I feel a better way to account for Solar panel costs is to look at the cost per KWH over the expected lifetime of 25 years. A system might pay itself off in 5-7 years which is fairly typical but the other way of looking at it is the power is about 1/4 the price of power from the grid. Makes you wonder how it is that power from the grid is so ludicrously above its actual capitol cost of production, the systems getting that power to places must be crazy expensive.
Tilt systems aren't worth the money. They cost too much to make and with the same money more panels produces more power.
> Makes you wonder how it is that power from the grid is so ludicrously above its actual capitol cost of production, the systems getting that power to places must be crazy expensive.
It's an apples to oranges comparison. Solar panels don't provide power overnight for example, but people place a lot of value in being able to use power at night. Likewise the grid scales up and down to meet the demands placed on it which a basic solar setup (i.e. without batteries) can't do. Then there's reliability, transmission etc.
Transmission costs are what people forget. It takes a lot of money to buy, build, and maintain the equipment & land that carries your electricity from its source.
Profits are what people forget. I live in MN, everyone has excel energy. They made a net profit of 1.85 billion in 2022, that's NET profits. They paid out $3.85 per share.
They've spent an insane amount of money on solar panels - that's all out of that number, those are net profits.
What happens when they have 50% or maybe near that 100% of power coming from renewable power?? They've made a lot of money off of us while we also paid for the costs to attain the renewable system, once it's in place - why should they get my money anymore?
Why are people profiting off of a necessity to life anyways?
You have batteries that cover overnight and that only adds about 20% extra cost and it pays for itself due to enormous difference in price compared to the grid.
That won’t get you all the way through the night, every night. At least not with anything close to typical household energy use in the US.
For that you need a properly sized off grid system, which can easily be 20-30 kW of solar and 50-150 kWh of batteries. Enough to get you through 50-10 cloudy days (depending on your location) with less than 1 kWh per day per kW from solar and 40-60 kWh per day of electricity use.
That’s so wild to me. I have a modest 6.6kw solar system in Australia and average 4kwh a day bought from the grid. No battery, no gas, live in a hot climate and run the A/C about 8 months a year.
How many square feet (or meters) are air conditioned? And you mentioned average daily purchases from the grid, but do you know what the maximum is?
In the US, I think the "pinch point" for off-grid systems is usually in the winter for an all-electric home. Shorter days and more likely to have multiple fully cloudy days in a row, at least for a lot of the US.
Just under 100m2 are air conditioned. Largest day on record was importing 23 kWh due to almost no sun, and me choosing to spend the day bulk cooking/catching up on washing. In a grid down/no sun situation I wouldn’t be doing bulk cooking and washing.
I have a 12kw system in Southern California. Recently it's been raining and overcast many days so I've had a shortage. Only in the winter though. I'm usually running a surplus.
Makes you wonder how it is that power from the grid is so ludicrously above its actual capitol cost of production
Delivery charges, mostly -- it costs a lot of money to build and maintain a power grid. Wholesale prices in my state are around 4.5 cents/KWh, but delivered prices are much higher (around 33 cents/KWh depending on rate plan).
Also it's another point of failure. If (or when) the motor fails, then you could be facing in an extremely suboptimal direction and it might take more than a few days to fix.
> Makes you wonder how it is that power from the grid is so ludicrously above its actual capitol cost of production, the systems getting that power to places must be crazy expensive.
This is my thinking behind delaying getting some panels for my own home, if they're getting cheaper AND more efficient, surely that's going to have knock-on effects on the suppliers too?
Utilities are cost + profit. They are a cartel of generation, transmission, and distribution companies working together to increase costs, which increases profits.
Tilt systems aren't worth the money. They cost too much to make and with the same money more panels produces more power.