Home Solar panels

Thanks for the links tripp.

I had been mulling over the possibility of setting up a business along just these lines, and thought citizenre had gotten there ahead of me.

'Course, I was starting from assumptions of 13 cents/kWh production credits from our local utility, very generous ~ 30% capitalization credits from the state of NM, and outstanding location for solar.

CitizenRe does not have any of these locked in, so I'll have to also conclude the initial 'financing' is a pyramid scheme. The rebuttals are short on verifiable fact, and long on 'feel good', 'do good' BS -- very worrisome.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tadashi @ Feb 12 2007, 09:33 PM) [snapback]389236[/snapback]</div>

Here is a work sheet for calculating costs of solar with rough estimate near the bottom to get some idea. It includes a link to a cost calcualtor. Homepower.com has a solar primer that can offer much guidance. But it is almost always more cost effective in a 'conventional' household to reduce electircla needs with efficiency measures.

Reducing energy use:
The Home Energy Diet: How to Save Money by Making Your House Energy-Smart By Paul Scheckel is a good resource.

We power our farm and household with wind and solar (in cloudy NW michigan - summary info at http://csafarms.org/csafarms3062295.asp)


Solar – Calculate Costs:
(OR us http://homepower.com/resources/energy_master.cfm)
Factors
• Average KWH used by your home each month (use your electric bill)
• Peak sun hours for your location (see http://www.solar4power.com/solar-power-ins...ion-window.html, http://www.rockygrove.com/design/howmany.html, http://homepower.com/education/solar_map.cfm
• Quality of your solar ‘window’
• Financial incentives, if any. (see www.dsireusa.org/)

Calculate Your Costs:
1. Daily output needed:
Average Monthly Electricity Use__________KWH
X 1,000 (convert KWH to Watt-Hours_______WH
X % of Monthly Electrical Use from PV
Divide by 30 days
=Daily PV output needed ______________

2. Minimum system size (in watts)
Daily PV needed (from step 1) _________WH
Divide by ave Peak Sun Hours Per Day=_______W
Divide by .7 (70% efficiency factor
= Minimum System Size_________W

3. Number of PV modules needed
Minimum System Size (step 2) _______WH
Divide by Wattage Rating of chosen Modules ____W
=number of modules _________Modules

4. Size of System
i. Modules required (from step 3, round up) ___Modules
ii. X Wattage Rating (from Step 3) _____
i. =system size (in Watts) ______W

5. System Cost
System Size (step 4) _____W
X System Cost Per Watt (see below) $_____
- rebates and incentives $___
= approximate System Cost $______

INSTALLED COSTS
Less than 1,000 W - $10 to $12 or more per watt
1,000 – 4,000 W: $8 – 10 per watt
4,000 +: $6-8 per watt

Other Resources
Calculator for grid-tied system: http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/codes_algs/PVWATTS/
Home Power Magazine: www.homepower.com

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(EricGo @ Feb 18 2007, 10:40 AM) [snapback]392397[/snapback]</div>

Yeah, that's the feeling I got from looking them over. It's an interesting struggle. The "establishment" certainly wouldn't want to get cut out but I think that they're real concern is the possible damage Citizenre could do to the industry if they rip off a bunch of folks.

NM is a great place for solar (of all types) and I'm glad to see that you guys seem to be doing some good stuff down there. We're looking to buy a new house soon and one of my priorities is to put up a PV array and probably solar water heating too so I'm definitely and interested party as well.

 

Hi Jim, Thanks for the detailed post.

How much of the installed cost are the panels alone ?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(EricGo @ Feb 19 2007, 10:16 AM) [snapback]392811[/snapback]</div>

Somewhere in the ballpark of $4.50-$5.50/W seems to be typical. The actual amount depends on who's panels you go with, but they're all pretty similar from what I can tell.

 

I just hit my highest daily kw/Hr ever: 5.1 sold back to the grid Saturday! It was a very cool day, but absolutely clear and cloud-free. I also just scored some nice 170 watt panels at only $3.30/watt, which will add to my rather small system very nicely. My system is mainly for power backup, but the Outback inverter is also grid-tie, so I sell the excess (not used to keep the batteries charged) back to the utility.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(keydiver @ Feb 19 2007, 02:57 PM) [snapback]392973[/snapback]</div>

Very cool. Who makes the panels? How many amp hours can you store? You system is mainly for hurricane related power outages right?

 

That was indeed a very good price for panels. I would be interested in the source, too, as I may add just a dab of solar to our system (our, um, solar system - I love the sound of that). Prices that I have seen have been pretty steady, it seems, and availablility a bit dicey (with demand going to Japan and Germany).

The best prices per watt tend to be in the larger panels, 120 watt + or - jobs that weren't even on the market back in the day when we started this, in '88 ( a really 'big' panel was 75 watt back then).

Jim

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(EricGo @ Feb 18 2007, 01:40 PM) [snapback]392397[/snapback]</div>

I think there is still plenty of room for new, honest dealers and especially installers. This is a new (relatively) and growing field, and there seems little reason to believe that demand will do anything but go up with energy prices. Getting into wind would be a good thing, too...since a handy fellow can install some solar panels on a roof or rack and a bit of electrical sense (and instruction manuals) will get the rest of the stuff installed. But those tall towers...that was our first foray into professional installation (My reasonalbe, I felt, unwillingness to build a 95' tower...)

Jim

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tadashi @ Feb 20 2007, 10:34 AM) [snapback]393236[/snapback]</div>

Go to homepower.com (mentioned earlier as a good resource) and look in back issues for an article about choosing a contractor. I can't remember how far back, but I am pretty sure it is in the last year or so, they did an article on the topic. What to ask, how to eveluate answers, like that. You might ask each for a couple of folks that they have worked for, too, and see what their experience is. But they probably won't give you names of complainers...

Good luck! Go solar!

Jim

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tripp @ Feb 19 2007, 06:25 PM) [snapback]393013[/snapback]</div>

Yes, my system started out as a backup for hurricane-related outages. But, now that I have the initial investment, its easy for me to add to it as I can. As someone else just said, the smaller panels, like the Evergreen 115's I started with, are getting very hard to find, as the industry mores more towards the batteryless grid-intertied systems. I wanted to add another string of the 115W's, and then found out Evergreen stopped making them last fall! :angry:
However, I did some calculations using their new 170 watt panels, which have 108 cells instead of 72, and it worked out that 4 new 170W panels were exactly the same in voltage and current as the string of 6 of my 115W panels! B) So, Thursday night I mounted the 4 new 170W panels, rearranged the 6 115W panels, and paralleled them with some MC Y-cables. I generated 7.5 Kw/Hrs yesterday!
I've been buying my panels from Sun Electric down in Miami. They also sell on eBay under the name sunelec_miami. They only recently began carrying the Outback inverters and charge controllers, which I consider to be the best ones out there for a hybrid system like mine. If you don't need battery backup there are cheaper choices like Fronius, etc.
http://www.sunelec.com
Earlier today I looked at the Outback panel and I was selling 1.1 Kw to the grid. B)
Oh, you also asked about storage capacity: not as much as Ed. I have 4 400 Amp/Hr 6 volt Rolls batteries. So, assuming 50% usage, I could get as much as 4800 Watt/Hrs daily usage, if I'm calculating correctly. That's enough for me to run the refrigerator, satellite and some tv, some lighting, and even a small window A/C unit to hopefully take the humidity out of the bedroom overnight.

 

Thanks KD. That's interesting stuff. So they're evergreen panels. Neat, their string ribbon tech sounds an interesting way to reduce the amount of Si in the panels, thereby reducing their cost. Do you just have the one inverter?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tripp @ Feb 24 2007, 09:25 PM) [snapback]396015[/snapback]</div>

Yes, I had a Xantec/Trace 2500 watt "modified sine wave" inverter, which is standing by if I need it, but I bought a nice Outback GTFX2524 inverter last year to replace it. I figured all the electricity left over after the batteries are charged shouldn't go to waste. I also replaced the Prostar charge controller with an Outback MX60 with MPPT to extract as much power from the panels as possible.
2500 watts is plenty for my emergency needs. I bought one of those "Kill-o-watt" devices, and have metered everything in the house. My refrigerator actually only draws ~130 watts, if I recall, after the initial startup surge of 900 watts. TV and satellite is <100 watts total. A few CFL's for light add practically no load. I have a 24 VDC ShurFlo RV water pump which gave us running water and showers, while only drawing a maximum of 5 amps I think. Hopefully there's enough left to run a small window A/C unit for a few hours so we can get some sleep. We were lucky with Wilma in 2005, as a cold front came in right behind it, so the weather was cool and beautiful, and we had no need for A/C. But, it usually isn't that way. Living here was miserable after Frances and Jeanne.

 

Yes, that was another reason I made the change from the Xantrec to the Outback inverter, too many scary stories about refrigerator compressors burning out, etc on a modified sine wave/square wave inverter. Or, at least that's what I told the wife.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(keydiver @ Feb 25 2007, 07:05 PM) [snapback]396481[/snapback]</div>

I grew up in Savannah so I know what you mean. We never got tagged by anything serious, but we were sweating bullets when Hugo was approaching. If it had hit GA our house would have been under about 17 feet of water give or take.

 

If this site has been mentioned, pardon the duplication

http://www.txses.org/

There are lots of links that seem helpful and a number of events, many in the Central Texas area. I have been wanting to attend the event in Fredericksburg for a couple of years now, but haven't made it yet.

Good luck!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(felton @ Feb 26 2007, 06:07 PM) [snapback]396911[/snapback]</div>

Yes, I tuned in to This Old House yesterday, and was pleasantly surprised to see how progressive Austin is about building Green housing. Why such construction isn't encouraged/mandated elsewhere is beyond me. I live in the "Sunshine State", and very rarely do I see anything solar, other than an occasional solar hot water heater.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(keydiver @ Feb 27 2007, 10:25 AM) [snapback]397156[/snapback]</div>

Living here in North Texas I have had the opportunity to attend a few open houses which have really educated and encouraged me. Here in "the sun belt", most of our energy needs are related to cooling. Most of those needs can be more efficiently and economically addressed through passive solar design and insulation. I was very impressed with one particular home that was designed by the environmental owner/architect. He said there was no way he would give up his deciduous trees for PV panels. His year round energy costs were less than $100 month for a house that was over 3,000 SF. According to him, solar hot water makes sense, while PV is not yet economically viable, at least here in Texas where we have no state/local subsidies.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(felton @ Feb 27 2007, 09:50 AM) [snapback]397162[/snapback]</div>

Those are the kinds of things that should be implemented in EVERY new home, as far as I'm concerned. I believe the guy on This Old House said that a 5-star rated Austin home will only require 1/10 the energy as a "normal" home. Now, who wouldn't want that? B)
I remember reading about some homes that were built up in the panhandle of Florida, to test the effectiveness of some simple passive solar features, like white roofs, overhanging roofs to shade the windows in the summer, etc. The difference in costs to build the houses was minimal, yet the passive solar homes required less than half the A/C requirements. I wonder which house I'd rather live in?