Solar Panels Are Coming To IKEA (curbed.com) 37
Starting this fall with its locations in California, the Swedish furniture giant Ikea will sell the means to power your Starkvind (that's an air purifier) and Stjarnstatus (that's a fridge) by adding solar panels to the company's offerings. Thankfully, assembly will be handled by the professionals. Curbed reports: To bring photovoltaics -- the technical name for solar panels -- to the people, Ikea is partnering with SunPower, one of the largest solar-energy providers in the country, which will install the rooftop systems and a DC-battery storage unit. As with all solar installations, the cost and energy generated will vary depending on a range of factors, such as the size of the roof and how much sunlight it sees during the day. Incentives like tax credits can also help sweeten the deal, depending on where you live. [...]
The stated goal of Ikea's solar efforts is to zero out the emissions generated to power its plugged-in products, which the company estimates are about 20 percent of its total. Now let's see if Ikea can make solar panels as ubiquitous and affordable for U.S. homes as its Billy bookshelf -- one of which is made every three seconds.
The stated goal of Ikea's solar efforts is to zero out the emissions generated to power its plugged-in products, which the company estimates are about 20 percent of its total. Now let's see if Ikea can make solar panels as ubiquitous and affordable for U.S. homes as its Billy bookshelf -- one of which is made every three seconds.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
Well, perhaps you should once visit an IKEA instead of trolling around?
Re: (Score:1)
Ikea stuff is very girly though.
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/sea... [ikea.com]
Re: (Score:2)
I tried to look at your link but uMatrix showed 150 sites where it tries to load data from. I didn't bother further to try to make the page work.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know why people keep buying their cheap, throw away and toxic in most cases furniture.
Perhaps, if you sneak a peek at the number after the dollar sign, you might catch an inkling...
Good to see (Score:2)
Ikea has been selling professionally installed solar panels from it's stores outside the USA for several years
Re: Good to see (Score:3)
Re: Good to see (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
What are you smoking that California is "catching up"? California has been throwing money at solar power for something like 60 years by now.
California is in so deep on rooftop solar PV that rooftop PV is mandated in many places. They want people off fossil fuels so bad that they are banning people from getting natural gas service to their homes.
Now, what happens if there is an outage of the electrical grid? Something that people in California see quite often. People find out that the solar panels stop p
All about the price.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Having owned solar panels before at my previous residence, I'm really on the fence about buying them again. When you look at the cost of electricity in states like California or Hawaii, or even how sunny it is in states like Nevada, they make a lot of sense.
For most other parts of the U.S., I still question the economics.
When I bought mine, I believe the initial total cost was around $32,000. They promised me I qualified for a special "1 year bridge loan" that would cover the 1/3rd of that cost with a 0% interest rate. Idea was, the Federal tax credit was 33% of their installation cost, so this loan covered you until you'd get that tax break. Turns out, I got screwed on that because I wasn't able to get that amount back on the next year's taxes. I had to spread out the credit and receive much of it on the year following. So bridge loan expired and I was out of pocket for that money, if I didn't want to get stuck paying interest on it for another year. Then, I'd also applied for financing the rest of the system using a low interest "solar loan" they told me about -- except when that paperwork got completed, the interest rate on that wasn't so low after all. I think it wound up at about 7%, so not terrible, but no better than I'd been offered for other unsecured loans.
The "good news" was that my salesperson also screwed up on some of the other paperwork. I can't even remember all those details anymore, except it amounted to him declaring it "paid in full" when I still technically owed another $8,000 or so. So at least the total system price wasn't as high as expected.
After all that, the panels basically cut my electric bill by about 45-50% a month when working optimally (summer months). But our house had electric heat and the panels produce the least power in winter, so I still had big electric bills all winter and the panels didn't help much with those. I was in a state (Maryland) that had the SREC program. So I'd receive quarterly checks based on the energy they produced, too. But again, the salesperson touted those as significant - yet only months after getting the panels, they drastically cut the funding for the SREC program at the state level. So my quarterly checks became more like $40 vs a few hundred bucks.
When I sold that house, I do think the fact it came with fully paid for solar panels helped me get more money for it. So given that, I'm sure I didn't lose much or any money in the end. But it wasn't a real money saver/maker either. The people who just do it to be more eco-friendly would probably say that meant it was worth it.... But I'd caution people to set their expectations accordingly before buying these.
Re: (Score:3)
Almost all of those problems boil down to you having a bad salesperson. Unfortunately, there are a lot of them, so getting multiple bids is critical (and hopefully one would have pointed out that you might not get the full credit in one year).
The economics are different in each state, and you have to carefully check the math that the sales people use. They often factor in an assumed increase in electrical rates every year which may not be realistic. Every state has different incentive or disincentive pro
re: panels as investment (Score:2)
Right.... To be fair, the purchase price on these panels included a warranty for the equipment. I believe it was 15 years on the panels themselves and 8 years on the inverters.
But that's also a potential concern that I think gets downplayed a lot with solar sales. The panels are likely to last a good 15-20 years without giving you problems, so it's low risk for the vendor to promise a generous warranty on them. The problem is, the inverter boxes are an expensive part of the system too. And in cases like
Re: All about the price.... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
For most other parts of the U.S., I still question the economics.
This. We own a decent sized chunk of land in North Carolina and installed a geothermal system when we built our house. We calculated a 7 year ROI before we would see the system pay for itself. We've been here 10+ years now. Net result, a 4500 sq. ft home maintains 68 (heat) and 74 (cool) set of temperatures year round for ~$250 average per month. Similar to your experience, pay upfront, spread the tax credits over multiple years.
I am highly interested in solar and keep watching falling prices. Back
Is it a scam? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
IKEA has been offering solar panels in Europe for quite a long time now. They seem to be generally well regarded. Not the cheapest but good service and reasonable terms.
Installed by professionals? (Score:2)
Why does it all have to be "installed by professionals"? :-)
Where I live, that can make them prohibitively expensive, even assuming they mean tradesmen rather than actually professional engineers
Why not have solar panels you can self-install, with say 48V DC wiring to a sealed inverter? Maybe even a kit with frame to make a patio/pergola?
Then you just need the electrician to upgrade the switchboard with 2-way meter and suitable connector for the inverter. New homes should come with this as standard.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
New homes should come with this as standard.
Even better, new homes should come with PV panels pre-installed. It is much cheaper to install them when the house is built.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
New homes should not come with PV panels preinstalled. Residential rooftop solar cost more than offshore wind, nuclear power, biomass fuels, coal, natural gas, fuel oil (or diesel fuel, same stuff), geothermal, or whatever else I may have missed. It might be "cheaper" that way but it will still cost more than energy from any other source.
Assume we do mandate all new construction must have solar PV on the roof. What happens if there's not enough PV panels to go around? Do we just stop building homes? Wh
Re: (Score:1)
Russia would love to keep everyone buying solar PV panels because they know that when the sun sets Europe needs Russian natural gas to keep the lights on. Solar power advocacy in much of the world has been traced back to Russia because dependence on solar power means dependence on natural gas.
Chinese interests have certainly been traced back to solar power advocacy all over the world because China produces so many solar PV cells, as well as the bits and pieces that go with solar power like inverters, batte
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Because this is the USA, where you can buy a drive-through coffee, grasp it between your legs, and successfully sue the vendor when you get scalded.
Scalded? Justy read the first few paragraphs please before repeating this nonsense.
Liebeck v. McDonald's
Re: (Score:2)
missing link: Liebeck v. McDonald's [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Why does it all have to be "installed by professionals"?
Have you met people?
You can get dinky self-install grid-tie non-islanding solar kits that just plug into an outlet and reduce your power bill. You can pick them up on ebay or whatever. When the grid goes down, they go down. That level of solar kit is about all that's safe for people to install themselves.
Then you just need the electrician to upgrade the switchboard with 2-way meter and suitable connector for the inverter
If you want that you can have it now. Nothing is stopping you from self-installing like that. This isn't that.
Re: (Score:2)
My system was installed by professionals and after re-installing it myself (after a roof replacement) I don't begrudge them the job. It's hard work just hosting the 18 panels to the roof and securing the mounting tracks in a leak-free manner. I used the professionally-installed mounting tracks and wiring so I didn't have to do any design work.
Professional or not, perhaps some would be interested in some details of my system. I paid $16k for a nominal 5kW system about 7 years ago. Half of the cost was re
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting.
Any idea what the ROI would be without all the public subsidies?
A feed-in tariff of 3 cents instead of 35 cents would still be generous compared to the wholesale grid power cost.
So basically, what is the savings in reduced draw from the grid, and not the net with feed-in deducted?
Are you able to use solar for heat-pumps in winter?
Re: (Score:2)
I do not track the ROI without the various incentives but rough calculations tell me I certainly would not have "broken even" here at the 7-year point and possibly not even at the end of my 15-year contract (and useful life of the solar cells). I definitely would not have "gone solar" without the 30% tax credit and generous feed-in tariff.
You're right about 3 cents vs. 35 but also I mis-wrote "feed in tariff" -- should have been "net metering". My utility has about 750 of us net metering customers and per
Re: (Score:2)
I mis-wrote "feed in tariff" -- should have been "net metering".
Still a very sweet deal! I pity all their customers who are too poor to afford a $16k solar system, but are subsidising you.
My utility has about 750 of us net metering customers and perhaps it saved them the cost of building more generation capability.
That is true if their peak demand is middle of the day in summer. Here, rooftop solar power does help with high demand, but on hot days the peak demand extends into late afternoon when solar output drops, so it does nothing to reduce need for generation capability.
I heat with gas and would not consider solar electric for a heat pump due to the expense of conversion.
"mini-splits" as you call them are cheap and very efficient. Why don't Americans use them? They cool in summer, and h
Ikea pathways (Score:2)