patrick.net

How high is your electric bill? How long will it take you to pay 14,000 for electricity without panels?

To cover the house + 1 electric car, it will be $199 per month

From what I understand, solar is still pretty expensive. Do you live in a desert or some place with plenty of sunshine?

Yes, lots of southern sun

Clara:

If it were me, I'd do the math on both scenarios and determine which one comes out cheaper. I'd make good and sure their 9kW system will cover all necessary heating, AC, etc.

Is the system hooked to a meter, battery backup, or ??? Also, it's not clear to me how long the lease period is for the $14,000 and whether there are additional installation costs etc. Why do you refer to the $14,000 as a down payment? What are the additional payments?

you're gonna charge the nissan leaf from the solar current.

I suppose that means that you work night shift. When or if you move to day shift, maybe not even your own choice to do so, will your solar economics still pencil out for charging the leaf from the grid at night?

I used to be a solar contractor and sold it for 20 years. Since you are in the South I would look into heating your hot water with a thermal solar panel since hot water is around 30-40% the bill for a family of three. Even more if you have a large family and love showers and hot wash loads. You should be able to get one under $2,500. Then you would need far less of the more expensive PV panels. If you do it that way you should be able to get a zero bill at half that price.

Also if you're where natural gas is available for your hot water that can be a cheap way too of needing far less panels. You'll still have a gas bill but natural gas is cheap and will probably get cheaper when "fracking" really gets rolling.

As energy costs rise it is always a good investment. Just make sure to get a good brand of solar panels and put them that a height/angle for maximum sun exposure. Make sure they are in a place where you can clean them off from time to time.

Solar tech is constantly improving but not at an alarming rate, so there's little benefit in waiting for a more efficient panel if you can get rebates now.

Was talking to a Contractor and his help, who were installing solar panels at a high school. I asked about a few extra solar panels falling off the truck and being installed at home. I asked would it now be economically feasible ? They all laughed for a few moments, then the tone went back to the same somber atmosphere as when you discovered home prices went too high. Marketing HYPE is King.

TMAC54 says

Marketing HYPE is King.

I'm not sure what the hype is, they do eventually pay for themselves assuming you have the location / space to use them efficiently. You just don't see the return for a long time if that's what you're talking about.

I don't own solar panels because I can't in my situation, but I can do math and some people would benefit.

We talked to a company who wanted to lock us into a 20 year lease. The cost to lease the system would have been about $250/mo. Our electric bills on the house we just moved from was about $350/mo. (smaller than present house). We stopped talking to them when the salesman started pushing us telling us the price was going to go higher (technology always goes lower in price the more it is used). It sounded like a scam to us.

Any thoughts?

I'm supposed to sit down with a local solar company here soon. I figured I would let them take an hour of my time -- should be interesting to say the least. I have no plans on buying their systems though... give it 20 years and solar will be dirt cheap compared to what it is now -- making zero sense to buy it in my eyes when it really won't pay for itself for a solid 20-25. Now if I was in Tennessee where the companies will buy it back from you at something stupid like 22 cents per KwH -- I would produce a ton and sell it back, but not here.

Clara says

To cover the house + 1 electric car, it will be $199 per month

@Clara - are you saying $200/mo with solar or without? I thought you said $0/mo with. If so, $14,000/$200/mo is a payback time of just under 6 years.

If you're going to be in your house that long, and the "lease" means they pay maintenance, it seems like a net positive.

Yes, things will be cheaper in the future, but if you can afford it, someone has to buy before commodity pricing comes into effect. It may not be a great deal, but it seems like a good deal.

As to buying an electric car - that's also up to you but I don't think the case for that is as strong. If you're trying to decide between a Leaf and a Boxter, the Leaf is probably better; Leaf and some other reasonable transportation though? Your call.

Solar costs have been coming down and will probably continue to do so, but even with that it is hard to be competitive with the national grid - the economies of scale are against you. I have seriously considered it and the only way solar makes sense is if you have to pay to connect your house to the grid and can design your house for low electric use.
At current prices, I would be surprised if you could get a 9 kW system for $14,000, though if labor is cheap in your area and permitting is easy/ non-existent it may be possible.

Clara, Leasing companies only value is if you don't have the upfront capital or access to capital (via home equity). You're putting money in their pocket instead of yours. I use only slightly over baseline and return around 3% a year on my solar install. With the amount of electricity you use, you're into very high second and third tier electric rates. Solar pencils out at that point quite readily.

Non-California commenters should understand a few things:

1) In CA, we have progressive tiered electric billing. The more you use, the more you pay per unit. Some people with high usage find that generating is useful because it puts them into a lower tier.
2) When you're generating more than you're using, your meter basically runs backwards. You can rely on the grid to hide the fact that time of generation and time of use differ.
3) We have big tax incentives. Or at least, we did recently.

I'm not an expert. Never done solar. But am close to some people who have.

Clara, off the top of my head: it sounds like you're planning to overbuild. You probably shouldn't mind paying the lowest tiered rate. If the utility won't send you a check for your overgeneration in the summer, then any credits you generate (they do do credits, don't they?) would essentially be giving them a no-interest loan. It could make more sense to build out with a target of paying zero dollars in the summer than it would to plan on charging the grid enough to carry you through winter.

But, then again, electricity costs probably will not be going down any time soon. And you might be getting a bulk deal with your current estimate. It could go either way.

Finally, bear in mind that any economic analysis provided by the contractor is not necessarily dispassionate. Make sure you understand their assumptions and estimation methods, and agree that they make sense to you. But, if it's accurate, then paying off after 6 years seems good.

Clara, You said solar lease. As others have already asked, how long is the lease?

It will take you 7 years to break even if energy costs don't go up. I'd probably wait a few years until price of solar drops a bit and make it more attractive.

And if you are leasing...whats the difference here when buying? Do you have to renew after 7 years?

Another comment: when some people get solar, they become much more conscious of their energy consumption. It doesn't make any sense, so I won't try to explain it; it's a head thing.

You might find that your usage with solar is considerably lower than it is now, electric car notwithstanding.

If you think you're the kind of person who would buy a Kill-a-Watt and do a home power audit, do it before you build out. That makes sense in general, actually. Lots of homes use far more than they need to. Old appliances, always-on electronics, aging bits of home infrastructure, and wasteful personal habits are all much cheaper to address directly than to cover up by generating a surplus.

Clara,

Just wanted to point out that:

1) The efficiency of Solar cells is getting better with improving technology - this thread has already touched upon that topic. It should get cheaper in future and also there are more innovative technologies like exterior paint, etc being worked on.
2) Solar cells have a finite life time (i.e. warranty period) what ever that is. In many cases, by the time you break even with the overall costs, it may be time to replace the solar cells. So dont just assume that after breakeven, you are going to get free energy for life.
3) You are renting the solar company your real estate to build and generate the electricity - from which you will receive a set amount of energy per lease contract. Make sure you quantify the value of that rental.
4) For older buildings, there may be structural issues, and could void the home/roof insurance/warranty policies....vendors will most likely insure/warrant their installation and maybe the roof portion, but may not be inclusive... just be care full.

Good luck.

- my 2 cents.

FortWayne says

It will take you 7 years to break even if energy costs don't go up.

7 years? It's unamerican to owe a house for that long. If you're not flipping every 18 months, you are dragging down the economy and losing out on all the easy profits that can be made by buying and flipping properties!

Perform energy efficiency upgrades that are cost effective and have a payback period equivalent or less than the period of time you expect to stay in the house FIRST!!! Then get a baseline that shows what your daily power consumption load profile looks like for a typical day in the Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. This will allow you to look at what you are consuming and when, which will help you decide if you do in fact go ahead with solar, what system size to purchase, what rate schedule to go with (if optional as PG&E has multiple residential rate schedules - Net metering Time of Use rate could be beneficial for this scenario).

First things first, it's cheaper to reduce consumption than to generate via PV. Also, PV installed per watt costs are coming down lately, look for Good pricing to be in the $4.00 to $5.00 per watt range BEFORE any rebates and incentives. Any higher than that, they can GTFO!

Lease option? I say NO WAY, might also be known as a PPA. If you're worried about maintenance on the system you will own, ensure your warranty is iron clad, and ask about maintenance contract (Solar PV typically needs VERY Little if any annual maintenance).

My home in the mountains in Southern California is completely off grid (no electricity available). with 3kw solar system installed 6 years. I have 32 golf cart batteries for storage and a backup generator for the few consecutive cloudy days per year. My cost doing most of the work myself was $40,000 total. Being off grid, there are no rebates, credits, or deductions.

Solar prices have come down a lot since then due to Chinese imports.

Would I recomend solar for anyone with access to electricity even at 1/3 my price? "No".

Clara says

From a pure financial point of view, is buying or leasing Solar system a good investment this year? Is it starting to make financial sense yet, or keep on waiting for the price to drop more?

If you can afford lease the entire solar system; the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune; by all means do it. As Will Rogers said, "they're not making any more planets." Thanks to the collapse of the Martian real-estate bubble, the price of the solar system looks pretty good right now.

Clara says
"From a pure financial point of view, is buying or leasing Solar system a good investment this year? Is it starting to make financial sense yet, or keep on waiting for the price to drop more?"

acomfort says
I hope there are a few people here who understand that there are more than just financial reasons to have solar on your house and even more reasons to have solar with battery backup.

It is hard to get insurance to make financial sense (no payback is ever guaranteed) but we still buy it. The past may not be a reliable predictor of a future reliable grid.

I took a wind turbine apart and saw that the armature was rotating inside the surrounding permanent magnets that form the magnetic field.If you no basic electricity if a conductor meaning wire passes through a magnetic field a voltage will be induced into the wire and it is called EMF or electro motive force.So what I did was I purchased a turbine kit online but this one uses solar energy to make up for the permanent magnets and produce a magnetic field 10x stronger and therefore produce way more energy than before but had to control it with a electronic kit to regulate voltage and current to service different actions taking place like charging the car or batteries or heating the hot water tank which uses more amps and less voltage.What I am saying is with the right knowledge a person can become totally off the grid and half of what the main stream cost is ,all you have to do is know someone who is into it and you can find them online.

With solar, I'd be paying $14,000 onetime payment, then $0 monthly
Without solar, the utility bill would be $199 per month

Which one is better? Knowing that buying a EV itself is going to cost $26k also... With all the federal tax credit substracted already.

cc0 says

Clara says

To cover the house + 1 electric car, it will be $199 per month

@Clara - are you saying $200/mo with solar or without? I thought you said $0/mo with. If so, $14,000/$200/mo is a payback time of just under 6 years.

If you're going to be in your house that long, and the "lease" means they pay maintenance, it seems like a net positive.

Yes, things will be cheaper in the future, but if you can afford it, someone has to buy before commodity pricing comes into effect. It may not be a great deal, but it seems like a good deal.

As to buying an electric car - that's also up to you but I don't think the case for that is as strong. If you're trying to decide between a Leaf and a Boxter, the Leaf is probably better; Leaf and some other reasonable transportation though? Your call.

EBGuy says

Clara, You said solar lease. As others have already asked, how long is the lease?

20 years. After that, the sales person said it will be a few thousand dollars to pay it off since the system would be 20 years old by then.

Clara,

Have you considered a used Altima hybrid rather than a new Leaf? I tried an Altima hybrid last year through Hertz car sales when I was looking for a new car. It drove great with no range anxiety ~660 miles/tank city or highway (33/33 city/hwy MPG with a 20 gal tank).

The only practical drawback was the trunk, its a bit small thanks to the battery pack, but still plenty big enough for a commuter car. The price between the hybrid and equivalent gas Altima was negligible. They have a few 2011 models on the website now for under $16k

I'd have gotten one but I ended up with a Mazda5 instead. Sliding rear doors are unbeatable when you have kids!