Solar Power electricity

[Cindy]

There is a rebate system in Oz on solar power and I have had a guy around today giving me quotes etc. I agree with his statement that really all you are doing is paying off your future electricity bills. But what do people think of prices. Today it began at (approx) $11,000, then went to $9000, if I allowed advertising, then went to $7000, because I'm cute(?). I agree I'm cute but $2000 cute?

The product and installation etc seemed good quality, and a good warranty.

Anyone with experience, particularly in Oz of solar power but welcome general comments.

Cindy

[Sephirah]

I guess it depends how much power you use. Although the way energy prices are going up at the current rate, soon even $11,000 will seem like peanuts if it means you don't have to pay part of electricity bills.

I did a check on panels in the UK and the systems start (from one supplier) at £9,999 but they reckon over 25 years you could be nearly £25,000 better off. From what I can make out, they actually pay you for the electricity you generate through them, as well as saving cash on your bills.

[justmeinoz]

Basically the taxpayer pays, like always!

  I used to instal solar panels in remote radio base sites, some of which had to be solar and wind.

Given that PV solar panels never produce the amount of power that went into making them in total,
they are therefore actually bad for the environment.

If your  mains electricity is generated by hydro or geo-thermal as in places like Scandinavia or New Zealand the situation is even worse than for coal or oil generated power.

Karen.

[jesse]

In the U.S., a rule-of-thumb is that an average house consumes electricity at the rate of 1 kW. Since there are about 730 hours in each month and the average price of a kW-hour of electricity is about $.10, an average monthly electric bill should be around $73 for 730 kWh of electricity. I will say that this can vary considerably if you have some non-standard items like a hot-tub or some electrical appliances running continuously. Even extended computer use, plasma screen TVs and video games consoles can make a big impact. It will also increase significantly in months when you run an air conditioning unit. The cost of electricity varies widely across the U.S. as well from a low of $.07/kWh in West Virginia to a high of $.24/kWh in Hawaii, so you'd need to adjust my guidelines accordingly because what I'm writing about here applies to an average home with average electricity costs.

A conservative value to use for a solar panel's generating capacity is 10 watts/sq. ft. This represents a panel conversion efficiency of about 12% which is typical. That means that for every kW you need to generate, you'd need about 100 sq. ft. of solar panels. If the sun would shine 24 hours a day, you could put up 100 sq. ft. of panels and you'd have enough to power an average home. But as we all know, the sun doesn't shine all the time. The sun is only available during the day and the amount of sunshine per day is very dependent on cloud cover. Also, the length of each day is dependent on the season. Fortunately, there are resources on the web to help you figure out how many hours per day on average you can count on the sun to shine based on where you live.

The numbers across the U.S. vary from an average of around 3 hours per day in places like Seattle, Chicago, and Pittsburgh to 5 or 6 hours per day in states like Colorado and California to a high of 7 hours a day in Arizona. What that means is that the size of your solar panel array can vary from around 400 square feet to 800 sq. ft. (i.e., 4 kW to 8 kW) respectively, depending on where you live. You'll need more panels if you live in a location that gets less average sunshine per day and fewer if you live in a location that gets higher amounts of average sunshine.

[spacial]

I don't have any installed on my house. Grvernment incentives, (bribes), to get people to install them have recently been all but cancelled.

However, I do have some, using them to power outdoor equipment. This was designed and installed by me.

One installation, which I did in 2003, the panel was about 1m x 600 and delivered 12V at a little over an amp. (25W rated). I recently was looking into the costs and availabity of installing an identical installation somewhere. I was surprised to discover that I can now get a panel, delivering 40W, slightly smaller and considerably cheaper.

Not quite what people asked, (Especially Cindy, sorry), but it does suggest things are moving in the right direction.

Also, if technology continues to progress at this rate, in a few years, possibly before the existing installation has been paid off,a better one, delivering considerably more power will no doubt be available.

That raises two problems. Firstly, that if that bit of news gets out, people might stop buying panels today, so development will lose all its funding and stop. Secondly, if development does continue, in a few years, the papers will be ranting about the number of disused solar panels being dumped on land fill sites and pressure groups will be springing up all over the place, claiming that the use of Solar Panels is going to lead to the end of the world.

Incidently, it's june, only 15c here and I'm cold. OK, I know I'm an old past it and should know better than to complain, but where's my bloody Global warming?

Eh?

[jesse]

either way depending how oz funds compare to us currency the current costs here are about 35000 for enough pannels plus installation and wiring into exsisting house current to get it up and rummimg the turn around time to recoup the cost by electrical savings and or surplus power being sold back to the powercompanys as a credit on your bill is a little over 20 years not very economical in the us considering the frequency people resell houses here maybe in the 50's when peeps bought a house raised a family and eventually died in the same house but today?
jessi

[Padma]

It's worth bearing in mind that PV panels have a lifespan, and that they become less efficient as they age. So at some point, they will need replacing, and before that, the amount of power you get out of them will drop considerably over the years (it'll take a while, but it will happen). They are (if this is a consideration for you) also currently horribly unecological to produce, in terms of raw materials, chemical waste products from manufacture and so on.

And don't rely on tariffs to stay healthy either - the UK government is already reconsidering how much they are paying to larger installations that are putting power into the national grid, because many more people than they expected have taken advantage of the high tariff, including some big supermarket chains, and the government can't afford it. So keep an eye on legislation regarding this in your country.

Sorry if this all sounds gloom-laden, but it's important to be realistic about this stuff, especially in the face of flattersome salesmen .