does anyone use solar power in their home?
Image by Dept of Energy Solar Decathlon
The public takes a first look at the solar-powered homes on the first day the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon opens to the public on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., Friday, Oct. 09, 2009. (Photo by Stefano Paltera/US Dept. of Energy Solar Decathlon)
Question by Matty k: does anyone use solar power in their home?
how much was it to instal? does it provide for all your power needs? do the solar panels wear out and need to be replaced?
What do you think? Answer below!
3 Responses to does anyone use solar power in their home?
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I have a friend who installed a photovoltaic solar system. It does not run the entire house all the time, but reduces the net power usage considerably. Solar cells don’t have a particular failure mechanism, so should last a long time. The primary problem with them is economic: a solar system costs about $ 10 a watt to install, and can deliver at most 2 kWh of power per year per watt of installed capacity — which, at present power prices, is worth about 25 cents. Which means that you would be better off leaving your money in a savings account. But subsidies for solar power facilities are available in many areas, and these may reduce the net cost to something reasonable.
rhsaunders
July 22, 2012 at 7:39 pm
I have a 6 kilowatt system on my house. It provides all my power, except the gas water heater. However, I am a special case. I live alone near San Francisco. I heat only one room, except when I have friends over. I get an average of about 20 kWh per day. The system cost about $ 50 K after rebate, but it was higher than it should have been.
Read all you can, including on the Internet and by searching for solar panels in the green search box above.
You may come back to me on Yahoo e-mail if you have specific questions.
Ed
July 22, 2012 at 8:09 pm
Ed is about right on the cost of a 6K system if there are no tax credits or incentives. However there are some kind of tax credit in all states and some states and public utilities paies incentives.
I have 800 watts in solar modules, 2000 watt inverter, one 60 amp charge controller and 8 Trojan T105 batteries on my system. It is not grid tied. It was meant as a battery backup system for when we have a power outage. However we turn off the breaker to the city utility most every day and run part of the home from the solar backup system. I as well installed a power save 1200 which helps a lot on the cost of running the A/C in the summer and the heater motor in the winter.
How to size a grid tie system http://www.oynot.com/grid-tie-only-how-to.html
The power save unit http://www.oynot.com/power-save.html
Don K
July 22, 2012 at 9:00 pm