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All the electricity you'll need for 40 years

innerpathing.com

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Re: All the electricity you'll need for 40 years

#71

Post by toomuchtodo »

Animats wrote: post #68

Average US home power consumption: 30 KWh/day. Assuming an average of 4 solar hours per day, you would need a solar system capacity of approximately 7.5 kW to 12.5 kW. Individual solar panels produce 250-400 watts. So, conservatively, 50 panels. Installed, that's currently about $25,000, including inverter but not battery backup. Battery backup will cost maybe $15,000 more. So, the whole installation is about $40,000…

Did you factor in 30% federal tax credit?

https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/homeowners-guide-federal-t...

Re: All the electricity you'll need for 40 years

#72

Post by Animats »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #71
Animats wrote: post #68

Average US home power consumption: 30 KWh/day. Assuming an average of 4 solar hours per day, you would need a solar system capacity of approximately 7.5 kW to 12.5 kW. Individual solar panels produce 250-400 watts. So, conservatively, 50 panels. Installed, that's currently about $25,000, including inverter but not battery backup. Battery backup will cost maybe $15,000 more. So, the whole installation is about $40,000…

Did you factor in 30% federal tax credit? https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/homeowners-guide-federal-t...

No.

Re: All the electricity you'll need for 40 years

#73

Post by nightski »

Animats wrote: post #68

Average US home power consumption: 30 KWh/day. Assuming an average of 4 solar hours per day, you would need a solar system capacity of approximately 7.5 kW to 12.5 kW. Individual solar panels produce 250-400 watts. So, conservatively, 50 panels. Installed, that's currently about $25,000, including inverter but not battery backup. Battery backup will cost maybe $15,000 more. So, the whole installation is about $40,000…

In my state electricity costs about $0.089/kWh. We spend about $100/mo on electricity total which comes out almost exactly to your 30kWh/day figure (with a $23.15 connection charge included).

Invested that 40k would conservatively cover over 2x our electricity bill without touching the principal (inflation adjusted).

That's a pretty hard sell for solar. Obviously incentives will improve things but it just seems less financially risky to use grid power.

Re: All the electricity you'll need for 40 years

#74

Post by bdhdbebebeb »

Animats wrote: post #68

Average US home power consumption: 30 KWh/day. Assuming an average of 4 solar hours per day, you would need a solar system capacity of approximately 7.5 kW to 12.5 kW. Individual solar panels produce 250-400 watts. So, conservatively, 50 panels. Installed, that's currently about $25,000, including inverter but not battery backup. Battery backup will cost maybe $15,000 more. So, the whole installation is about $40,000…

Not too bad. You need a lot of space for 50 panels. You need to live in a large suburbian house or rural and stick them on a barn or on the ground.

Clearly to meet demand we need solar farms and grids for most people.

Re: All the electricity you'll need for 40 years

#75

Post by bdhdbebebeb »

nightski wrote: post #73
Animats wrote: post #68

Average US home power consumption: 30 KWh/day. Assuming an average of 4 solar hours per day, you would need a solar system capacity of approximately 7.5 kW to 12.5 kW. Individual solar panels produce 250-400 watts. So, conservatively, 50 panels. Installed, that's currently about $25,000, including inverter but not battery backup. Battery backup will cost maybe $15,000 more. So, the whole installation is about $40,000…

In my state electricity costs about $0.089/kWh. We spend about $100/mo on electricity total which comes out almost exactly to your 30kWh/day figure (with a $23.15 connection charge included). Invested that 40k would conservatively cover over 2x our electricity bill without touching the principal (inflation adjusted). That's a pretty hard sell for solar. Obviously incentives will improve things but it just seems less…

10 years ago for me math didn't add up for batteries and offgrid but it did add up for solar.

Offgrid added up if you are already offgrid so that ongrid becomes a big expense when comparing.

Re: All the electricity you'll need for 40 years

#76

Post by bdhdbebebeb »

theturtle32 wrote: post #55
sdk77 wrote: post #8

It's nice to have solar panels, I have them too and while they do generate even more electricity than I need, they do so in around 6 to 7 months peaking in July. So in winter, it's grid power and in summer I might need to pay to feed in the surplus. This is in the Netherlands. It's kind of sad to see all that electricity unused in summer, and knowing I could have enough for all of the winter if only there was some wa…

"pay to feed in the surplus"? In my U.S. context, this sounds surprising: are you saying that sometimes the energy utility CHARGES you money when you feed solar energy to the grid? That sounds... bizarre?

If I were to deliver you 1000 gallons of milk that expires in 10 minutes*, would you pay me or want to charge me for that priviledge. Assume you have enough milk already.

* (< 1 millisecond for electricity but hey for the milk analogy say 10 minutes).

Re: All the electricity you'll need for 40 years

#77

Post by skybrian »

warble wrote: post #43
skybrian wrote: post #28

> Electric vehicles are mainstream and last longer than their gas engine counterparts, with an estimated lifespan of 200,000 miles. What's this based on? Don't many gas cars last that long? It seems like it depends very much on how well you maintain them.

300k on my Toyota right now. Most modern ICE engines should last 200k with no problems. EVs (other than the battery) should last a million miles. Even the batteries are turning out to last longer than everyone expected, ignoring some notable notable failures.

Betting on Teslas didn't work out so well for Hertz due to expensive repairs. Rental cars take a beating, though.

Re: All the electricity you'll need for 40 years

#78

Post by GeoAtreides »

mikehotel wrote: post #66
amelius wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note: doing this manually every day (breaking the circuit) can increase the risk of damaging your installation.

How can the use of a switch damage your installation?

inrush current, mechanical wear, thermal stress on some components (mosfets, transformers, etc)...

Re: All the electricity you'll need for 40 years

#79

Post by GaggiX »

Animats wrote: post #68

Average US home power consumption: 30 KWh/day. Assuming an average of 4 solar hours per day, you would need a solar system capacity of approximately 7.5 kW to 12.5 kW. Individual solar panels produce 250-400 watts. So, conservatively, 50 panels. Installed, that's currently about $25,000, including inverter but not battery backup. Battery backup will cost maybe $15,000 more. So, the whole installation is about $40,000…

~500$ for a 250/400W panel seems absurd, here in Italy you can buy a 500W solar panel for 100€ without effort or less. Given that you can buy a pallet of them, you can probably pay less than 100€ per 500W, I have found deals down to 77€ per 550W panel with pallets of 31 (31x550=+17k at 2405€), shipment included, and I'm talking about new half cell panels, not old stuff.

Re: All the electricity you'll need for 40 years

#80

Post by aaron695 »

candiddevmike wrote: post #3

This seems like a "green brag" without much substance. Great that this person is privileged enough to afford solar panels, I guess. Nothing to be learned here though: no wire diagrams, placement schematics, or BoM. Just someone telling everyone how green they are.

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