For some people, it's not an option.
That's peachy! Whatever works with you is fine as long as: 1. You don't ask me to pay higher electrical costs to give you rebates. 2. you pay for you own products, as in you don't get to not pay taxes, I must pay, just because you can afford something I can not.
The tax incentives are there to help offset the cost of installation, and has nothing to do with the "class warfare" angle, so let's keep this real shall we? Also, there's nothing "illegal, immoral", or fattening about giving someone a tax incentive to HELP the country, which is exactly what home based power generation is. I get a tax write-off for all of my mileage, and all of the equipment I have in my business, is that somehow "immoral" since my employees don't get those incentives? Hardly, I provide a service for the country by providing employment for many people (it keeps them off of welfare, food stamps, WIC, and out of Section 8 housing), and the government is willing to provide me with an incentive for providing that service.
You are not helping the country. You are passing the cost of your purchase onto the country. This doesn't help anyone, but you.
It is immoral and wrong. If I pay a tax, you should. If you do not, no one should. If we believe in all men are equal, then all men should be taxed the same, no exceptions.
That "I provide a service" excuse is lame lame lame. You provide people with jobs? Guess what, everyone does. Every single time I buy a product, someone somewhere has a job because of my purchase, just like everyone else in this country. So we ALL should get the same tax write off. Everyone.
Secondly, installing solar does not require that you install the entire system all at once. You can install it piecemeal over time, and it is therefore reachable for anyone who owns their home, so that dog just won't hunt either.
As fair as I know, the inverter and grid tie-in must be matched to the solar panels, plus you need the correct number of panels to reach the minimum voltage across the array. This is why most all kits come in 6, 12, 24, 48. Also, the inverter, in order to work efficiently, must be power matched to the array. Having a bigger inverter than needed, so that you can add more panels later, will result poor output. Also, mismatching panels is a bad idea. The older panels will drag the efficiency of the new panels down.
It's not $3.50 per watt hour, it's $4.50 per watt of installed capacity. It's a ONE TIME grant, not a continuing payment, again, to incentives people to install solar and take some of the pressure off of their local power companies strained systems since it's far cheaper for the power company to give these grants than it is for them to build new power stations, sub-stations, and install new lines.
What the heck are you talking about lol. Do you know how much it costs the power company to produce one single kWh from coal? 8¢. Nuclear is cheaper. How the heck do you figure it's cheaper for them to pay you $4.50 for one WATT, of installed capacity, when they can make 56,250 watts with the $4.50 they paid you for the one?
Perhaps you have a really screwed up, governmentally regulated to hell, local power company or something...
By being "on the grid", you're SUPPLYING electricity to the grid during peak loading hours, that you are being paid a small remuneration for, which means that this is electricity that the electric company isn't having to generate, which means that they're not having to build more power generation facilities, which keeps costs down to the consumer. As for your not being able to afford one, why not? Can't you qualify for a loan at the bank? If you can get and afford financing for a new car, you can get and afford financing for a solar power set up. It's just a matter of priority. If you're not interested in being independent and self sufficient, then no amount of discussion is going to change your mind, but if you ARE, then REALLY investigate it.
Loan at the bank? You want me to pay interest on a purchase that decreases in value, making it cost more than it already does? A car loan, that's a horrible idea. No wonder so many Americans are broke and declare bankruptcy every year.
How can you believe this... You think that because you supply 1 kWh to the grid, during peak hours, that now they don't have to build more power plants? Ah yeah they do! If that section of the grid that you are on is anywhere near capacity, they are going to build a power plant, no matter how much or little power you supply the grid. You tiny drop in the bucket doesn't make the slightest difference anywhere.
Let me make something clear. Having other people subsidize your power usage by us paying your purchase of a solar setup is NOT being self sufficient. That's being a tyrant. You, forcing me to pay your bill, is nothing more than legalized stealing. You are stealing money from my check in the form of taxes and higher power bills. If that is what you call "self sufficient" then no, I have no interest in being a legal thief.
My own system cost me roughly the same thing (inflation adjusted), for roughly half the efficiency, and being that I was totally "off the grid", it still only took 12 years for me to "break even", and when I finally sold the place, I got a much better price for it than any comparable home in the area because there was no electric bill.
Also, your point about never being able to break even, I'd be very interested in seeing your data, as I too have run the numbers, and when I build my new house starting next spring I'm going solar and wind (on the grid though, so I can sell my excess to the local power company).
If you 'broke even' by stealing money in the form of rebates and subsidies, then that isn't breaking even in my book. You just stole your way even.
Sure. The cheapest system from a reliable company is a Sunwize 1.05 kW grid tie-in system. This a complete setup, no battery backup. Cost: $8,670
Now 1.05 kW is the factory rating. This is the ideal perfect, garden of Eden, output. Then you buy it, and bring it to the real world. In the real world there are energy losses from wiring, inverters, transformers, grid tie, differences in panels, and the effects of the sun. Without expanding all, here's an example:
The panel will produce stated wattage in the factory under ideal artificial light. The sun has a negative effect and a panel will lose 2% of it's max wattage in the first 2 hours of exposure to sunlight. Nearly all panels operate at -5% wattage in the first month of use.
So after taking into account all the energy losses, the net wattage output is only 83%, or 870 watts.
Here in Ohio, in our peak sunny month, we would have about 5 good hours of max output.
Therefore, only about 4.4 kWhs a day (rounding up).
About 132 kWh for the month.
At 8.5¢ a kWh, that's $11.22 saved in electric bills.
...times 12 months = $134.64 / saved per year.
Total cost of the system $8,670 / by $132.64 savings per year =
only 65 years to break even.
However this assumes every month would produce the same power as August, it wouldn't. It also assumes that my roof is the perfect angle, it isn't. It also assume no bird poop on it, or dust covers it, or leaves lay on it... not so. When you take all this into consideration, I would be lucky to produce 1200 kWh a year for a savings of $100, which would require 87 years to break even.
Which still ignores one final fact... panels do not last forever. The standard silicon panel loses 1% efficiency a year. Every year the amount of power produced would drop. Worse, the inverters and transformers would enhance that loss because as input voltage drops, so does inverter efficiency. Within 10-15 years tops, I'd have to replace every single panel.
In this example, again, I do not count rebates, tax cuts, or any other governmental socialistic system because... it's stealing. You are a thief in my book if you use other peoples money to support your purchase. I would never take money from others to buy my car, nor will I do it to purchase a solar panel. It's immoral, it's wrong, it's unconstitutional.
Oh, and BTW, the panels were $11,766, not $18,000, and as with all "new" technology, over time the cost will come down and the efficiency will go up so that by the time he does need to replace his panels, he won't need 16 of them, he'll probably only need 6.
Er... the technology isn't "new". The modern photovoltaic cell, just like what you use today, has been around since 1954. Another amazing invention of Bell Labs... darn good thing the government broke that company up... idiots. The production of solar panels has not decreased the price by much for the last 20 years because the required refining of Silicon and duping it with other elements, is simply an expensive process. Thus far, the main improvements to solar panels has come by increasing efficiency, which requires a higher quality refinement, which results in a more expensive process, which results in a near identical price to watt ratio. Meaning the the size of the panel has gone down, while wattage and price remained roughly the same.
It's unlikely to drop much in the future... unless the new thin cells can take their place. We'll see, but don't hold your breath. The new thin photovoltaic cells do not use silicon, nor a horribly expensive refinement process. The problem is, I heard about this more than 5 years ago, and I'm still not seeing any quantifiable results. So, here's to hoping, but I'm not holding my breath. Something 'to good to be true' most of the time isn't.
