Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Solar panels reduced my electric bill in 2022

mattbruenig.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 510 posts

Re: Solar panels reduced my electric bill in 2022

#151

Post by maerF0x0 »

throwaquestion5 wrote: post #135
maerF0x0 wrote: post #87

>Realizing that the solar company was in quite the pickle insofar as repossessing the panels would require costly legal actions on top of paying people to take out the system, I just waited on the payment. They would contact me periodically asking me to make payment and offering to help me get approved for a new loan. But I just ignored all of that. Seems pretty unethical tbh. The solar company delivered, but now thi…

They took 7 months to install the panels. I'm sure times during all that the OP thought if they forgot about him, called them to ask for a installation date, etc. As a way to curb any thought about undue wait time, the company made a contract guaranteeing installation between 6 month after signing. They didn't comply and the loan lapsed. Now the company needed to negotiate a new contract with OP or go for the legal r…

> There is nothing unethical about this.

I dont consider strong arming someone due to your now advantageous position against something you previously agreed upon and reasonably similarly delivered (7 months instead of 6, we're not talking about multiple years later here).

A similar ethical framework would allow someone in marriage say "I quit my job, can get alimony from you, better do as I say or I'm filing for divorce" -- It's all legal. Still unethical.

Re: Solar panels reduced my electric bill in 2022

#152

Post by lostlogin »

matwood wrote: post #117
pkulak wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AND considering that replacing only the panels has to be far cheaper than the initial installation, if they do drop too much in 25 years. So long as your roof is still okay, I suppose.

Just bake new panels into the cost of a new roof. It's probably time for both after 25 years.

Eh? My crappy roof was installed in 1945 and has some life left.

What sort of roofing lasts 25 years?

Re: Solar panels reduced my electric bill in 2022

#153

Post by AlexandrB »

LgWoodenBadger wrote: post #114
csense wrote: post #4

Interesting to see a post about this from someone else who I'm assuming is in a northern climate (they say New England). One of my biggest questions about solar is, what happens when it snows? Do you have to get up on the roof and clean them off by hand? Or do they have built-in defrosters?

I had them when I lived in Pennsylvania. The panels self-clear in a literal avalanche that destroyed all the bushes where it landed. It sounds like a freight train in your attic when it happens. Had someone been standing underneath when it happens they would have been seriously injured.

Had the same experience in Canada - woke up thinking the house was collapsing. Found a mountain of snow next to the house the next morning.

Edit: There are "reverse" shovels called roof rakes[1] that can help remove snow before it builds up.

[1] https://www.thespruce.com/best-snow-roof-rakes-6830889

Re: Solar panels reduced my electric bill in 2022

#154

Post by gpm »

perfectstorm wrote: post #25
bushbaba wrote: post #13

I paid ~15k to install solar in 2019. After tax rebates it was ~11k. I’m generating ~12MWh per year. My break even period is less than 5 years. I’m based out of California, and generate excess energy. My electric bill is now just ~$100/year.

if you generate excess energy, can you store it for a later time when you need more energy (presumably summer time)?

> presumably summer time

Assuming you have batteries, you discharge and charge them on a daily cycle, not a yearly cycle, to make the most money/have the most benefit. There are predictable time of day based troughs and peaks in the price that you can take advantage of.

Re: Solar panels reduced my electric bill in 2022

#155

Post by secabeen »

eppp wrote: post #128
hbarka wrote: post #109

Assuming you are grid-tied, the reduction of electric bills is predicated on net metering, where the utility company gives you (ideally) 1-for-1 credit for the electricity you produce. In California, this was called NEM 1.0 and NEM 2.0. Every few years the California utilities lobby the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to chip away at the NEM program. This year the PUC voted unanimously to cut net energy metering an…

Because net metering is forcing the utility to purchase power at the retail rate. It doesn't make any sense. It isn't a profit margin issue. There is a massive infrastructure and expense to deliver wholesale power to an individual customer and it has to be recouped. Either you sell back your power at some percent of wholesale or solar installs need to get a corresponding increased delivery fee.

What we need is a fundamental change in electricity billing. The value in a grid connection is in its reliability, availability and demand response (you can demand anything from 1 Amp to 200 Amps at any time, with no notice). The current usage-only billing model is broken.

What we should do is pay a large flat monthly fee for the grid connection, then a lower rate for generation/usage, rather than bundling the delivery costs in. This is how many other utilities (Gas, Water, etc.) are billed, and it makes much more sense. This would also line up better for people with solar panels, as those who choose to leverage a grid connection would lay in line with their utility, or could choose to go off-grid, if they didn't want to pay for the availability of the grid.

Re: Solar panels reduced my electric bill in 2022

#156

Post by PointyFluff »

mdorazio wrote: post #145
hbarka wrote: post #109

Assuming you are grid-tied, the reduction of electric bills is predicated on net metering, where the utility company gives you (ideally) 1-for-1 credit for the electricity you produce. In California, this was called NEM 1.0 and NEM 2.0. Every few years the California utilities lobby the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to chip away at the NEM program. This year the PUC voted unanimously to cut net energy metering an…

Over the last 8 quarters their average profit margin is a whopping 3.25%. If you think that’s just too high I’m not sure what to tell you. An alternate way to look at the CA rule change is that CA needs more installed storage to shore up the shitty grid, and incentivizing people to install solar alone via net metering isn’t a great idea anymore. Remember that peak power demand is right around and just after sunset.

[dead]

Re: Solar panels reduced my electric bill in 2022

#157

Post by rsync »

KerrAvon wrote: post #139
hbarka wrote: post #109

Assuming you are grid-tied, the reduction of electric bills is predicated on net metering, where the utility company gives you (ideally) 1-for-1 credit for the electricity you produce. In California, this was called NEM 1.0 and NEM 2.0. Every few years the California utilities lobby the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to chip away at the NEM program. This year the PUC voted unanimously to cut net energy metering an…

If there’s no net-zero metering, aren’t they incentivizing people to be completely disconnected from the grid, or at least not incentivizing them to be connected? (Which is bad for the grid.) Why would I fuck around with the utility at all if I’m installing enough solar/battery to power my needs?

"Why would I fuck around with the utility at all if I’m installing enough solar/battery to power my needs?"

This is exactly my sentiment and is the reason that we have made ourselves independent from the grid.[1]

However the math gets very difficult if you need to charge an electric car ... it's a tremendous amount of electricity to keep one, not to mention two, cars topped up after daily use.

The extra panel and battery requirements for cars are such that it really does make sense to be grid-tied and arrange your charging on off-peak hours, etc. That is what makes this so frustrating for typical homeowners - there's an obvious and sensible symbiosis here that would work well for (most people).

[1] That, and the fact that I hate PG&E with the burning fire of 1000 suns.

Re: Solar panels reduced my electric bill in 2022

#158

Post by colechristensen »

hbarka wrote: post #109

Assuming you are grid-tied, the reduction of electric bills is predicated on net metering, where the utility company gives you (ideally) 1-for-1 credit for the electricity you produce. In California, this was called NEM 1.0 and NEM 2.0. Every few years the California utilities lobby the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to chip away at the NEM program. This year the PUC voted unanimously to cut net energy metering an…

It's a nice incentive, but you shouldn't need to be paid the retail rate for solar when selling it back to the utility. Especially when the retail rate is from PG&E and contains a lot of non-paying-for-electricity things like covering past liabilities for wildfires.

And you can perfectly well size your solar appropriately so that you aren't net-positive pushing electricity back to the grid at all (or only a little).

Re: Solar panels reduced my electric bill in 2022

#159

Post by Analemma_ »

hbarka wrote: post #109

Assuming you are grid-tied, the reduction of electric bills is predicated on net metering, where the utility company gives you (ideally) 1-for-1 credit for the electricity you produce. In California, this was called NEM 1.0 and NEM 2.0. Every few years the California utilities lobby the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to chip away at the NEM program. This year the PUC voted unanimously to cut net energy metering an…

Net metering is a regressive tax on the poor, because when rich people get solar panels and sell back to the grid at retail prices, the utility has to raise rates on everyone else to pay their large fixed costs. It may have been a good idea at one point when residential solar was so rare as to be effectively nonexistent, but now it has to be abandoned.
Post reply on HN