Berlin-based climate research institute Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) has released a new study indicating that, in the last decade, the cost of solar power has dropped by 87 percent, and the cost of battery storage by 85 percent.
Solar power and storage prices have dropped almost 90%::undefined
Is that paying cash for the solar system or financing? Financing can devastate the ROI with interest rates today. I’m looking at as long as 12 year ROI with possibly as short as 7 year ROI if I consider the USA’s federal tax incentives. My slightly southern latitude (a border state with Canada) also likely contributes to slightly higher generation results using the same equipment.
How are the government incentives in Canada? I’m super envious of your great hydro power, my neighbor.
In Canada you can get a 40k loan from the federal govt that is 0% interest on a 10 year term for doing green upgrades to your home. My solar generates more in credits than than the cost of the loan over the year.
The Greener Homes Program is a bit of a pain to jump through all the hoops but getting thousands off in grants and a 0% loan is worth it.
1800sq ft home, my power bill is a few hundred in the summer, I feel there just isn’t any competition here there only 2-3 companies doing it and they’re all small
It could be that those companies are evil, or perhaps their own prices are just very high because the industry isn’t scaled up in your area. Maybe they have a really hard time hiring equalities installers, and have to ship in parts from far away.
It was like that in California 20 years ago but it has changed enormously. When you drive down the street, how many houses have solar? It’s probably 3 in 10 here. I get nonstop Facebook ads and can name about 10 companies. With this comes lower prices. But there are still cheats out there. Never work with a “no money up front” company unless you only want to enjoy 10% of the benefit of the panels. For some it may be the only option but these companies are shysty as hell.
There almost 0 solar houses here, 1 in a hundred maybe. A few businesses have been doing it lately, I’ve seen 2 gas stations and several schools in the area do it. I’d like to get it done before my backwards ass state makes it illegal or something
$50k is a pretty large installation, 18kw-22kw I’d guess for solar only (no battery storage). I’m hoping thats only a max of 100% replacement of electricity sourcing (meaning essentially no net grid consumption after you’re installed). What’s the price per KWh for electricity delivered to your door in St Louis? Its gotta be pretty crazy cheap if you’re that large a consumer of electricity and you’re paying in cash with no battery, and still looking at multiple decades of ROI with the US federal tax credit.
I don’t remember the kWh specs and price off hand but a decent portion of the cost was that I’m in a 1.5 story that faces S and have a lot of small roofs rather than one large roof so it’d be a bunch of panels that didn’t have full sun most of the day. Which is true of all hundred houses in my subdivision as well. Basically build of the house made this difficult or impossible
Does that mean a substantial portion of the $50k quoted was setting up lots of panels is many small spaces, (because of the broken up nature of the roof) and that perhaps the system was oversized its electrical capacity because of the assumption that it would only be fractionally efficient because of the substandard angles and shading? I could see that. Certainly roof designs and even large mature trees can make solar unfeasible in those situations…
Maybe, I was so mad I didn’t even get more quotes, I should really do so but I was expecting 10-20 at most and hearing 50 kinda put me off the prospect for a while. Decided to spend effort on other home improvement we could see instead
If you are willing to DIY you can cut that number dramatically. Out of curiosity what was the size of the array in that quote and did it include battery storage if so how much chances are that you can cut it by anywhere from 50% to 75% if you’re willing to Simply purchase directly and install yourself. The amount that installers charge is absolutely asinine usually 50% or more of that quote is just the installation which is in the same because it’s not difficult at all. People like to act scared like oh that’ll be difficult or hard or dangerous, it’s extremely simple you’re dealing with DC which is very straightforward everything is very clearly labeled on that equipment and it’s quite simple to do yourself
I can’t think of any One-Stop shop for literally everything, but there is a lot of great material out there both on forums and on YouTube. If you take it one step at a time and look at each individual piece of the installation you’ll be able to find fantastic instructions for all of them fairly easily.
If you are in the US I recommend purchasing from signature solar, they have a lot of great bundles that will both save you some money and get you everything you need. I’d also say they have the best battery storage options, their rack mount batteries and their new wall mount battery are both fantastic and very easy to work with. They also sell solar panels by the pallet which helps you get a nice large array at a good price.
If I had to pick the hardest part it would just be making sure you get the grounding right on the inverter, if you’re not careful it’s pretty easy to end up with a ground Loop which isn’t particularly dangerous but it will cause lots of weird little issues like flickering lights and other annoyances. But it’s fairly easy to correct it it’s usually just a result of people connecting both the input and the output on the inverter as well as bonding the secondary panel to the primary panel which creates a ground loop. The solution is as simple as just don’t connect to the input power ground to the inverter only connect to the output ground so that it has to go through the ground Bond on the panels
It will definitely sound like a lot, but again if you just take each individual piece by itself it’s very straightforward very simple and you’ll be able to get it done while saving an absolute asinine amount of money compared to an installer.
I will warn you that if you try to do gridtie, which is where you’re able to send excess electricity back into the grid. That comes with a lot more red tape and can get a lot more complicated. I personally did an off-grid setup, which still uses the grid as a possible input so if my batteries are dead and there’s no sun out I can still use the power like normal it’s just not capable of sending Excess power back out into the grid so there’s a whole bunch of red tape that I don’t have to worry about.
An off-grid setup with grid power option is still considered a grid tie in my area since it needs a way to prevent backfeeding to the grid. Which is totally doable in several ways, just one additional thing to be aware of.
And as a former solar installer, I also remember looking at signature solar and thinking their kits looked the best.
That doesn’t really make sense, since an off-grid inverter literally cannot backfeed. It’s essentially just a computer UPS on steroids. It accepts the grid as an input that it can pass through but it’s not possible for it to push energy back to the grid.
I mean yes if you decided to hook its output directly up to your Mains panel without separation you would be back feeding. But only for maybe a few minutes at most as you would also destroy your inverter because it has no mechanism to synchronize the output with the mains since it’s not designed to backfeed
I’m not really sure what you are talking about, you need to synchronize both the phase of the power and the frequency. If they differ even slightly you damage your equipment. This is why when running multiple inverters in parallel they require both a Communication cable and a power sharing Cable in order to ensure that they stay perfectly synchronized. Inverters capable of doing grid tie have equipment in them to monitor the mains power and make sure that they stay synchronized with it. Whereas an off-grid inverter does not contain that equipment which is why they are generally cheaper
There are several different possible phases for 120 volt they are not all the same. And while hooking to the mains may be standard practice for something that can grid tie it is not standard practice for an off-grid inverter. You are specifically expected to have a secondary panel specifically for that inverter. The mains power will reach that secondary panel through the inverter when it’s in pass through but the panel should in no way be connected to the mains directly (other than a ground bond between the secondary panel and the mains)
With that having been said, I have no doubt that solar installers have instead opted to continue to use inverters that are capable of grid tie even in a installation that will not be backfeeding. Probably just to reduce the amount of inventory required so that they can get full purchase orders. But that doesn’t change the fact that a proper true off-grid inverter is not capable of tying into the mains without destroying itself
The fact that you say you were a solar installer, but you’re not even aware of something as simple as phases and frequency synchronization is part of the reason I feel like solar installers are wildly overpaid. You’re basically doing the bare minimum without really understanding what it is you’re doing
I mean, the other option is you’re pulling things out of your ass like every other armchair expert on the internet.
There are several different possible phases for 120 volt
Like…no. You get 240v 2p incoming with a split bar. 120v is 120v is 120v. Maybe you’re dealing with 3 phase power but a residential building is not. And I have no idea why you’d have an inverter that outputs 3 phase power in a residential building.
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I was still quoted 40K CAD. 20 year ROI. Not feasible for me.
Well it’s the company/ies not the product
Is that paying cash for the solar system or financing? Financing can devastate the ROI with interest rates today. I’m looking at as long as 12 year ROI with possibly as short as 7 year ROI if I consider the USA’s federal tax incentives. My slightly southern latitude (a border state with Canada) also likely contributes to slightly higher generation results using the same equipment.
How are the government incentives in Canada? I’m super envious of your great hydro power, my neighbor.
In Canada you can get a 40k loan from the federal govt that is 0% interest on a 10 year term for doing green upgrades to your home. My solar generates more in credits than than the cost of the loan over the year. The Greener Homes Program is a bit of a pain to jump through all the hoops but getting thousands off in grants and a 0% loan is worth it.
Bruh I got quoted 50k in St. Louis last year, would take decades for roi
That can’t be for a home. If it was it was predatory nonsense. It should be a 7 or 8 year ROI with a 20-30 year service life.
Maybe not all areas have much competition driving prices down? I’m in sunny hippie California where every other house has solar.
1800sq ft home, my power bill is a few hundred in the summer, I feel there just isn’t any competition here there only 2-3 companies doing it and they’re all small
It could be that those companies are evil, or perhaps their own prices are just very high because the industry isn’t scaled up in your area. Maybe they have a really hard time hiring equalities installers, and have to ship in parts from far away.
It was like that in California 20 years ago but it has changed enormously. When you drive down the street, how many houses have solar? It’s probably 3 in 10 here. I get nonstop Facebook ads and can name about 10 companies. With this comes lower prices. But there are still cheats out there. Never work with a “no money up front” company unless you only want to enjoy 10% of the benefit of the panels. For some it may be the only option but these companies are shysty as hell.
There almost 0 solar houses here, 1 in a hundred maybe. A few businesses have been doing it lately, I’ve seen 2 gas stations and several schools in the area do it. I’d like to get it done before my backwards ass state makes it illegal or something
Ouch that sounds rough.
$50k is a pretty large installation, 18kw-22kw I’d guess for solar only (no battery storage). I’m hoping thats only a max of 100% replacement of electricity sourcing (meaning essentially no net grid consumption after you’re installed). What’s the price per KWh for electricity delivered to your door in St Louis? Its gotta be pretty crazy cheap if you’re that large a consumer of electricity and you’re paying in cash with no battery, and still looking at multiple decades of ROI with the US federal tax credit.
I don’t remember the kWh specs and price off hand but a decent portion of the cost was that I’m in a 1.5 story that faces S and have a lot of small roofs rather than one large roof so it’d be a bunch of panels that didn’t have full sun most of the day. Which is true of all hundred houses in my subdivision as well. Basically build of the house made this difficult or impossible
Does that mean a substantial portion of the $50k quoted was setting up lots of panels is many small spaces, (because of the broken up nature of the roof) and that perhaps the system was oversized its electrical capacity because of the assumption that it would only be fractionally efficient because of the substandard angles and shading? I could see that. Certainly roof designs and even large mature trees can make solar unfeasible in those situations…
Maybe, I was so mad I didn’t even get more quotes, I should really do so but I was expecting 10-20 at most and hearing 50 kinda put me off the prospect for a while. Decided to spend effort on other home improvement we could see instead
If you are willing to DIY you can cut that number dramatically. Out of curiosity what was the size of the array in that quote and did it include battery storage if so how much chances are that you can cut it by anywhere from 50% to 75% if you’re willing to Simply purchase directly and install yourself. The amount that installers charge is absolutely asinine usually 50% or more of that quote is just the installation which is in the same because it’s not difficult at all. People like to act scared like oh that’ll be difficult or hard or dangerous, it’s extremely simple you’re dealing with DC which is very straightforward everything is very clearly labeled on that equipment and it’s quite simple to do yourself
Is there a go-to source for diy product and instructions? I’m interested in doing this in the near future.
I can’t think of any One-Stop shop for literally everything, but there is a lot of great material out there both on forums and on YouTube. If you take it one step at a time and look at each individual piece of the installation you’ll be able to find fantastic instructions for all of them fairly easily.
If you are in the US I recommend purchasing from signature solar, they have a lot of great bundles that will both save you some money and get you everything you need. I’d also say they have the best battery storage options, their rack mount batteries and their new wall mount battery are both fantastic and very easy to work with. They also sell solar panels by the pallet which helps you get a nice large array at a good price.
If I had to pick the hardest part it would just be making sure you get the grounding right on the inverter, if you’re not careful it’s pretty easy to end up with a ground Loop which isn’t particularly dangerous but it will cause lots of weird little issues like flickering lights and other annoyances. But it’s fairly easy to correct it it’s usually just a result of people connecting both the input and the output on the inverter as well as bonding the secondary panel to the primary panel which creates a ground loop. The solution is as simple as just don’t connect to the input power ground to the inverter only connect to the output ground so that it has to go through the ground Bond on the panels
It will definitely sound like a lot, but again if you just take each individual piece by itself it’s very straightforward very simple and you’ll be able to get it done while saving an absolute asinine amount of money compared to an installer.
I will warn you that if you try to do gridtie, which is where you’re able to send excess electricity back into the grid. That comes with a lot more red tape and can get a lot more complicated. I personally did an off-grid setup, which still uses the grid as a possible input so if my batteries are dead and there’s no sun out I can still use the power like normal it’s just not capable of sending Excess power back out into the grid so there’s a whole bunch of red tape that I don’t have to worry about.
An off-grid setup with grid power option is still considered a grid tie in my area since it needs a way to prevent backfeeding to the grid. Which is totally doable in several ways, just one additional thing to be aware of.
And as a former solar installer, I also remember looking at signature solar and thinking their kits looked the best.
That doesn’t really make sense, since an off-grid inverter literally cannot backfeed. It’s essentially just a computer UPS on steroids. It accepts the grid as an input that it can pass through but it’s not possible for it to push energy back to the grid.
I mean yes if you decided to hook its output directly up to your Mains panel without separation you would be back feeding. But only for maybe a few minutes at most as you would also destroy your inverter because it has no mechanism to synchronize the output with the mains since it’s not designed to backfeed
It’s 120v, there’s nothing to synchronize? Not sure what you’re talking about here. Same power is coming from the inverter, battery, grid, generator…
This is standard practice. Inverter - > monitoring - > maybe a knife disconnect - > main panel.
I’m not really sure what you are talking about, you need to synchronize both the phase of the power and the frequency. If they differ even slightly you damage your equipment. This is why when running multiple inverters in parallel they require both a Communication cable and a power sharing Cable in order to ensure that they stay perfectly synchronized. Inverters capable of doing grid tie have equipment in them to monitor the mains power and make sure that they stay synchronized with it. Whereas an off-grid inverter does not contain that equipment which is why they are generally cheaper
There are several different possible phases for 120 volt they are not all the same. And while hooking to the mains may be standard practice for something that can grid tie it is not standard practice for an off-grid inverter. You are specifically expected to have a secondary panel specifically for that inverter. The mains power will reach that secondary panel through the inverter when it’s in pass through but the panel should in no way be connected to the mains directly (other than a ground bond between the secondary panel and the mains)
With that having been said, I have no doubt that solar installers have instead opted to continue to use inverters that are capable of grid tie even in a installation that will not be backfeeding. Probably just to reduce the amount of inventory required so that they can get full purchase orders. But that doesn’t change the fact that a proper true off-grid inverter is not capable of tying into the mains without destroying itself
The fact that you say you were a solar installer, but you’re not even aware of something as simple as phases and frequency synchronization is part of the reason I feel like solar installers are wildly overpaid. You’re basically doing the bare minimum without really understanding what it is you’re doing
I mean, the other option is you’re pulling things out of your ass like every other armchair expert on the internet.
Like…no. You get 240v 2p incoming with a split bar. 120v is 120v is 120v. Maybe you’re dealing with 3 phase power but a residential building is not. And I have no idea why you’d have an inverter that outputs 3 phase power in a residential building.
Wow. 3000 square foot home here so we had a sizable system. It was $15k USD.
Ha, mines like 1200
Was that recently or last year? Prices were out of control last year. Here prices have dropped almost 30% just since May.
July last year.
OK, you might be able to get offers at about half the price now then. If things are like they are here.
I calculated our ROI to about 9 years, the company however promises about 6, but I think that’s overly optimistic.