Going Solar...

RobMcBee

RobMcBee

Slow n easy when you're not gettin greasy....
Joined
Jan 12, 2009
Location
Fort Mill / Indian Land SC
this is something that I have always wanted to do, but it's always been too expensive. Now I'm seeing these ads for NRG Home Solutions that make it seem feasible. Before I call and get haggled to death by a salesman, does anyone on here know more about them, and how this works? Does solar increase or decrease home values? Is it a finance plan? I think I have the perfect roof for it. My garage faces west and gets full sun from dawn till dusk and has about 1200sf of roof...

Thanks...
 
Alot of panels will have it face south to get sun east to west, are you wanting water panels or electric? They do add to your value, but depending on which one will determine your saving. I.E.- a lot of electricity has to be made to reap the benefits of install and purchase. Where as if you did solar hot water, your water heater now becomes a storage tank which hardly ever runs, hot water is more plentiful and you start to see savings the first month. Water is usually cheaper to buy and install over electric....I believe it's due to the cost of the equipment....then again I could be way off, just what I've experienced....I have installed several solar water setups
 
You can finance them, there are also some really good tax credits on it depending on where you live. My dad just did a whole system in in home in DC. It pays for itself after like 5-7 years I think it was.
 
I'm wanting to do electric, our HWH is already pretty efficient and I plan on a tankless when it goes out but it's less than a year old. I'm thinking that they are basically a panel company that will install and finance the system. I may go ahead and call this afternoon to see what it's all about.
 
I'll be curious to see what you learn. From the little they seem willing to divulge in their commercials it seems more like you lease the panels and agree to buy power from them at a discounted rate for a length of time.
Hopefully it's better than that.
 
TARider said:
I'll be curious to see what you learn. From the little they seem willing to divulge in their commercials it seems more like you lease the panels and agree to buy power from them at a discounted rate for a length of time.
Hopefully it's better than that.
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Yeah their website is pretty vague too.... That's what makes me a lil weary of them. Almost a "too good to be true" thing.... I'd have no problem leasing their system if I would see a significant reduction in our bill and they fully maintain the system.
 
RobMcBee said:
I'm wanting to do electric, our HWH is already pretty efficient and I plan on a tankless when it goes out but it's less than a year old. I'm thinking that they are basically a panel company that will install and finance the system. I may go ahead and call this afternoon to see what it's all about.
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Most tankless are not as efficient as a good gas WH, and cost about the same.

The draw is "instant" hot water with typically a 200k btu burner.

Most can't compete with a quality gas tank WH. I believe it was consumer reports that did an investigation on this.

Gas is better than elec WH as the cost per btu to heat the water is less with gas.

I don't know the break even for solar WH over a high efficiency gas unit.

An easy way to see if a unit is HE is the flu piping. If it's metal, it's not HE. HE gas typically can use plastic pipe, and some have a fan to push the exhaust making routing it much easier.
 
Solar water panels start around 1700 ready to pipe, you need a circulating pump, also can add a second water heater for HW storage...many HW panels I've put in will steam room temp water before it makes it through the panel, and since it will keep say 100 gallons hot for free winter and summer there is no gas or electric use.

Kinda redneck I've seen people with a lot of land lay 300' or so of black pipe in a field and it has enough btus to heat a pool....heat gain is dependant on your gpm flow rate.

As for as solar electric there is a company in chapel hill strata solar I believe that could answer your home electric questions
 
So I called them and it's not available in SC at this moment, for you guys in NC they have a purchase option only and from what the guy told me the g'ment will pay up to 75% of the cost and they finance the rest. You own the system.

With the lease option, they lease your roof, you lease the panels. Basically they guarantee you a certain amount of KWh every month and deduct that from your power. You just get a 40-60% discount off you power bill. The rest is theirs. The panels are on a separate meter back feeding into the "grid" and you are still hooked in like normal. You pay for nothing, they maintain and repair the system.

He said it could be available in SC soon but don't know which plan would be available or it may be both options.

....
 
Good friend owns the largest residential solar company on the east coast.

I can put you in touch if you want.

Essentially between tax breaks and savings etc. They are a net zero proposiitin. You just better not move before you pay it off...

The not follows you not the house
 
The situation for solar in NC is pretty good, for now. It's actually a 65% tax credit, 35% State and 30% Federal. You would need to get with your accountant or crunch the #'s yourself to see if you would be able to maximize that credit. The NC tax credit can be carried over for 5 years. I wanna say it's 3 years for the federal.

But here's the big key, that NC incentive expires at the end of 2015 and it's looking like if it gets renewed at all it will be at a lower rate. And the Federal incentive expires in 2016. Now is a really good time to purchase if you know you'll be in your house for a while. Panel prices have dropped significantly in the past few years and this may be the sweet spot between panel prices and incentives.
 
Will you save money in the first month, no. First year, no. First decade, maybe.
It all depends on what you want it for. Are you trying to have emergency power, battery bank, power security, or net tied ?
are you buying or leasing the panels ? only when you buy them do you get the tax credits and solar credits for your state.
depending on what you choose, if could take 12 years to have the gear paid for with the power it generates. That did leave 8 years of free power, this does not include the battery bank and its limited life.
Also net tied inverters shut off when the street power goes out.
Don't be lured into the 25 year contract with leased panels where you pay them your "monthly electric bill".
Lastly, remember on a grid tie system, some places allow the power company to charge a transmission fee. Kind of like buying something off of eBay for a penny but having to pay $20 for shipping.
Check with you accountant on tax credits and depreciation schedules. It might make sense to do it.
 
Mac5005 said:
Most tankless are not as efficient as a good gas WH, and cost about the same.

The draw is "instant" hot water with typically a 200k btu burner.

Most can't compete with a quality gas tank WH. I believe it was consumer reports that did an investigation on this.

Gas is better than elec WH as the cost per btu to heat the water is less with gas.

I don't know the break even for solar WH over a high efficiency gas unit.

An easy way to see if a unit is HE is the flu piping. If it's metal, it's not HE. HE gas typically can use plastic pipe, and some have a fan to push the exhaust making routing it much easier.
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Mine isn't an he but it's actually oversized for our house.
 
Either way, it's not an option for me here in sc. our power bill isn't much here. Usually less than 200 for our house and the garage/apt. That's dropped from last year. I think the crawl space had a lot to do with that. It's just something thT I've always wanted to do, but still not cost effective.

Thanks for the input guys!!
 
Remember fedreal law requires your solar system to shut down when the utility power goes out. Thank the utility company lobbies for that Bunch of BS legislation.
 
RobMcBee said:
Did not know that.... Guess it makes sense, if it's back feeding
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It makes zero sense. An ats used in a generator system isolates on site generated power from back feeding. You can easily incorporate the same tech into a solar system.

The utility lobby fears a country with less than 90% energy dependency.it might actually cause fair prices. Someone will come along and argue, but I bet when they do they are employed by Duke power.
 
Ron said:
The utility lobby fears a country with less than 90% energy dependency.it might actually cause fair prices. Someone will come along and argue, but I bet when they do they are employed by Duke power.
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I'd argue just to argue. Makes sense to me. How else would I get paid??? :lol:
 
kaiser715 said:
I have been studying on doing a passive solar system to heat my planned shop -- if nothing else, get the chill off and reduce heating costs.

There are lots of DIY solar projects on this page... http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/Space_Heating.htm Active/passive and water/air systems.
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I've seen several of those heaters and thought about building a couple of them for my garage. It has gas heat but like you said anything to help supplement it when I'm not in there.
 
RobMcBee said:
Did not know that.... Guess it makes sense, if it's back feeding
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That's how Grid-Tie inverters work. They use the grid to synchronize output. Without a grid source they shut down output to protect the grid and lineman. You can imagine if you had a tree fall on a line, knocking out a recloser, then a solar system tries to backfeed to the grid and a lineman goes to work on the line. Safety precautions aside it could still be a bad day. There are a few on the market now that have reduced output emergency receptacles on them (SMA Sunny Boy inverters are one). The alternative route to solar is a stand-alone system that requires storage batteries which have additional costs and maintenance associated with them.

I was looking into this for a short time, but the system prices are still a little much to get a good ROI. The utility does not pay you the same rate for your power as they charge you to use theirs, and if you do not consume a lot of power then the payback period can be very long. I would love to do it but cannot justify the cash outlay based on the terribly long payback period. To paraphrase something I read recently, it is just for showing off to the neighbors how "green" you are (in certain parts of the country).
 
OnlyOneDR said:
I was looking into this for a short time, but the system prices are still a little much to get a good ROI. The utility does not pay you the same rate for your power as they charge you to use theirs, and if you do not consume a lot of power then the payback period can be very long. I would love to do it but cannot justify the cash outlay based on the terribly long payback period.
Click to expand...

This is my thinking now...
 
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