[djrogers]

I installed a 10kw system ~15 months ago on my 3600sq ft house. Average electricity costs was ~$6k/year before the panels, the first year on solar to total cost for the year was $300.

That $300 worth of electricity for the year is before I've been able to talk the wife in to replacing our incandescent bulbs, swapped out our old pool pump, etc etc - I could easily get that down to below 0 with a small investment in bulbs. So in my case at least, it was trivially easy to get to a net-zero usage.

A few $$ notes - the system cost $37k, I got 11.1k of that in a tax credit from the feds, so my net cost was 26k. I'm saving 5.7k/yr, which means my break even point for the system is 5 years. In 5 freaking years I'm making money from my solar panels! And I don't have to write a $500 check to PG&E every month. It's a beautiful thing...

BTW - the above numbers (plus my severe aversion to debt) are why I'm so against solar leases. If we had a solar lease, we'd still be stuck with monthly payments, would have trouble selling our house, and would be stuck for 20 years.

[pkaye]

Where do you live? Do you use electricity for heating? I'm in California and for a 1500 sf house, it costs us roughly $600 in electricity and $600 is gas per year. This actually an old house with some insulation. I think it would be more efficient for me to improve the insulation and water heater/furnace before even considering solar panels. I wish they would subsidize these other improvements as much as solar panels.

[djrogers]

I'm in an unfortunate area of California where my tier usage is tied to parts of the bay area, but the weather is closer to the central valley.

Our AC and pool pump are big parts of that $6k/year usage, and while AC is a luxury, when it's 105* for a week or two straight and you've got little kids around, it sure is nice.

There are also 2 other factors that feed in to our electrical costs - I work from home, and we have 2 little kids. That means our home doesn't get to shut down during the day. AC, fridge door opening, lights, etc., it all adds up when 4 people live in a house 24/7 instead of being gone during the hottest parts of the day.

[ensignavenger]

You mention the AC and pool pump- and then state that the AC is a luxury :)

[danans]

California does subsidize upgrades to gas and water heaters and insulation. Check out https://www.energyupgradeca.org/en/save-energy/home/take-con...

I'm in the bay area just replaced my furnace, water heater, and insulated ducts (an 11k job), and I'm expecting a $2800 rebate from the BayREN program (the local program that implements Energy Upgrade California).

https://www.bayareaenergyupgrade.org/program-overview

[Roboprog]

Like "djrogers", I also live under (let's name names) PG&E and their "infernal" tiered pricing. Try paying 30 to 40 cents a kW/h, and also working from home with kids running around during the summer. I live in the Sacramento area, but outside of "SMUD" coverage, so I have to have PG&E. When it is about 100 degrees +/- for 3 months solid, A/C is "life support", not a convenience.

$400/month electric bill, very typical for summer.

[maxerickson]

Have you investigated the insulation/sealing status of your house?

[fnordfnordfnord]

he said $.3 or $.4 per kW/h. It's not his insulation. That's super expensive.

[maxerickson]

A high price of power would magnify the effects of poor insulation.

Someone paying $5,000 a year for electric has strong incentives to make improvements, so I was wondering about the specifics, not trying to make a brilliant suggestion that all they need to do is put up some pink foam.

[Roboprog]

You're partially right: the house is a long "strip" shape that has the living room facing south. We moved in about a year and a half ago, and the back yard needs landscaping to put in some trees on the south side of the house. (shade in the summer, drop leaves in the winter) Now if I can only talk my wife into having something that blocks all the sun coming in that she loves so much...

[toomuchtodo]

I'm absolutely shocked at the PG&E pricing. I'm in Chicago buying power from a 3rd party provide delivered via ComEd, and I'm only paying 8-9 cents/KwH, and that's more than from ComEd directly so I can buy wind power exclusively.

[secabeen]

Yep. That's the standard power pricing throughout California. SCE and PG&E are trying to flatten the tiers somewhat, which will reduce costs for high-end users, but a $300/mo bill is not uncommon for a large house.

[monksy]

Is it integresys? If so I opted out of that and saved quite a bit of money. (It's the fee that gets you) Going direct with ComEd has it's advantages. Also Chicago has a lot cheaper power than other areas.

[toomuchtodo]

FirstEnergy. There was no additional fee in Schaumburg to use them, and I pay 6.65 cents/KwH for 100% wind power (until 2017, at which point I expect the price to plummet).

Northern Illinois has extremely cheap power due to Exelon's nuclear generation capacity (Ameren in downstate us primarily coal-fired). I expect the price in IL from ComEd direct to start going up, as they're going to use their smart meter rollout to start pushing time of day metering (as they should) vs flat rate per kwh pricing.

[Roboprog]

Well, PG&E pricing starts at around 10 or 11 cents KwH, but once you plug in a refrigerator (or so), that tier is pretty much used up, and you start sliding up the scale.

[dntrkv]

I grew up in Sacramento and that's completely absurd. Our electric bills topped out at around 200, with 7 people, living in a ~3,000 ft^2 house, and someone was always home running the A/C. $400/month is insane.

[Roboprog]

Another thing - in Sacramento county, you probably had SMUD, but Placer, Yolo and El Dorado have PG&E, like most of the rest of Northern California.

[seanflyon]

How long ago did you electric bills top out at $200?

[dntrkv]

Good point, that was a while ago. 2008 was the last year I lived in Sac, so around then.

[maratd]

I'm in NJ and my numbers are the same. I think it's because we use gas for heating/cooking/hot water. If everything was electric, I can imagine things costing almost twice as much, if not more.

[hga]

Where do you live?

Where I live, in SW Missouri, capital and maintenance costs might be higher due to weather (e.g. high winds, hail), and it would be useful during the summer---which the electric company would be generally thankful for, less $$$ peaking power needed---but much less so in fall and winter when it's frequently overcast.

Also, if you live in a place with high electricity rates, like California, the case elsewhere is less compelling. I probably pay on the order of 1/2 of your savings for the total power to handle a building that's almost certainly bigger and thirstier than your's (numbers on request).

[mrfusion]

$6K/year sounds really high no? My neighbor pays $100-150/month for a 3200 sqft house.

[Shivetya]

Welcome to a fully regulated rate structure, throw in the combined weight of years and years of "its for the environment" and the costs go to the people who have the least voice and for many the least ability to pay.

The have so regulated pricing and punitive structures into service there that they have to have assistance programs just to alleviate the burden on middle income and lower consumers.

[Igglyboo]

He says he has a pool and if he lives in california then that pump is probably running all year, probably adds a few hundred a month to his bill.

[jere]

Yea a $500 per month electricity bill sounds steep to me. When my bill hit $400 in the winter, I realized I had a problem with my water heater.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

That's what I thought. My house is about the same size as his and completely exposed to weather. While I live in not-so-balmy Minnesota, it does get well above 90F and humid regularly in summer. Not to mention that the only non-electric heating appliance is the furnace.

I get irritable if my bill hits $250, I'd be freaking out at an average of $500/month.

[ryanhuff]

How much power do you consume a month? Pool heaters can really kill your electric bill.

[chdir]

How many units does $500 fetch where you live? Would be curious to know a breakdown of the bigger portion of the pie in those units.

[baddox]

How long are your panels expected to last, and how much maintenance do they require? Is the 5 year break even point pretty much guaranteed, and considering those things?

[djrogers]

They've got 20yr warranties, and require zero maintenance where I live. If you have more rain/snow than I get, or perhaps salt spray etc, you may need to do some cleaning.

Once every few months the monitoring doohickey needs a reboot, but the panels work with or without that.

For my personal situation, unless PG&E reduces their power rates over the next 5 years, I'll absolutely hit that break-even point.

Panel production will degrade over time - the warranty covers something like 3% the first year, and 1% every year after that. So at 5 years I will have less than an 8% reduction in output from the panels. That 8% will be made up by that time with LED bulbs, a variable speed pool pump, etc. Heck, right now out of the ~30 ceiling cans in my house, only my office (4) and front porch (3) are LED. The rest are full 60W sucking incandescent bulbs. The chandeliers are also 60W bulbs too, accounting for another dozen or so lights that are on quite frequently.

What can I say - my wife hates CFLs and barely tolerates LEDs.

[baddox]

You mentioned the reduction in your energy bill, but do you happen to track how much of that comes from selling back to the grid and how much comes from you using your solar power directly? If you're generating 10kW a few hours each day, I would guess that's the only time you're selling back. Would there be any point in an energy storage system for you? I've always had this fanciful notion of having a solar array and building an underground flywheel for storage, but only because I'm riveted by flywheels.

I haven't looked into the ROI of CFLs or LEDs vs. incandescents in a while. I imagine they have improved. Lately, I've even seen some LED bulbs in stores that don't look horrible. Of course, I would buy them anyway just to save time changing bulbs!

[secabeen]

I have a similar system, and I sell back for about 80% of daylight hours. That credit covers all of my other needs in the summer (and then some), and about half of my usage during the winter months. When you originally design the system, you use current rates and policies to create a system that generates at most a net zero usage.

[fixedd]

I swapped all of the incandescent bulbs that run for more than ~ 15min/day out in our house for some 80+ CRI "warm white" LEDs I got off Amazon. My wife didn't even know I'd changed them till I told her. I noticed the difference for the first day or so, but I got used to it really quickly. I wouldn't hesitate to do it again, and any bulb that fails in my house will be getting replaced with an LED from now on.

Maybe you could slowly transition... replace one bulb a week over the span of a year and she may not even notice :)

[g8oz]

Wholesale panels are $500 a kW. That's a lot of markup you had to pay. Definitely much room for improvement on margins.

[secabeen]

Labor is a big cost, as well as permitting and the like. It's certainly a business with a lot of profit in it now. As long as the marginal rates of power are high, it's still break-even for the customer fast enough that they don't mind. The feds and the utilities pay the costs.

[Pxtl]

Where you located? Are we talking Texas or Michigan?

[crdoconnor]

Hawaii?