Solar panels, a realistic solution to charging?

[brianman]

it will bring down the entire solar system.

That sounds rough. Perhaps a longer warranty would be good.

[Timothy]

If you get a battery back up system rather than feeding in to the grid, my understanding is you don't receive whatever governmental rebates, incentives there are. At least that is what I was told when I installed my system nearly 3 years ago here in California. And the storage batteries are very expensive, I'm told.

My system wouldn't fit on the house, so I put the panels on a south facing hillside--long before I was thinking of an electric car. The number of panels I needed was an irregular shape, so I put in a couple extra panels to make a nice rectangle. I generated a little more juice than I needed, so what? And then I got the Tesla, and now have just a tiny surplus. Good planning, huh?--by accident!

[brianman]

If you get a battery back up system rather than feeding in to the grid, my understanding is you don't receive whatever governmental rebates, incentives there are.

I was under the impression that you can choose to split it between "grid feeding" and "battery refilling" such that you can get the rebates and have a local reserve for power outage scenarios. Perhaps it's not that simple (or is overly expensive) though.

[MarkR]

Who installed your system?

I had a similar experience. It costed me 8.5k to go full solar after rebates and tax credits. I haven't payed an electric bill over 20 dollars since. My system size is 5.28 kw, it makes about 32-35 kwh/day. Payback was 8.5 years, but that was conservative.

PEP Solar installed our system, but we had some challenges with them. It's a 6kW system with microinverters that produces up to 42kwh/day. Microinverters are ABSOLUTELY the way to go.

[MarkR]

That's why I strongly recommend systems with micro-inverter technology. A micro-inverter is installed at each panel instead of having one large central inverter for all panels. It makes it very easy to expand your system when a few more panels are needed to support future EVs.

The ability to add just the number of panels you need is a huge advantage of microinverters - and they allow the majority of you system to produce electricity at a high level if a few panels become shaded by trees, buildings, or clouds.

[brianman]

Likely off-topic and not practical but I'll ask anyway...

My house has basically a forest behind it. Suppose I built a treehouse-height surface and covered it with solar panels. Is this impractical because of the distance wire would need to be run (20+ feet) to the garage? Any examples of people doing something like this?

I presume I'd have to trim the limbs of nearby trees a few times a year to avoid blockage. Not sure what other maintenance would be required.

[Jason S]

I think the hard part is keeping the panels from getting literally blown away. That's why mounting to existing structures is preferred -- already have the height and wind resistance.

Building a huge wing on top of your house is a big hassle too. Better off mounting near ground level in an open space.

[drees]

My house has basically a forest behind it. Suppose I built a treehouse-height surface and covered it with solar panels. Is this impractical because of the distance wire would need to be run (20+ feet) to the garage? Any examples of people doing something like this?

20+ ft isn't an issue. The longer the distance from your main service panel, the more expensive it gets due to trenching / wire costs, of course.

As brianman suggests, the biggest issue is building a suitable structure. Anything more than a dozen feet or so off the ground is probably going to be cost prohibitive. Otherwise, pole mounted systems are fairly common for that type of install. Also fairly common are "solar gazebos" where you build a shade structure using solar panels as the roof.

[Marco Aglio]

Why are not taken into consideration the black silicon panels can provide higher performance than traditional panels and with considerably lower costs?
At this point, you might also consider installing a panel on the car.

Google Traduttore

[wycolo]

In my area I feed power to the grid with solar and get credit for about 48 cents per Kwh. I then charge a night and pay much less, about 12 cents per Kwh. Overall I produce about as much as I use, even with an EV!

What kind of dreamworld is this?? In WY you pay 10+ cents per KWH, which is close to national average, and get credit for KWHs pumped into grid of 2+ cents per KWH. This is the same wholesale rate the electric coop pays for their electricity. As a producer of electricity why should you get more than the wholesale rate? I.E. why should other non-producing customers (or taxpayers) subsidize your setup so far beyond the wholesale cost of electricity? Also, have you been seeing these same prices for over a year? In WY the adjustment is made in Jan for the prior year, when they convert the virtual 10 cent monthly credits on your prior bills to the wholesale figure, and your imagined savings go poof.

Clearly for you there are massive subsidies in play. Do you have the breakdown for each of them?
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