Solar paneled parking canopies

[monsterkitty]

We had full solar power at our previous house. It was supposed to take us 10 years to break even but we hit the break-even point at about 6 years. What we didn't use went back into the grid and they issued us a check at the end of each year. Excluding taxes, our highest electric bill was around $50 during the cold, winter months. Most months we only paid the $6 taxes.

Solar came with our current, new build house. We lease it for 20 years (could be 10 years but I can't remember and DH isn't hear to ask) and then have the option to purchase the system. This solar system is not as big as the one on our previous house and only produces about 80% of the power we use. However, the house is much smaller so we don't need a lot for just the two of us. We've been here a year and still pay less than $25 per month.

 

[longboard55]

California is producing so much solar now on hot days they give the excess to Arizona. You do not need batteries, it is attached to the grid. The overall need for electricity at night is much lower so they do not need solar at night, it is needed for daytime AC. You need sun, does not work when overcast. We have had house panels for 7 years, my summer electric bill went form $500 to $10. Obviously the oil coal and utility companies do no like solar and spend a lot feeding false information, but a place like Florida should be covered in solar.

 

[tvguy]

Hello there, guys. The time has come to update this thread. I'd like your advice on where to get solar panels if ut's my first time getting them. TIA for your recs!

Your electric provider should have a list of approved solar companies. You need to decide if you want to purchase the panels which in most areas includes tax breaks. Or you can do what I did and go with a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA). It cost me nothing to have the system installed. But I have to purchase ALL the power those panels produce, at a pre-determined price for 20 years. Any power I do not use is purchased by my utility company, at a price that is lower than I am paying for it. Even with that, I am saving about $25 to $30 a month.
Any system should have a 20 year warranty on everything, no matter if you buy it, or go with a PPA.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Hey, welcome to the forum! Even though this is an old thread, I can help you out. What's your purpose for getting solar panels? The choice mainly depends on it.

And welcome to the dis to you also, KB.

 

[mrodgers]

Our home panels produce pretty much all that our household needs for the summer months. That's not to say they produce at night ... the way it works is that they produce enough during the day for what we use during the day plus enough to cover how much we are using at night (and more).

So during the day we are putting into the grid from the excess solar output, and during the night we are pulling from the grid to cover our night time electric needs, and the net result balances out to about even. During the winter, we estimate we're generating about 75% of the electricity we need.

We don't have a battery bank. as kdonnel said, that's quite a cost adder, and since it's newer technology than the panels themselves, we feel pretty confident that the price will come down over the next few years. At some point in the future we will likely install one.

Of many people we know with home solar, I don't know of anyone who is using it in a completely off grid type of setup.

Curious what the difference in your actual monetary electric bill is. For me, the actual electric usage and transmission is such a minor part of the electric bill. It's mostly taxes and fees. Seems to me one would have to produce an awful lot of electricity from the solar setup to break even on the electric bill. The $15k or whatever it would cost would take 30+ years to break even it seems to me.

 

[mrodgers]

That's because of all the smug pollution hybrids cause.
Google South Park Smug alert....

Smug pollution, that's great! I love it! I'll have to interject in the EV arguments on other forums with that, LOL.

 

[mrodgers]

Oh dang, a bump from 4 years ago....

 

[jalapeno_pretzel]

Curious what the difference in your actual monetary electric bill is. For me, the actual electric usage and transmission is such a minor part of the electric bill. It's mostly taxes and fees. Seems to me one would have to produce an awful lot of electricity from the solar setup to break even on the electric bill. The $15k or whatever it would cost would take 30+ years to break even it seems to me.

A summer bill from right before we installed in 2017 was about $160. Same time period this past year was $19 which is the base connection fee. Our household is completely electric - no gas at all. Our break even point is theoretically about 10 years from when we installed in 2017, but I'm not really tracking it. Electric costs have gone up in the past 6 years since installing also. In the winter we don't generate as much and we use more, so the bill is maybe 50% of what it would be otherwise.

We've also added a battery bank since this post, so now during power outages we are still operational from our solar.

 

[daisy2013]

Curious what the difference in your actual monetary electric bill is. For me, the actual electric usage and transmission is such a minor part of the electric bill. It's mostly taxes and fees. Seems to me one would have to produce an awful lot of electricity from the solar setup to break even on the electric bill. The $15k or whatever it would cost would take 30+ years to break even it seems to me.

Our bill is about $25 each month for electric. That's with an EV and a plug-in hybrid. We installed in the fall so we have not yet had the benefit of the full summer sun but also no ac but an electric heater in our office.

 

[kdonnel]

I would love to have solar but I don't think my HOA would love for me to have solar.

I am a big electric user at 3300 kWh in the three big summer months and 1600 kWh the rest of the months.

I think that means I would need a 20 kW system and I don't think I have enough roof for that. I probably don't have enough roof for a 10 kW system.

 

[monsterkitty]

Curious what the difference in your actual monetary electric bill is. For me, the actual electric usage and transmission is such a minor part of the electric bill. It's mostly taxes and fees. Seems to me one would have to produce an awful lot of electricity from the solar setup to break even on the electric bill. The $15k or whatever it would cost would take 30+ years to break even it seems to me.

Our break-even point at our old house was supposed to be 10 years but ended up being only 6.

I would love to have solar but I don't think my HOA would love for me to have solar.

I am a big electric user at 3300 kWh in the three big summer months and 1600 kWh the rest of the months.

I think that means I would need a 20 kW system and I don't think I have enough roof for that. I probably don't have enough roof for a 10 kW system.

Here HOA's cannot deny solar.

We were the first in our old neighborhood to get solar and as they were putting up the panels, one of the HOA board members knocked on our door to let us know we hadn't requested nor been approved for the panels. DH said we didn't need approval and one of the people putting up the panels handed the HOA guy a copy of the law.

The HOA board sent us a few letters stating we were not in compliance with the HOA rules and each time we responded with a copy of the law. One of my friends is a lawyer and she finally just wrote the HOA a letter stating they needed to stop as they were in violation of the law. By this point, several neighbors were also installing solar and the board gave up.

Check your state laws regarding solar and HOA rules.

 

[kdonnel]

Here HOA's cannot deny solar.

There does not appear to be a state law that trumps HOA rules in Georgia.

I know at the last annual meeting solar was brought up and the board mentioned they were formulating a response to the request that had been made by a homeowner.

 

[mousefan73]

Hello there, guys. The time has come to update this thread. I'd like your advice on where to get solar panels if ut's my first time getting them. TIA for your recs!

Well funny you ask any minute a solar company is stopping by for our 3rd quote. But we live in Germany... so that wont help you .. I will though for reference post in a bit what the costs are here and set-up

We are looking at 10KW on the roof with a battery for 10 KW. and a system for warm water. We have an oil furnace now for heat and water.. but want to move water to solar. this you can do 2 ways. a solar boiler with a heat rod or what is new is a warm water heat pump that uses much less enegery ( the higher cost of that overall is lower costs as it uses much less energy vs the rod thing). We were told to over buy on panels ( as adding more has higher costs in the end) and to under buy battery as these are basically like a huge CPU unit. you can always add on more "storage" later.

10KW is the usual size for a standard home and allows future car charging. Batters needed due to being in rainy germany and winter months. ball park we are looking at 25 TEUR euros... ROI higher is we get a car which we will at some point. I know so many with 2nd cards electrical and they are saving tons of gas money. even with calculating higher car price in.. though many downsize on the electrical cars and use them for in town errands, school runs and short commutes, dont need a huge car and higher ROI


We have seen our electrical costs go up mainyl due to me working 80% in HO and my son now too. 3 of us are home everyday, during the day.

 

[mousefan73]

I would love to have solar but I don't think my HOA would love for me to have solar.

I am a big electric user at 3300 kWh in the three big summer months and 1600 kWh the rest of the months.

I think that means I would need a 20 kW system and I don't think I have enough roof for that. I probably don't have enough roof for a 10 kW system.

Just shocked how HOA wont allow this? a roof system is non- evasive to the look and feel. and seriously people need to change to what the future will bring.

Believe 10 KW would be enought I thing we have a use and 10 KW is what we were told is enought ( almost a tad too much) . We were recently at a solar / energy show to look and the panels have also gotten much better and the batteries. Need to ask DH for sure if that is our usage... the who Kwh thing confuses me.

 

[PollyannaMom]

I remember asking someone working on a particular solar product how his company accounted for night time - whether or not they had a system that worked with a battery system. He said no - that the product wasn't really meant for that (or being off the grid), and the customer should be getting credit to offset the cost of grid power.

Oops, missed the date on this thread!

This is the kind I have, and several neighbors as well. When we make more than we're using, it goes back to the grid. When we're not making enough, we pull from it.

I haven't seen the parking lot ones around here, but I think it's a good idea!

 

[mousefan73]

Oops, missed the date on this thread!

This is the kind I have, and several neighbors as well. When we make more than we're using, it goes back to the grid. When we're not making enough, we pull from it.

I haven't seen the parking lot ones around here, but I think it's a good idea!

They are all across Europe now. It kills two birds with one stone it produces power, and it keeps the cars covered. When we were at the solar show a couple weeks ago, we also learned about new designs in the panels. They’re getting really creative now as far as design they even had some circular models.


So the one solar company just left and he was the third one by us and he was the only one that actually took drone footage of our house. He said something interesting that today you no longer put all panels on the side that has the most sunlight but you spread it out so you have continuous flow of energy. I guess in the end it makes a difference. So we’ll have panels on three parts of our roof but our house is L shaped and has many different roof areas.

The heat pump boiler we have to get on our own but he showed us online one from LG. I guess they’re leading in this technology and it’s gonna cost us €1700 which will guarantee us warm water throughout the entire year so we’ll save a quarter of our oil cost there, when we were discussing future needs, then suggested he said to go up to 15 versus the 10. The original offer with 10 was for €21,000 and now we’re thinking it’s gonna go up to 25. It was kind of funny when we said goodbye to him by his car . I said to him is your car electric he’s like of course. Lol


This is a long-term investment but in the end after 10 years we should be getting an ROI we pay about €150 a month for electrical adding in the 25% saving and oil which is about 600 a year plus what we could save on gas in the fact that our electrical cost are simply going up and up. We learned that even though appliances and whatnot are getting more efficient it’s simply the amount of appliances and technical electrical items. In a home nowadays just keeps increasing who knows in the future what we will be charging?

 

[mousefan73]

I would love to have solar but I don't think my HOA would love for me to have solar.

I am a big electric user at 3300 kWh in the three big summer months and 1600 kWh the rest of the months.

I think that means I would need a 20 kW system and I don't think I have enough roof for that. I probably don't have enough roof for a 10 kW system.

so your total is just 5000 kWh for the year? We have 4500 a year, but dont really have AC, we have a wall unit we have on maybe 10 days a year in my DDs room( hottest place upstairs)

So we have a quote like I said we are in Germany... 12,18 KwP with 10,70 battery.. includes installation and they do the paperwork, registering etc... for the 8 Cent we get from putting in the netzwork
- 28 pieces includes 25 year warrently on material
-installation and wiring for south, east ,west roofs
-battery 10 year guarentee
-includes that box that converts, dont know the techincal word in english.

we would still need about 1700 for the hot water pump. and later wallbox for car.

for 24,000 euros

 

[kdonnel]

so your total is just 5000 kWh for the year? We have 4500 a year, but dont really have AC, we have a wall unit we have on maybe 10 days a year in my DDs room( hottest place upstairs)

So we have a quote like I said we are in Germany... 12,18 KwP with 10,70 battery.. includes installation and they do the paperwork, registering etc... for the 8 Cent we get from putting in the netzwork
- 28 pieces includes 25 year warrently on material
-installation and wiring for south, east ,west roofs
-battery 10 year guarentee
-includes that box that converts, dont know the techincal word in english.

we would still need about 1700 for the hot water pump. and later wallbox for car.

for 24,000 euros

If only my yearly total was 5000 kWh for the year.



I was saying that in the summer months I use close to or exceed 3000 kWh. In the non summer months I average 1600 kWh.

Adding up the last 12 months I am just shy of 25,000 kWh.

 

[mousefan73]

If only my yearly total was 5000 kWh for the year.

View attachment 841208

I was saying that in the summer months I use close to or exceed 3000 kWh. In the non summer months I average 1600 kWh.

Adding up the last 12 months I am just shy of 25,000 kWh.

What the the.....?! are you bitcoin mining???? do you heat and cool with electric? I assume summers AC which we dont have but in the winter that much too.

we are around 3500 sqft and 4 people. I cant see german electronics being that much more effecient? we did switch all bulbs out..

 

[kdonnel]

What the the.....?! are you bitcoin mining???? do you heat and cool with electric? I assume summers AC which we dont have but in the winter that much too.

we are around 3500 sqft and 4 people. I cant see german electronics being that much more effecient? we did switch all bulbs out..

There are 4 of us as well and about 5300 sqft. This includes the 1200 sqft finished in the basement for them. We enjoyed the nice big house when the kids were small but it is way to big now but not cost effective to move and find somewhere smaller but still big enough for us and the in laws to have our own space.

My in laws live with us in a basement apartment with its own entrance and exit so it is effectively two homes worth of electricity.

They are fully electric so an oven, cooktop, dryer, and heat pump that does heat and cooling.

The rest of the house is gas heat and water but we are big consumers of AC with our 90+ degree days at 90+% humidity. So an additional three central AC, an oven, a dryer, and two electric vehicles for our part of the house.