Solar rooftops gain traction as electric vehicles owners look to skip paying for electricity or gasoline: ‘Solar just makes sense’::Residential solar is gaining traction in the U.S., with about 4.5 million homes now with solar rooftops.
Too bad this is for a person that:
- has enough income to afford an EV
- has a house.
- has enough income to afford the initial cost of the solar panels and installation.
Sadly most dont
"4. Doesn’t live with an HOA that has banned solar roof panel installation (Source: My parents HOA in South Carolina)
In many cases the cost of a loan for solar panels is roughly equivalent to your monthly electric bill. I actually spend less on my loan than I did with the utility company. Of course you have a valid point overall, but I bring this up because many people are not aware that the cost difference can be pretty minimal or even to your benefit.
You can also buy just the panels and install them yourself if youre handy. They are generally just rails you bolt to a support beam in your roof. Mount the rails, water seal the penetration points, rack the panels, plug one into another, drill and seal an ingress hole for the wiring.
Instead of paying 30-40k for an installer to do it all, you can likely pay 5-10k for panels/inverters/tie in box and another 5k for an electrician to wire it all in.
Okay, but unless you have a proper harness and other safety equipment, you face a heavy risk of severely, likely permanently, injuring yourself if you slip up.
Hmmm I wonder if I still get the rebates if I diy it. Ah well, I suppose it doesn’t matter until the two maples in front of my neighbor’s house fall down.
You still have to buy the panels/etc. i dont see why they wouldn’t apply, but I haven’t done it yet so I can’t answer that unfortunately.
This is all true, and yet it’s still a good thing.
The more people invest in this stuff the cheaper it will get.
Putting panels on roofs is the most expensive way to do solar, anyway. It’s a custom job every time, and doesn’t take advantage of economies of scale.
Putting them in big fields is far cheaper. If you want to stick it to traditional power utilities, then look at community solar.
So what? Who owns a giant field to put them in other than power companies? If you own your home and own the panels, that’s your power. Even if it’s not enough to get off the grid entirely, you’re still saving money.
Look up community solar.
That’s not true at all.
Installations are mostly standardized.
Putting them in an empty field is a terrible use of valuable land in areas where people actually live, not to mention the costs of transportation.
Some farms are taking advantage of this though, look into “agrivoltaics” for more on that.
Short term this is true, but if everyone does this, and we have the giant increased solar capacity we’re expecting, we’ll hit the limits of our electrical transmission capabilities.
Rooftop solar puts the generation at the same location as the consumption eliminating the transmission issue. Further, communities that have even a small percent of rooftop solar installs that also push their excess back to the grid could actually reduce the transmission challenge even further.
No, that’s not how it works. That part of the grid was designed for taking power, not generating power. Getting it to do otherwise is a huge headache for power companies. If everyone did it, the grid would fall apart.
A typical US home will need to upgrade from 100A to 200A service to have significant solar service, covering around 75% to 90% of the home’s power usage. This is because the panel needs to be rated for 120% of the maximum output of the panels to meet the National Electric Code.
The first few people in your neighborhood will be able to do that no problem. The electric company likely has excess capacity built in already. As a few more start to do it, though, that excess capacity will dry up, and the local grid will need to be upgraded.
Conversely, adding capacity to handle a new field is relatively simple. You add a lot of stuff in one place. Since it all needs to be planned out ahead of time, you can predict its max output. Power companies know how to do that.
Also you need to keep them clean to maintain efficiency. In a field that’s easy - you can probably just employ the landowner and buy an attachment for his tractor. On the roof there isn’t really any good way of automating it, and some rooftops aren’t accessible for a window washer and a long brush.
I could probably afford one of the panels to keep in my apartment until I’m evicted.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Less than a year later, motivated to take more action to address climate change, he said, Selgo bought his first electric vehicle, a Nissan Leaf.
It’s an important point because electricity production and transportation are the largest two sources of greenhouse gas emissions, and therefore climate change, in the U.S., according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Several legacy car companies are launching efforts to connect customers with energy services, including solar installation contractors.
About half of households in the U.S. either don’t have control over their roof, or find that it’s not adequate because of location, space or orientation, according to the DOE solar office.
The Inflation Reduction Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law in August 2022, allows consumers to claim 30% of what they put into their system as a credit on their next federal tax bill.
Selgo said his system cost $19,500, but after receiving the 30% federal tax rebate and $1,000 from the state of Arizona at the time, he ultimately paid out around $12,500.
The original article contains 886 words, the summary contains 168 words. Saved 81%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Electric vehicles use a huge amount of power that many solar systems may not be able to accommodate, in addition to the regular usage load of the house. Keep in mind that the electrification dream is to also run HVAC and hot water off of electricity too. Also, in terms of charging your car, you’ll usually be at home charging overnight when the sun isn’t out. Sure, you can install a battery to charge from, but the capacity of these power walls is puny compared to the needs of an electric car. Also, you may want to use some of it for your actual house.
Not saying we shouldn’t try at home solar or that it won’t work for some folks, but it’s not a silver bullet. A lot of people will still be drawing from the grid, even with solar and back up batteries.
Electric vehicles use a huge amount of power
Eh, not that huge. Summertime AC electrical consumption is about triple what my monthly EV home charging consumes.
that many solar systems may not be able to accommodate,
This is true that many are smaller systems (say 8kw or so of installed capacity). However, unless you’re an extremely heavy use EV driver, you’re not likely draining your EV battery flat everyday. Many folks may only be using 10%-30% or less for their daily driving. This represents 3-5 hours of “middle grade” home EV charging current (ballpark of 25A-30A at 240v AC charging).
in addition to the regular usage load of the house.
Even most Solar PV installs aren’t 100% replacement of household electrical consumption.
Keep in mind that the electrification dream is to also run HVAC and hot water off of electricity too. Also, in terms of charging your car, you’ll usually be at home charging overnight when the sun isn’t out.
This is where different state laws come in and make it weird and not a one-size-fits-all answer. For many states (like mine) I have “1 to 1 net metering” meaning if I push 1kw of electricity to the grid because I’m generating more than I need at that time, I can later pull that 1kw back from the grid when my generation is lower or my demand is higher and its a net zero cost to me. So if I push 8kw to the grid during the bright sunny day over what I’m consuming in my home, I can put that 8kw back into the EV at night charging and its like I put it in a battery.
There are some states moving away from 1 to 1 net metering or even less advantageous ratios like 1:2.
Sure, you can install a battery to charge from, but the capacity of these power walls is puny compared to the needs of an electric car. Also, you may want to use some of it for your actual house.
Agreed. For some numbers, a single Tesla Powerwall charged to 100% would be able to charge a Tesla Model 3 Long Range from 0% to about 33% before the Powerwall would be empty.
Not saying we shouldn’t try at home solar or that it won’t work for some folks, but it’s not a silver bullet. A lot of people will still be drawing from the grid, even with solar and back up batteries.
Nothing is a silver bullet that matches everyone’s consumption and house solar capacity. The cool part is nothing needs to be. Even a partial benefit is a benefit. With the government incentives, the Solar PV system I’m getting will have full payback of the cost in about 7-10 years. After that I’ll still be generating 95%-ish of the rated value of the panels, but have another 15-25 years of nearly free electricity*.
I’m also getting small battery capacity because of more frequent difficulties with electrical outages, but they are NOT cost effective. However, my need isn’t about cost for the batteries but instead high need of constant electrical availability.
*nearly free because I’m counting on a few small things breaking and needing to be replaced or serviced.
Fast-charging an EV for an hour would use the same amount of electricity a home would likely use in a day.
Solar can make sense for some people but it’s generally not a good idea.
If you fail to reach break-even before you move (which is very likely) you’re gonna be out a lot of money.
Solar sadly doesn’t add much, if any, value to a home.
I wish there were more energy companies that would simply lease your rooftop, that way they could continue to build equity even if it switched ownership and the owner would benefit not only monetarily but also the energy company would be liable for maintaining the system (which is a nightmare in and of itself).
The government should use satellite imaging to locate all the rooftops and parking lots most suitable for photovoltaic panels and lease those spaces from the property owners to install them. The generated electricity would belong to the government to sell to the grid, but the property owners would be allowed to use the panels for backup power if they get disconnected from the grid because bad weather and whatnot. Anyone that declines the offer gets taxed on the imputed rent.
Nah. Solar as a govt project only makes sense as a solar farm. Much less expensive, easier to maintain, and doesn’t piss off your voters.
Rooftop solar makes sense as a government project because it increases resilience and does something productive with all that otherwise wasted surface area. Also, as a homeowner, a government run rooftop solar program like what I suggested would piss me off a lot less than what we have now, what with the scammy private solar contractors and inscrutable “incentive” programs.
Unless the property owner is managing maintenance etc. directly themselves, it would be a herculean task to support and maintain thousands of small installations spread out across the country instead of a handful of solar farms.
Maintenace and repairs can be managed through the utility companies, which already do so for many pieces of hardware on their customers’ properties just fine. The government might also offer property owners a higher payment if they accept certain responsibilities.
Maybe it’s different in the US, but where I live the utility company only services the main fuse that supplies the property. Everything else is done by electricians paid for by the owner.
Where I live in New Jersey, the utility company not only owns and services the meters, it also leases, sells, and services various home appliances, like furnaces and water heaters.
Rooftop solar means managing hundreds of small installations. You need every one of them to have small inverters instead of one big one. Each of those installations will be a custom job to fit it to the roof. You will likely need to upgrade your electrical service, as well, typically from 100A to 200A. The first few people in the neighborhood can do that, but as soon as everyone does it, the power company needs to upgrade the lines coming in.
Rooftp residential solar is the worst, most expensive way to do it.
Having enough land for solar is not a problem. With the amount we use on raising beef cattle, eating a few less burgers a week would open up plenty of land. Even without that, there’s plenty of dual-use ideas for covering parking lots, roads, irrigation canals, and even some types of farming.
Custom installations are good because it means more trade jobs and having to upgrade the power lines doesn’t seem that bad compared to building new infrastructure, including roads, in order to support large scale remote installations. Furthermore, distributed rooftop solar better equips the public to handle grid failures.
As for the cattle, even if we ever manage to liquidate all of them, it’s probably better to put their former pastures to some other type of agriculture or reforestation rather than cover it all with photovoltaics.
This. I haven’t pulled the trigger on solar because I don’t know which company to trust and I am not confident any of them will be around to repair or upgrade the equipment in a few years.
I’ve been putting off even requesting quotes for years, but this thread got me thinking about it again. I ended up finding a site called energysage.com that seemed trustworthy enough. They anonymize RFQs for solar installs and send them to contractors that they’ve vetted. I entered my info last night and got two quotes back today. Turns out rooftop solar probably isn’t a good choice for my house. Payback would take 12.5 years, half of the equipment warranty. That’s if I pay for it all upfront, much longer if I get a loan. The problem seems to be that there are two big maples in front of my neighbor’s house that are shading a lot of the South facing part of my roof. Oh well!
