceptance factor' all support Loyd's decision on why he'd do it all over again if he had to." The article is spread annoyingly over multiple pages, like everything at the site, and the print version omits the graphs.
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My PC is running great on solar power ... (Score:5, Funny)
Rookie mistake (Score:5, Funny)
You forgot to engage the hydropower backup generator.
Parent
Re:Rookie mistake (Score:5, Funny)
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Why can't he sell it back? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why can't he sell it back? (Score:5, Interesting)
Note that while can't go net negative for the year he can get to net 0. Also note that he's 'selling' back power to get to that net 0 at retail rates.
The places that allow you to go net negative buy your power back at wholesale rates, which is far lower. If you think about it when you sell power back to the power company you're not competing with the power company, you're competing with the power generators. Why should the power company give you an unfair advantage there?
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Re:Why can't he sell it back? (Score:5, Insightful)
Simple fix, trade kwh for kwh until net zero is reached and then sell excess for wholesale. Of course you would do this on an estimated annual usage basis just like the 'budget' billing most power consumers have to prevent huge spikes in their bills during certain hot or cold months.
As for putting the power company out of business, I'm all for it. Whoever had the bright idea of privatizing a utility should be shot. Fundemental public services should not be privatized they should be public and operating in a fully transparent manner. Roads, Schools, Libraries, Utilities, and Health Care.
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Re:Why can't he sell it back? (Score:5, Insightful)
Geez, what are you, some sort of communist?!
Who wants a working healthcare system when you can privatise it make a big budget surplus to spend on winning votes and create a huge mess that you can blame on your opposition once they're in office.
It's not like heathcare, power & water are vital services or anything...
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Re:Why can't he sell it back? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, those who want good healthcare I guess.
We have a "socialised" healthcare system here.
I can have extensive spinal surgery for $0 outlay.
My wife has had our two children in her very own private room for $0 outlay.
It may not be perfect, but I feel it's a heck of a lot better than the mess that's the USA healthcare system.
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Re:LOL, I bet you don't know your real pay either (Score:5, Insightful)
Having socalised healthcare costs a lot of money.
Not having socialised healthcare costs a lot of humanity.
Your call.
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Re:Why can't he sell it back? (Score:5, Informative)
I guess that the statistics [wikipedia.org] would disagree, but why let facts get in your way!
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Re:Why can't he sell it back? (Score:5, Informative)
Well done on assuming that Europe is one big member state with exactly the same health care, unemployment and whatever other statistics you want to quote.
No, France, Germany and the UK have completely different medical services, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. And that's just 3 countries, out of 27 in the EU alone.
They also have quite different levels of unemployment, but none of them are even close to the 35% you're quoting, they're more akin to about 6% or 7%. In fact, Slovakia is the highest at around 10%, still nowhere near what you're quoting. I'd like to see some sources for that bullshit.
What's more, you speak of the medical care in these countries as if it's vastly inferior to your own just because it doesn't always work out for the best for some people - yet you don't seem to realise that in the USA (I'm assuming that's where you're from based on your lack of knowledge about the EU) if you don't have health insurance, you're basically fucked if you get hit with anything worse than a bacterial infection or a broken bone. Sure, you might live, but you'll spend the rest of your life trying to pay that ridiculously bloated medical bill.
I'm not saying things are better in the EU, I've yet to see a "perfect" medical system, but to talk about it as if it flat out doesn't work is ludicrous. Quite frankly the British National Health Service is one of the best things to ever happen to the country, despite is flaws and failures - the fact that it's still around after more than half a century proves this and the first politician to suggest scrapping it is going to be performing political suicide.
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Re:Why can't he sell it back? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Why can't he sell it back? (Score:5, Informative)
Australia has a typical 37.5-38 hour work week (excluding lunch, so 40 hours including a 30ish minute lunch) and record low unemployment.
And public health care.
And a pension system for those who cannot work.
And an economy kicking the US's...
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Re:Why can't he sell it back? (Score:5, Interesting)
IBM makes me work 60 hours a week. You see, my employment is contingent on something called utilization. My target and tenure is such that I can't meet my target unless I work 60 hours a week.
The utilization target is computed without taking into account vacations, holidays, and sick days. If I take all 3 weeks of vacation I've earned, then I won't make my utilization target, and I won't have a job.
It's time to fucking unionize the place. Or if that doesn't work, I'll just continue slacking for 60 hours a week. IBM gets an honest 30 hours out of me whether they know it or not. Fuck them.
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Re:Why can't he sell it back? (Score:5, Informative)
Social Security? IRS? Medicare? Please... there is nothing transparent about government waste. If it weren't for market based funding there would be no improvements in the health care system. Who do you think is going to do drug research for free?
Try Europe where you can get 35 hour work weeks and 35% unemployment. There everyone has the same mediocre health care and they STILL have to have insurance if they want any care beyond antibiotics or the setting of a broken bone.
Just a few minor corrections:
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Re:Why can't he sell it back? (Score:5, Insightful)
hahahahaha, oh man you can't be serious. We all know how effective the government has been at all of those things....
Well, hasn't it? The Roads, Libraries, and Utilities seem to be working just fine under government regulation, at least here in California. Schools are uneven -- some are very good (e.g. most public colleges and universities, and some elementary schools and high schools). Health Care is lousy, but it's the privatized portion that's lousy. The public portion (Medicare, etc) works as advertised.
I think some people are so deep into their cynicism about governmental incompetence that they rarely stop to check if their cynicism is borne out by the facts...
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Re:Why can't he sell it back? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll agree on that one. A kid taking twelve years of science classes, and yet not being able to read or critique an experiment in science journals is terrible. But when they graduate not even knowing what a journal is, or how to create an experiment, that's just broken beyond imagining.
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Re:Why can't he sell it back? (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, that's why libertarians remind me of religious fanatics. If something good happens, it's always because the free market has managed to score a success. If something bad happens, why, sure, it's because of government interference. It doesn't matter what, where, and when, or what the real numbers are - as soon as someone says that, in practice, in known privatized industries certain inefficiencies are observed, a libertarian will immediately counter by, "Well they are still regulated to some extent, so what did you expect? It's all because of that pesky regulation!".
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Re:Why can't he sell it back? (Score:5, Informative)
Disinformation and selective quotation at work. Do you work for the USA private health insurers?
Let's check:
To really inform slashdot readers you might add that more than 80% of private health insurance is done by ... not for profit, and that the share of not for profit vs for profit has increased by 10% over the past years. It might help USA citizens understand a few things about how private "for profit" is really working.
"private" health insurance covers less than 25% of costs, 75% comes from the mandatory public system.
And in the special case of France, the private not for profit insurance has nothing to do with government efficiency as always there's some ideology and creative accounting at work ("chronic deficits" is a political choice). Administrative costs of health insurance are 6% in France vs 15% in the USA, if you want to increase waste you know what to do.
For reference I cannot choose my private complementary health insurance provider which is the one of my employer by law (private market ? eh eh), I pay around 30 euros per month for it.
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Re:Why can't he sell it back? (Score:5, Interesting)
If you have a big corrupt government, your money and freedoms go to the corrupt government.
Of you have a small corrupt government, your money and freedoms go to some big corrupt company that bribes the small corrupt government.
Either way you end up being screwed.
You get all those libertarian fools thinking "Oh if the current big bad government is smaller, things would be wonderful".
Then you get the other fools thinking "Oh the current big bad government (that's already screwing me) should expand its role to take care of this".
It's not how big or small. It's how BAD or GOOD. When voters vote based on big or small, and not good or bad, what do you think they'll get?
If you have a good government, and it knows it has the ability to do "Natural Monopoly X" well (and will continue to do so for near future), nothing wrong with it doing X - after all it is supposedly answerable to the voters in a democracy. If it realizes it does not have the ability, it can get some company (or more) to do it, and if the government lacks the ability to even know whether the company is doing a good job or not it can appoint a regulator to do that.
Lastly if just because Company X gives lots of money to Candidate Y, means people vote for Candidate Y, then people sure are stupid. In the absence of Diebolded elections, you don't have to vote that way. If Coke and Pepsi are the biggest advertisers it shouldn't mean you continue drinking either Coke or Pepsi if both are bad for you.
When voters vote based on how much money Candidates get from companies, guess what they get?
So far it sure looks like voters have got what they have been voting for.
Maybe in the future companies like Diebold will save voters the trouble.
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Re:Why can't he sell it back? (Score:5, Insightful)
[quote]You get all those libertarian fools thinking "Oh if the current big bad government is smaller, things would be wonderful".[/quote]
Actually, you shouldn't speak for Libertarians, because I think most libertarians would agree with your good/bad delineation. However let me ask you a simple question .....
Which is easier to control ... Big Bad Government or Small Bad Government?
The point of smaller being better isn't because of "good vs bad" it is because Smaller = less government = more freedom to change how it works.
The current monstrosity that is Governance today is wholly out of control, with little or no ability to make any sort of meaningful change. We are a gnat on the elephant's back, we may annoy it, but it isn't going to change because of us.
As for private vs public control, you are 100% right. I wish we had a governance that took issuing of corporate licences more seriously and would lock more of the short sighted, bad management class and toss them into pound me in the ass prison for their malfeasance, more often.
Stealing from a bank with a gun isn't nearly as violent as stealing from the same bank with dubious business practices. I think there should be a whole bunch of people thrown in jail over the current banking Mortgage scandal.
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Re:Why can't he sell it back? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why should the power company give you an unfair advantage there?
Lower costs for the power-company in terms of transmission and distribution of power (and related costs for that infrastructure). E.g. the power you produce can go right to your next door neighbor. Power from a power station usually has to travel quite a bit.
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Re:Why can't he sell it back? (Score:5, Insightful)
It still doesn't make sense to pay you the same rate that you pay them.
Consider the situation where you produce as much as you consume, but not at the same time. Imagine, for the sake of argument, that you produce lots of power during the day, and then use lots of power during the night, such that the two are equal. Your net power use is therefore 0, but you're pushing lots of electricity to the grid during the day and pulling a lot at night.
Should your bill be zero?
I would argue that it should not. The power company is still maintaining the transmission lines, is still running the generation plants that you rely on at night, and the electricity you're giving them is not going to completely make up for that. The power company in this case is acting as a middleman, in the good sense, in that they ensure that stuff gets to where it needs to be. Middlemen can only make money, and thus provide their service, if the producers charge less money than the consumers pay.
Now, it may very well make sense in a broader political sense to make the rates be the same in order to encourage exactly this sort of independent generating capacity, but from the limited point of view of the economics of electrical generation and distribution, the rates should not be equal.
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Re:Why can't he sell it back? (Score:5, Informative)
currently power generation is more valuable during the day, because thats when it is most used (especially in A/C dominated CA.)
That is the likely reason for a retail price compensation OK for solar generated by day. The solar is likely displacing more pricey natural gas, for cheaper coal/nuclear. Also possibly reducing net line load from the factory during peak draw...
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Re:Why can't he sell it back? (Score:4, Informative)
It was arranged so that PG&E will never have to pay you money.
There is also a $5 "connection fee" each month, so your smallest possible annual bill will be about $50. I used to hit that with a 4kW array (minute-by-minute stats are available [dfsmith.net]).
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Re:Why can't he sell it back? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this is a long ways off, and I'd imagine that if this starts happening, they'd start installing more/bigger transmission infrastructure, rather than a voluntary-shutoff communications infrastructure. They may even increase their connection fees to do so. The power company wouldn't want all that power to go to waste.
Err, 240*200 = 48kW.
First off, if the solar constant [wikipedia.org] changes by a factor of 4, this guy's wiring is going to be the least of your trouble. Second, NEC ampacity standards are for tolerable voltage drop, not wire overheating. A 200A-rated line will actually carry a lot more than 200A. Third, many of the newer electrical panels have a main breaker that everything goes through. They are thermal, so they don't care which direction the electricity is going through them. If not, the inverter will usually have an output breaker of its own. Fourth, the house itself is consuming a good fraction of the power it's generating.
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Re:Why can't he sell it back? (Score:5, Insightful)
People in third world nations spend a MUCH higher proportion of their total work/income on securing food and energy than we do in the western world. If all you cared about was providing for your basic needs, you could work 10 hours a week, or just sit at home and collect welfare. There are many reasons why people work as much as they do, but the cost of energy has little to do with it. Most of us work because we either find enjoyment in the work itself, or because we want to splurge on luxuries, AND be able to make a statement about our earning ability. Why do you think guys buy expensive cars, and women like wearing flashy jewelry? Because the cost of electricity is so high that it's forcing everyone to buy shiny objects? Don't be a friggin' idiot.
Your ignorance of economic principles is truly mind-numbing.
The word "thinking" doesn't really belong in that sentence ....
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Re:Why can't he sell it back? (Score:5, Informative)
Grid tie equipment is required to have automatic disconnection systems. Also, the linemen can pretty much wave a wand at the lines to see if they are live or not...
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Re:Why can't he sell it back? (Score:5, Informative)
Inverters designed for feeding excess power back into the grid not only must maintain phase lock but usually have provisions to continuously detect if the line has lost external power. If the utility power drops for any reason then the inverter disconnects and stops feeding power back into the line.
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Wait to winter time when there is less sun to see. (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait to winter time when there is less sun to see how much you save at that time.
Not a month (Score:4, Informative)
From TFA:
Re:Not a month (Score:5, Interesting)
Window shade use keeps the house at 70 degrees during 100 degree weather without the need for fans or AC
Howzat? Even with no windows, no doors, great insulation, etc. I don't see how you can maintain a 30 degree temperature differential for more than a few hours.
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That last paragraph says it all (Score:4, Insightful)
Eh (Score:5, Informative)
So he saved about $330/month. It cost him $36K (which really cost $50K, but let's say). So it'll take 109 months to get back the money, or 9 years, not adjusting for inflation and investment opportunity cost. Let's say that brings it up to 12 years. Not including maintenance and repairs. It might even need complete replacement at that point. At 50K, which is the real cost, we're talking more like 16-18 years.
That's still a bit too long an investment for this to be really practical. Prices need to come down to about a four year payoff before I'd be really interested.
On another subject, I'm kind of glad to see someone who actually uses more electricity than I do. :)
Re:Eh (Score:5, Interesting)
It's worse than that. The $11 bill was for 19 days, not a month. And 19 sunny summer days, at that. He won't save $330 per month. Let's see what the figures are after a whole year. My guess is that he'll save around $200, at most. For a $36k investment.
Seriously, if I had a $300+ monthly electricity bill, I would start by seeing how I could reduce the amount of electricity used.
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your SUV (Score:5, Insightful)
isn't civilization, and the fact that you think it is indicates a deeply flawed view of the world.
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Re:Eh (Score:5, Informative)
From the Article:
These particular panels were guaranteed to deliver 90% of their rated peak capacity for at the twelve year mark, and 80% at the 25 year mark.
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380.00 bill? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds like someone who threw money at a problem better handled by conservation.
Believe me, i LOVE solar, but solar works better when it isn't the only solution.
Don't buy a house & save $2 million (Score:4, Interesting)
Well a house in Calif* with a clear view of the sky & enough room for 27 solar panels is about $2 million. So it's a choice between saving $250 on electricity or saving $2 million on housing.
Questions? (Score:5, Funny)
2. Are they bolted on? Any locking mechanisms?
3. Is it easy to climb on to the roof?
4. Do you have good access to a road from the home?
5. When are you planning to take a vacation?
6. Does it have any kind of GPS thingie or Wifi thingie attached that will phone home?
Thanks buddy.
Re:Questions? (Answers) (Score:5, Funny)
1. They are somewhat heavy (50 lbs). They are awkwardly large at 5ftx3ft. Two person job if you don't want to risk a rooftop fall.
2. They are typically bolted on. Uninstall time will be in the several minutes per panel range. Be sure you have an electrician with you to avoid death by electric shock.
3. You can see in the pictures he has a typical roof. Bring a ladder. And a crane if you want an easier time lowering the panels.
4. Yes, see the pictures.
5. Don't know about that one. Probably end of December or next summer.
6. Doubtful.
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my experience after 1 year (Score:5, Insightful)
By coincidence, today is the day I got my first yearly bill for my new photovoltaic system. Where I live (Orange County, CA, with Southern California Edison as my utility), people who have residential PV systems get billed yearly rather than monthly. A year is also pretty much the minimum amount of time for which you need data in order to find out how your system is performing, since both your energy production and your energy use fluctuate seasonally.
My bill for this year was $353.63. The system is nominally 4.4 kW, and cost $28k after rebate. It's covering about 90% of our use, which was almost exactly what we shot for -- if we produce more than we use over 12 months, they don't pay us for the excess.
People always want to know the number of years until the system pays for itself. Basically that's utterly impossible to predict. There's a reason that they exclude energy from the consumer price index -- it's because energy prices are extremely volatile. If the increased price of fossil fuels starts to be reflected in the cost of electricity, then I'm going to look like a financial genius. The other thing that's completely unknowable is how fast the technology will progress. If there's a breakthrough in technology five years from now, and the price of panels per kilowatt comes down by a factor of two, then I'll wish I'd waited. It's also kind of funny hearing the quick-buck psychological attitude a lot of Americans have toward investing money in something like this; from the way people talk, you'd think they were going to take that money that could have gone into photovoltaics and invest it in some kind of magical pixie dust that was guaranteed to pay a steady 20% annually until the end of time. And finally, beware of anyone making blanket statements about whether PV is ready for prime time or not. It completely depends on factors like the price of electricity in your area, which way your roof faces, your latitude, the amount of cloudy weather, and the amount of shade. PV is like Linux: it's ready for prime time for some people, and it's not ready for prime time for other people.
Another data point (Score:5, Interesting)
solarnetwork.net (Score:5, Informative)
Re:haha (Score:5, Insightful)
trix are for kids mutherfucker!
That's right and responsible energy use is for adults. I like to see things like this, and as some might decry the amount of involvement one must provide to effectively commit to a project along similar lines. Though I personally think people (especially in the U.S.) could really benefit from having to be more involved in the production and usage of the energy they consume.
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Insane energy usage. (Score:5, Interesting)
Yea, I was shocked at how much energy the family in this article uses. My GF and I average ~370kWh/month, 4,440kWh/year. We live in Mountain View, which is the next small city over from Sunnyvale. The family in this article is using 17,400kWh/year. If he expects a 20% drop in usage when the family becomes 2 people, that's still THREE TIMES what we use. I also have a home server and network.
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Re:Insane energy usage. (Score:5, Interesting)
I lived "off the grid" for a while in Alaska. One thing I realized was that you could do pretty much everything you do now with a lot less electricity. Thats an important skill when you only get 2-3 hours of daylight for a good chunk of the year.
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Re:Solar is not a good choice if you want to save (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Do the math -- is he really saving money? (Score:5, Informative)
He says he put in $36,000 and will save $3,300 per year in payments to the power company. Now the historical annual rate of return of an S&P 500 index fund is 11.3% over the last century, so $36K put there would return over $4,000 -- enough to pay the $3,300 to the grid, have $700 left over and of course, still keeping the principal.
You're comparing apples and oranges here. If people always invested solely based on maximizing the expected average rate of return, then bank CDs wouldn't exist, bonds wouldn't exist, real estate and REITs wouldn't exist, etc. In reality, people are balancing the expected rate of return against variability. The reason bank CDs are paying something pathetic like 4% right now is that the banks have to guarantee that they'll pay you 4% on your money. The bank is essentially charging you for insurance against negative variability. Although there are a lot of unknowns involved in buying PV (what will electric rates do in the future? how much will the technology improve), they're a lot less than the unknowns involved in stocks. My S&P 500 index fund is down 19% from its peak value last year. There's a reason that most people build a balanced investment portfolio that includes both stocks and bonds; it's because mixing volatile and nonvolatile investments is a way of maximizes your expected rate of return for a given amount of risk that you're willing to accept [wikipedia.org].
And grid power might go up, but only so far. Because eventually the grid power hits the solar price, and the grid itself starts putting in solar sources at that price -- because it's cheaper.
Your logic doesn't work. When you own a PV system, you're part of "the grid itself." When I'm at work during the day, my PV panels are pumping energy into the grid, which is selling it to other customers. In my area, grid power has hit the solar price, for a south-facing roof with no shade; that's why I, a homeowner with a south-facing roof and no shade, have put in a PV system. You seem to be assuming that if rates go above a certain threshold, the entire state of California will suddenly magically cover itself with PV panels, because that will be the right thing to do according to the laws of supply and demand. That doesn't make sense, for a couple of reasons. First, there are huge variations in the price of land, the local cost of electricity, the amount of sunlight, which way people's roofs face, and how much shade they get. Second, there's a barrier to covering every house with PV panels, which is that most homeowners are short on capital. Your idea that the whole grid would suddenly go solar at some threshold is like imagining that everybody will suddenly drive a hydrogen-powered car if gas goes over $6 a gallon. We're talking about a massive infrastructure that doesn't change overnight.
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Re:Do the math -- is he really saving money? (Score:5, Insightful)
According to the Wall Street Journal [wsj.com] the S&P500 from 2000-2007 only returned 1.6%, and if you include the absolutely dismal 2008 (thru June) economists are already calling this the "lost decade" since returns over the past 10 years are pretty flat. Worse when you factor inflation. With returns like that, solar panels would've certainly been the better investment. At the least, you wouldn't be as subject to local Edison's blackouts and other various fiascoes, which for some reason seem to be getting more and more common and taking longer to fix each time.
Just the thought of being independent from the local power grid woes is pretty appealing.
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