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AlDente67

School me on solar please

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Been seeing a few new roof arrays going up in the area lately.  I always hung up on the cold callers pushing solar.  But now maybe a bit open to the idea...

 

Here is what I heard/read over the years...

Leasing is cheap (as far as install costs) but saves not much over time.  Better to buy outright and then you own it, especially if you ever need to sell the house.

It will degrade your roof (condensation?  Not really sure)

My house faces south mostly, so the panels would have to go on the front slope of the roof...and they are usually pretty ugly (not told...just an observation).  Heard a new design was in the works, but havent heard anything lately.

 

The re-supply back to the grid issue...does NJ do this?  I have a friend in PA that spent 175k on a giant grid with the expectation that all the excess would be bought back by the power company.  This was a big factor in the cost analysis of such a monster grid.  Shortly thereafter, PA decided to end the subsidy due to over supply, and he was left with tons of extra capacity with no recompense.  Sorry charlie!  The payoff target of 10 years is now a million years.

 

Any tips in your experience?  Any companies that are legit?

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If you have enough land, see if you can place panel on the ground vs. on your roof.  From what I've read, the prices should drop in the next 1-2 years pretty dramatically.  I'd wait another year or two.  Somewhere online there is a solar calculator where you can plug in your monthly electric charges and usage vs. using panels and it calculates the payoff in length/cost.  

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I can tell you who to stay away from vivant solar signed a contract 4 years ago had power company come look at roof to say everything's ok guys never showed up called numerous times to see what's going on never got a call back , .  neighbor had advance solar install theres and they are really happy with everything

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From the company’s I’ve talked to. 

You can only pay $0 for your electric if you overproduce. And you own the system. You get a credit for your excess.

Stay away from leasing. Most systems pay for themselves in a few years.

Put on a new roof first if you are going roof mount.

SREC’s aren’t what they used to be in value. But it’s still not a bad investment. Lifespan is 20-25 years.

Utilize more electric appliances, or vehicles and it makes a lot of sense.

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1 hour ago, Zeke said:

From the company’s I’ve talked to. 

You can only pay $0 for your electric if you overproduce. And you own the system. You get a credit for your excess.

Stay away from leasing. Most systems pay for themselves in a few years.

Put on a new roof first if you are going roof mount.

SREC’s aren’t what they used to be in value. But it’s still not a bad investment. Lifespan is 20-25 years.

Utilize more electric appliances, or vehicles and it makes a lot of sense.

Pretty spot on...

Big thing is making sure you have good sunlight. While some people automatically think tossing on a second floor roof is good to go, you do have to be aware of tree coverage... especially neighbors.

Don't lease, not really worth it.

When I move up to Maine, I might inquire about it... especially if I get the 88 acre property I’m looking at. If that were the case, I’d do off roof mounting.

But to be honest (and this is more considering the amount of property I’m looking at), I really would like to look at something like you see at a lot of government properties... high mounts, covering parking. NJSP academy has them, as does the Monmouth County complex that their Police Academy is located. Put it next to a large shop... and have some protection from the elements.

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The size of the system you can get is based on your annual usage, you can't just fill your roof with panels. The new system output has to match your yearly usage, no more. Excess electricity you produce/don't use gets "sold" back to the power company.

Stay away from leases, they are tweaked to make them sound good (lower payment than your current electric bill) but you'll pay way to much for the system overall. Plus, some leases are tough to transfer if you sell the house. No guarantee the next owner will assume those payments. Buy the system outright, ROI is better, and you own it.

It won't degrade your roof, the panels are mounted to allow for air flow.

Many people consider panels ugly, so if they're on the front of your house, that can be an issue.

Also, keep in mind, you are never getting power to your house from the panels, they are tied to the grid through your inverter. During a power outage, your house will be as dark as your neighbors, who doesn't have solar. If having power when the grid goes down is important, it requires a special inverter and a battery bank.

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I have solar panels.  I used my GI Bill and went to school for sustainable energy, energy auditing and HVAC.  Ended up getting back in the military but that was for personal reasons.

Anyway, buy/finance the system so you own it.  Don't lease.  If you lease, you don't own it and you don't get the renewable energy credits (SRECs).  As someone mentioned, they aren't what they were, but its free money and I've been getting average of $225 per credit. 

Having panels on the roof does not degrade the roof unless the racking system is installed improperly and allow water (rain, snow) to penetrate.  Other than that, it actually protects that area of the roof covered with panels because its shaded and the shingles will not deteriorate as fast from UV light.  Still, best to have a newer roof when getting it installed.  

In NJ, when you apply for solar, the size of the system is based on how much electricity you used in the past year. The electric company will show what you consumed in a year and your system must be designed to where it cannot make any more than that in a year.  Knowing this ahead of time, I had incandescent bulbs in every fixture and did not upgrade to energy efficient appliances until after I got solar hooked up.  I kinda bumped my usage on purpose to get a system that could create a bit more.  Afterwards, I got all LED lights, energy efficient washer, dryer, freezer, etc.  just to create a bit of a bigger gap between what I can produce and how much I actually need.

The back of my house faces south.  In the spring around March, the sun much closer to the the tropic of cancer.  My panels are angled to be 90 degrees to the sun in March which allows them to make the most power as the sun passes over the southern part of the sky.  As the summer goes on, the sun moves toward the equator and is not quite 90 degrees to my panels so each hour of the day, my panels make less power than they would with the sun at 90 degrees like in march, BUT because the days are gradually getting longer, total power produced each day still increases even though the sun is not at that most optimal angle. Just some nerdy info for ya there.  You're installer will set this up, no need to ask about it.  

Most people don't know or don't realize that your solar power inverter (solar panels produce DC current, inverter changes it to AC so it can be used in your house) MUST shut off during a power outage.  This is so you don't send power down the line when utility workers are trying to fix a downed line.  There are systems with battery backups that can disconnect you from the grid and keep your power going to just your house.  These setups are way more expensive and they battery technology is improving, but the last I checked, the batteries were able to store much more power, but still could not discharge very much at a time.  So you could run on batteries for days, but you couldn't power very much for those days because they weren't putting out much wattage.  You could always have a sub-panel wired in to have dedicated or emergency circuits be feed from the batteries during and outage, but you have to weigh your needs vs the cost of the extra work and materials. 

From March to October I make more electric in a month than I consume, so my electric meter counts down.  Each month my bill is about $4.80 which is basically a charge for being connected to the grid.  I get credits for the excess power.  December through February I use more grid power than I make.  Instead of paying a bill for this power, it deducts the credits I earned in the summer.  So still just a $4.80 bill.  The following March, any remaining credits get paid to me in cash and the cycle starts over again. 

These credits are with the electric company.  I also get a SREC for every 1,000 kilowatts I produce, no matter who uses it  (me or it goes to the grid as excess).  The SREC comes from the State and those are sold for $$ as well.

I financed my system and the monthly bill for the loan is the same as what my average monthly electric bill used to be.  So no difference in what comes out of my pocket to pay for solar.  The solar equipment has 30 year warranty. My math worked out to where I could pay the bill every month, pay the 30% tax rebate toward the loan and pay all my SREC money toward the solar loan and have the loan paid off in 5 years.  YYMV

NJ has about the best SREC program in the country.  Its the only thing this shithole state does right.  Look up how it works, but basically, utility companies have to buy them and the state mandates how many they must buy each year.  So the state controls the demand based on how much supply there is.  They see the supply of credits they issue out to homeowners and they try to keep a stable, steady price market for us. 

Hope that helps, PM me if you have any specific questions and I can try to help you.

If you want check out www.energysage.com  They have more info and that site is set up for you to put you info in so contractors can bid on the job.  They will submit drawings, equipment and system design info to you graphs and charts to show how much power the system would make, how much money you'll save, etc.  I used that site and I know others who have used it to get a contractor. Works great.  I went with Green Power Energy out of Avondale (I think thats where they are). 

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You can pay all upfront with a check or credit card or you can finance it.  You can finance and put down any thing from $0 to what ever.  I don't think I put anything down.  I agreed to pay my 30% rebate toward the loan so they said if I paid that amount by a specific date, there would be no interest on that amount.  They were really flexible with financing for this as they did financing for many solar systems installed by my installer and since I had no previous problems paying my electric bill they knew I could pay the loan because the monthly payment was the same as the electric bill used to be.

  If you finance it, It's a home improvement loan so you get like 10 or 12 years to pay it off.  Price would depend on how many panels your system needs, the quality of panels, whether or not you use optimizers with the panels, how many inverters you need.... you know, the variables. For labor and equipment you could be looking at $15,000 to $25,000 total.  Keep in mind the 30% tax credit.  So if you spend $25k and your income tax withholdings already covers what you would normally owe in taxes for the year,  you'll get a $7,500 refund.  Put this against the loan and your $25k is now $17,500.  Then remember it's not an additional bill to pay.  You eliminate your electric bill and shift that funding to cover the monthly loan payment.  So it's money that would already be spent.  But if you pay your loan off in 8 years, then you have 22 years of the system making SRECs for you while its still under warranty. Most have 25 to 30 year warranty.

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