I am going solar

Congratulations!
Sounds like you have done plenty of planning, I'm sure you will be happy with your system.

 

sounds pretty sweet usb, all the best!

 

Good one USB, sure beats the NJ I moved away from...NJ used to be full out coal power for new plants, and that made my life a little miserable in South Jersey fighting off the plants (cause South Jersey's where they like to put the big power plants). Now NJ full out on solar, one of the leading states. Who'da thunk? Not me, but I wouldn't fight it!

 

Every step forward is good!
It is more than many do

 

Cool. That's exciting news.

It adds to my own excitement. The house I'm moving into on Thursday has a 165 deg Azimuth. Which if I'm understanding how to measure the orientation, is near ideal. The roof surface is large and there shouldn't ever be any trees in the way.

Keep us informed. I'm quite a few years behind you, but someday hope to do the same.

 

Two thumbs up!
Best not to count your SRECs before they are collected though. If NJ is like other places, the value changes with supply/demand.

 

Way to go! The $20k budget you mention, what more than just the panels and the inverter do you get for that? It works out to about $2,56/Wp, here in Europe we can easily get half that price. But still we won't get a ROI of 4 years. Is electricity that expensive? We pay about € 0,20 ($ 0,227) per kWh.

 

Ugh, Maarten, you depress me even more than usb... It cost me $10k for just over 2 kW. One of my other quotes was $15k for 1.7 kW. (Granted, those were much higher-quality panels, and would've fit on a south-facing roof instead of the east-facing one I have now.)

I think Europe has way cheaper solar in general, though, especially Germany. From what I can tell, it's a complex issue that depends on how easy the permitting process is, what the tariffs are like (mostly against China to help protect domestic industry - wherever 'domestic' may be - due to Chinese government support of their own industry), how much competition there is, etc. I bet prices in the US might drop if the 30% tax credit were to disappear, just because installers would have to compete more on price.

My system won't pay back for about 24 years, or 16 years if you include the tax credit. But my electric rates depend on how much power I use, and right now that's very little - if I get an EV, the payback would become much quicker, because it would keep me out of the more expensive usage tiers. I pay about 16¢/kWh now, but rates go up to 33¢/kWh. Since I got solar, I've actually changed to a time-of-use plan, which ranges from 13¢ winter off-peak Tier 1 to 49¢ summer on-peak Tier 4, with 18 other prices in between, depending on season, time of day, and monthly usage.

On the other hand, my $10k includes 30 years of warranty/maintenance, production guarantee, monitoring, and insurance. So there is some value beyond just the installed bits of hardware.

 

[QUOTE="usbseawolf2000, post: 2140370, member: 2754"
Once measurements were taken from the attic (snow on roof), I changed to less efficient more bang to the buck Canadian Solar panels with Solaredge inverter with optimizers. I was going to get 6.24 kW (24 panels) system.

The weather gave a break and Brian dispatched his guy on my roof to take final measurements and also the condition of the roof. It turns out I won't need to redo the roof so I decided to go with 7.8 kW (30 panels) system.

I still need to cut down two trees south of me. The neighbor agreed to split the cost. I need it to keep the production reasonable especially the 6 panels that would be on NW roof.

This setup is estimated to produce 8,135 kWh annually. As my daughter grow up, electricity usage would as well. Plus the age degration over time in consideration, I think I will be covered for the next 25+ years.
[/QUOTE]

Congratulations with this big step!

Your system has practically the same size as mine (I have 25 Renesola of 265 Wp and 4 LG of 285 Wp, all with PowerOne micro-inverters). Indeed, like Maarten puts forward, costs seem a bit lower here in Europe, but that also depends on the type of system. Having SolarEdge optimisers like you, or PowerOne micro-inverters like me, increases the price a bit, but provides more production.

Do you also consider a heat pump for your heating? I did so, and my costs for heating reduced by more than 50%, not to say that I also use the solar energy for it, which makes it even cheaper.

As you will expect, I also use the produced energy for my PiP (80% EV) and still have 1000 to 2000 kWh more annual electricity production than my usage is for everything together. And of course no expenses gas for in the house anymore and only the minimum of 40 liter per year for the PiP.

Jan

 

Oh my, nice rates!
In the U.S. Installed costs are typically around $4/kW.
Less if you install them yourself.

 

Been enjoying the PV solar production since Nov 2012, with almost 10KWH system on the roof.
Paid off upon installation completion, meaning no loans to repay and we are ripping the gains of 2500 kw overproduction
( this past season) during the winter time. Solar production it is on my signature.
USB, now you have to wait until there is no more snow on the roof for the installation date.......
Think about microinverters on each panel for better system output, but if you're on a budget constraint, this is not
your path to success.

 

One thing that you have to realize is, on an string/ Inverter based system, if you loose one panel because of shading (snow, leaves) you will loose all solar production on that string.
With microinverters per panel, you may loose a lot less solar production due to the same issue.
Right now, I have caked ice/snow on 3 panels of the 38 and I still produce enough and above my daily consumption; will not happen with a string system.

 

My understanding is that what the optimizes help with.
There are benifits to both types of systems.
After researching both, we are going with the string inverters with optimizes as well.

 

USBseawolf,
Does the SREC work out to 2.75 or 27.5 cents a kWh ?

If the latter and it is a fixed rate in some cases, I personally would jump on the fixed rate.
I presume the loan with its high APR can be paid off early, and not disturb the SREC ?