Number crunching

Yeah, I had a few arborists give me a price on cutting down mature red maple tree on the SouthWest side of the roof. It is large enough such that during the growing season with foliage, it casts a shade on the corner of the roof. The garden is in full bloom right now, I am going to wait for the off-season to cut this tree down. Too large and too close to the house to DIY the felling. Hate to cut down healthy productive trees, especially paying a large sum of money.

 

I sincerely wish you the best of luck in your project
I will follow your aventure in this thread
Cheers

 

The thing is, I have already established that solar panel is not the best investment in terms of ROI. And since it is a grid-tied system, even if I achieve the net zero generation, I am not energy independent. If our electricity rate is not double the US national average, or our monthly consumption is lower, then the solar panels would make very little sense economically. But, with my current projection, I should be able to break even within a reasonable time frame, or sooner if the electricity rate keeps going up as it has been in the last few years.

At least, I am not paying any interest on solar financing. Or pay a monthly fee (equivalent to or slightly less than what I pay now to the utility) for the next 25 years on a solar power purchase agreement. I will own the system once installed. I just hope the system will perform as promised, and I will to able to save money in the long run. I will never get the satisfaction of being self-sufficient, but at least I can say I am contributing my share of green energy from our roof. The only thing is that I am likely causing an increase in the electricity rate which ratepayers are going to have to pay for. The current system is only helpful for those with resources. Those without resources are the ones who pay the most.

I still want to build a tiny house for my retirement and live off-grid, but that requires much more commitment and determination to change my current lifestyle. Not sure if that works with my other half.

 

No doubt. We all lived our lives with constant lifestyle creep. Not many of us are willing to give up the convenience of always-on electricity. But if I am 20 years younger, and if my significant other is willing to endure the lifestyle of homesteaders, then I am certainly willing to give up the convenience of modern-day technologies. But it becomes only difficult or impossible as we age.

 

Yeah, I've heard this line of thought, mostly as a "win-win" marketing catchphrase from solar companies. But, I largely dismiss it. It is very similar to any realtor saying certain remodeling adds "value" to the home. If the house is unaffordable for most young people now, how does adding more value to the home by installing solar panels thus increasing the sales price of the home make it more attractive to them? At best, if I try to sell my house at the same price as the other similar houses without solar in our area, then yes, our house is more marketable. But planning to recoup the installation cost of the solar 10-20 years later when we try to sell the house is wishful thinking, IMHO.

 

Well. My application for the Level 1 PV Interconnection- Screening Results just came back. It was determined that I will need a transformer and cable upgrade in order to proceed with the project much like what @Leadfoot J. McCoalroller had experienced with his system. At least, it was not out right turn down of the application. But the cost of the upgrade to be determined and a big caveat is that there is a long lead time equipment notice for this upgrade to take place. Even if they quickly determine the cost and I pay for it to order the equipment needed, the ETA is anywhere from 6-12 months.

All likelihood, the project will not be completed this year as I wished. It is more like sometime next year at the earliest. This really changes the planning for the project. I am hoping the installer will honer the quote they gave me and install the system at the agreed upon price next year... But that all depends on the added cost of the transformer by the utility.

 

Well, as soon as our utility gave a conditional OK, that is transformer needs to be upgraded before energizing the system but otherwise the project is approved, my solar company sent be a bill for the project to order the equipment. I paid cash promptly. And 2 weeks later the 35x 420w panels, micro inverter, rack system, and other materials are delivered. They will be installing on the main house roof tomorrow. As soon as roofer finish the roofing the garage, it's roof top installation will follow. Then the electrician will come to upgrade the main service panel and connect the system.

Even though the system will not be operational for months, it probably is a good thing since the solar panels price went up at the beginning of this month due to the new tariff taking an effect on Chinese solar cells. The 50% increase in Made in China solar cells. Mine is made in USA panel by Korean based Qcell, but China having the world 80%+ market share on solar panel, I know even the US made solar panel must have gone up on the price after the tariff went into an effect. My panel was quoted in May this year price.

 

how is your local utility pricing a kW of electric and what's the size of the array? I'm looking at roughly 9 kW of space on our roof, but the best year round sun exposure is right in front of our detached garage around 50' from the house. The more data I can collect especially in our area (NorthEast) the closer I can get to making an informed decision regarding size and location of panels, inverter(s), etc. Been tacking summer gas and electric usage along with weather, hoping to see some patterns develop.

 

Very grateful I'm still being hit for only 11ish cents per kwh. 5-6 years from now when I'm looking at roof replacement, it will be interesting to see what's available for solar. How big of a system would be needed if my average monthly use is ~3000kwh?

 

Yikes, that is huge.

My all-electric home started at about 10,600 kWh/year, later exceeding 11,000 a few times. But through a variety of conservation means and energy upgrades, I slashed that to 5,000 per year. Then built the solar system over two years to produce about 6,000 per year, to allow some margin for system aging, growth of neighboring shade trees, and weather variations. Though it didn't take long for conservation laziness and some new devices to push consumption up close to that 6,000 figure.

Without most of those conservation and energy upgrades, a net-zero solar system would have exceeded the size of our prime south-facing roof area, with additional panels needing to be placed in non-prime lower-production east and west exposures. With that past conservation, there is enough prime south area remaining to take an expansion to cover our new plug-in hybrid.

My system is somewhat impaired by partial shade from neighbor's trees, and from the Pacific Northwest's lousy winter overcast. NREL's PVWatts calculator -- an older version than is available now -- did a reasonable job in predicting average annual production, after I threw in an ad hoc adjustment factor for the tree shade. It also helped me understand that my non-ideal roof pitch didn't matter much, costing only a few percent in annual production, not enough to bother considering mounting at a different panel tilt than the natural roof slope.

 

The average Electricity consumption in U.S. homes varies by region and type of home. In addition, what electricity is used in the household and how many occupant lives in the home makes huge differences. Can't really make an apple-to-apple comparison between someone living alone in an efficient apartment complex building North East to someone living in the south, in large single-family detached home with 6 people.

Electricity use in homes - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)


Everyone's situation is unique depending on where you live, what type of dwelling you live, how many family member live there, what life style you choose to live, etc. You just have to do your own math. There isn't one formula that works for all.

After variety of cost and energy cutting efforts over the last 10 years, we established that we use ~10,500kWh/mo of electricity in our home. This number to be very consistent and manageable without breaking our bank or changing our lifestyle drastically. Incidentally, 10,500kWh/mo of electricity consumption is right at the average US household monthly electric consumption. If our electricity rate is $0.17/kWh and stays at that price, the solar panel would have made no financial sense. The payback period is ~25 years without incentive. Even with full 30% off by tax break, it still takes ~18 years to pay back the initial cost. That is way too long.

But with our current $0.32/kWh electric rate and anticipated ~4% hike every year, and with taking a full advantage of tax incentives, we can break-even in less than 7 years. That makes good economic sense to me. But if the electric rate falls before $0.20/kWh in the near future, although very unlikely in our current political climate, I will regret taking out a huge chunk of our retirement fund to install the 14kW solar system on our roof this year. There is a risk and benefit in everyone's situation.

 

There are cities and towns that wouldn’t allow that tree removal without a permit and approval. There would have to be some very important reasons and a professionally documented report backing them up. My town has it and it’s out of touch with reality.

 

Each municipality is different. We lived in a city a long time ago where a town police would stop by to give us a warning to remove 8 feet spruce tree that was dying. Not because of the fire hazard or anything, but for the aesthetics. Yep, the ordinance says to remove dead trees which is considered an eyesore or you are fined.

BTW, I ended up getting help from family, friends, and volunteers and DIY felled, limbed, bucked, and removed ~24 mature maple trees around our house and back woods. All in all, over 20 tons of logs. It took ~10 days to finish the work with average 2-3 people working on site daily. We had a wonderful volunteer group in our area who operate firewood bank to give away cord wood for heating homes of unfortunate peoples. This work was mainly for the solar panel system on our rooftop but I took the opportunity to trim down the thick wooded area with some over grown dangerous trees to open up the area to be used for more gardening. If I hired a commercial tree service to do the same job, it would have cost me well over $10K. But DIY cost was $0, except a cost of a new powerful felling chainsaw at $1,700 and ~6 gal of ethanol free gasoline fuel and 3 gal of chain oil cost. Money well worth spent.

 

That is an important point and well stated for individuals who do proper Return on Investment calculations on large projects.

Our particular area of the country may be forced to create new energy sources by the political climate which will make our $.09Kwh skyrocket to unpredictable levels.

If common sense prevails and gradual transitions are made then rates will slowly stabilize to reasonable values.

Making any type of ROI calculations in that type of dramatic energy climate borders on a fools folly.

Another somewhat 'politically' charged variable is an individual states net metering laws. They can as mentioned have a large impact on system payback length.

As if that wasn't enough uncertainty, both the 'political climate' for green energy as well as net metering laws can change on a dime based on current elected officials whims. That is happening now much to the dismay of many new solar generating systems owners, and it is not really fair to those individuals.

I agree wholeheartedly that the area of the country you live in and your individual situation is unique and requires careful thought before jumping in.

In other situations and areas like California and parts of the Northeast US going solar can be a no brainer positive ROI - not so much in other areas.

Net Metering 3.0 Rules Create Chaos In Rooftop Solar Market In California - CleanTechnica

Arizona's Net Billing Battle: What You Need to Know | Solar.com

Idaho ends net metering, shifts instead to net-billing system for solar compensation (solarpowerworldonline.com)

Most and Least Friendly States for Solar Energy (2022 Report) (2024) | Today's Homeowner (todayshomeowner.com)

I would very much like to have a self sufficient solar generating system for our home and think it is admirable for people who do that but due to our geographic area - pricing conditions- current laws -lack of net metering- potential for change to most of this it makes no economic sense in our area.
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I enjoy this thread a great deal and especially hearing about the op's success in installing his system and the benefits he is getting from it. It is inspiring to hear about individuals who have been successful in supplying their own power and meeting their own needs.