Starting to think this might be worth looking into, anybody setup a system that works, with all of the info on the net it is difficult sorting thru it and try to decipher good companies from questionable companies.
Any one w/ experience, who did you use, can it be "do it yourself" or hire the pros. Do they pay for themselves and if so how many years before one would see a decent return on investment.

Living in Arizona seems like I am missing out on opportunity to save a few bucks on monthly power expenses.

Do you heat water w/ or just supplement electric?

I know lots of questions here but just looking for experiences good and bad.

Thanks

 

Solar is great, especially for where you live. Only thing is, it's expensive. If your electric bill is high each month, then it may be worth it. For someone like me, it would take a long time to regain the expense in savings. I did look into it and we've got a friend in the business who converted his house. He uses batteries to store the energy.

Here's his website if you want to gather more info:

www.goldenstatepower.com

 

I've been doing many forums of alt. energy for over 30 yrs.
There are many ways to approach it , but one way to know if your getting sold a bill of goods [ rip off , by either over sell = over price , or there lac of knowledge ] , is talk & research a lot yourself , then get at least a few estimate/opinions , if any do not start with a site servay / where you are at & where you want to go with it , them tell them to leave quick .
It is a long term / cost more up front , just like the old , you 1st is free , then they will rip you off after that , if we had paid up front for alt. energy decades ago , we would not have almost any of the stories in the news today .
So no answer with out more info , do you have grid now , whats your bugget - not so much what are you willing to pay but what are your expectations ?

 

I've looked into it alot here in AZ.

Definitely get a on the grid system, so you can sell excess power during the day back to SRP or APS. They only buy it at half the rate, but the excess you make during the day will help elimiate what you use at night if you dont opt for buying a battery backup system.

If you are on SRP, they also offer a good deal amount in incentives for Solar. If i remember correctly its like 1,000 or $3,000 per KWH for a grid tied system connected to them.

When I get a permanent address again, I'm going solar. I hope it improves in power output per size a little bit more though, you still need alot of panels to make the power.

Also, check your bill to see how much of the fees is just the basic delivery charge. Even if you shut your system off at the breaker and never use it, they still got a good chunk just for maintenance on the power lines and delivery fees.

 

http://www.revisionenergy.com/index.php

I put a 60 bulb collector on my roof for domestic hot water. I live in Maine, I was lucky to get federal and state one time renewable energy refunds. And to boot I have not heard my oil fired furnace running all summer.
This was the smartest thing I have done.....
Take a look at my soon to be wood heat www.garn.com
This should be in place by end Oct.

 

P.s. From what I learned to make solar electric you would have to spend huge money to make it pay... need for large amounts of panels.
Domestic hot water seemed to be the thing with realistic returns .....

 

Check w/your local utility and/or other utilities. Besides the utility rebates, I think you can qualify for a federal rebate on your taxes. If your local utility doesn't offer it check out austinenergy.com or cpsenergy.com. At least these two co.s will give you something to compare others to. Right now a co called solar san antonio is working on big projects...another source for comparison.

 

the average house needs a 5kw system to get to the zero power bill point with a grid tied net metered system. i know two people that have them. they spent about $30k on the system. it's not easy to do it yourself if you are not an electrician. there are many complicated aspects to the code and the local utility regs that can snag you up in a heart beat.

 

The return is really quite low for the initial expense. We did a $25000 set up for a guy here in WA and he figured he'd save about 20 bucks a month on power! It was his way of appearing "green". I like to keep my "green" in my wallet!

Really investigate this before you lay out any money. It may work for you in the more southern lats.

Kurt

 

I looked into wind and solar power for my B-I-L building a new house in CO. The expense was quite discouraging. (And I'm a General Contractor getting the best pricing). I was hoping for better results as I wanted to do the same with my next home.

 

Some views from my side of the pond and from the alpine climate zone.
(This might sound smart alec or wiseguy- it's not meant that way)

The cheapest energy is the one you don't use. Insulation and a processor controlled electrical system in the house usually have a quick return of investment.
The price of a kWh over the life cycle of the "machine" is cheapest for solar warm water- so if you can, go for water heating solar panels as a first step. You will need good sized buffers, because the more energy you can store the better the efficiency. ( we do a lot of dug in heavy sand type heat storages over here)
Solar electricity is really expensive- wind can be quite cheap for stuff where you don't need 24/7 electricity. We use this for bigger cooling machines that have a great inertia and are not really temperature critical. In case that the temp in the "fridge" rises above a certain point the grid power is used to keep going.
Over here it's not worthwhile to feed back into the grid in many cases, but well worthwhile to use locally generated power that runs in sync with the grid to avoid using grid power as long as there is wind.
In the alpine regions specifically there is a lot of small hydro power generation going on. Even a very little stream with enough altitude difference can supply more than the average consumption of a house, and since it is on 24/7 you can even go off grid if you limit your peak consumption to what the turbine can deliver without storing electricity.
Storing energy is cheap in the form of heat, and very expensive for electricity. The maintenance of the battery packs needs to be figured into the total costs, and also the periodic replacement of the batteries.
Since solar panels make DC you will need to have a DC to AC converter that is powerful enough to run your house of it, but still efficient under low power... expensive buggers, so if you manage to cut the consumption in the house you can save a lot on the infrastructure...

Just some cents from across the pond...

AlpineRAM

 

Yeah, solar hot water is the way to go. I turn my water heater off for 6 months a year and it runs a small amount for about 3 more.

Solar hot water is very good if done correctly and it is low tech.

A lot of solar electric systems don't pay enough return to pay the interest on the loan to install them. Then there are inverter failures and connector failures. Then they try to charge you to clean the panels every year and the cost is about the same as the savings on the energy produced.

I love the idea of sloar electric, but the reality is different than the theory at this point.

First, go with a well designed hot water system. There are a few basics that need to be considered to make them right, so do your homework! After you have decided you have a good site the first thing to get right is the freeze protection system. Decide on that and be familiar with why your decision makes sense. Then size the system and consider the collector type. Again, know why your decisions make sense and don't just listen to the hype.

A good DHW system will probably have about 2 gallons of storage for each square foot of collector, it will not be able to freeze the collectors with a power failure or a pump failure, it will not use electricty or dump water out to the ground to freeze protect, it will probably point the collectors to near magnetic south (northern hemisphere) and tilt them to near latitude, the collectors will have copper absorber plates and glass glazing. In very mild climates like lower elevation Hawaii and southern coastal California, batch systems can be considered.

 

The wife and I did a lot of research on solar electric for our house a few years ago. At the time, a 3.2kV system would have been about $19000 after tax breaks. At our rate of consumption, with the kVh pricing at the time, it would have taken 10-12 years to recoup our investment.

I did a lot of consulting for a solar company in this same timeframe, and saw the innovation coming down the pipeline for the solar industry. While it was solar technology for commercial applications, it led me to believe that residential PV systems will increase in efficiency, and decrease in cost and size.

So, with that in mind, we decided to spend up to $19K increasing the efficiency of our house with better appliances, insulation, double-pane windows, pellet stove and high-efficiency furnace.

I think we made the right choice at the time.

California now has a program that allows certain cities to provide no cost loans to residential PV owners. Program works like this: if your average monthly electric bill costs you $221/month, then you pay off the loan at $221 plus adjusted rate of inflation. We may go for it, as it hedges you against any future price spikes in electric costs.

Good luck,
garrett

 

HotWater.....