Interesting Weather Record Set Today

[Tim Smith]

So what was the cost to you to install out of your pocket? Are they paying money to you to lease the panels? Curious how that works. How many years until you recoup your initial investment?

No upfront costs. In fact there is an environmental group paying you 200$ to install the panels. The company gets their money from the lease. You begin saving immediately.

[eric1978]

I saw a segment on Ask This Old House a few months ago, and the power company was installing panels on customers' homes free of charge, then the power company and home owner would split the savings. Can't remember any other details. I believe it was in AZ...or CA. Somewhere in the SW.

[Quillback]

No upfront costs. In fact there is an environmental group paying you 200$ to install the panels. The company gets their money from the lease. You begin saving immediately.

I see, so I assume that to make this work, your local power company has to buy back excess electricity from you. The reason I ask is that my local power company, last I checked, does not have a power buy back program.

[Tim Smith]

I see, so I assume that to make this work, your local power company has to buy back excess electricity from you. The reason I ask is that my local power company, last I checked, does not have a power buy back program.

Yes, that's correct.

Missouri also has fewer days with sunshine so the deal is less sweet there.

But these are the kinds of things that can be changed and the kinds of things it makes sense to change.

[Wayne SW/MO]

Obviously every installation will stand on its own, but we are talking about thousands of dollars a year for an all electric house.

Missouri is said to have a buy back, it has limitations and is a deduction, not a pay out.

If you think this is a bad idea then you, meaning all who read this, should consider who would be against it? The oil companies, the coal companies, the power companies and all the legislators they contribute to would lose big time if consumer owned solar panels were common.

If a move would start to install panels wholesale it couldn't lag, because the big companies who profit from energy production would back off production.

The ideal situation would be for them to see a profit to be made in the changeover.

[jeb]

I spoke to a solar consultant this weekend. The start-up costs of the offset package they were offering was a lease that was offset by 30% federal tax credit and 30% rebates from Excel Energy and a 100$ monthly lease. Energy sent back to the grid offsets Excel's cost and the savings to the consumer is 20-70%.

Confused on what you mean here. Are you paying them $100 a month to lease it? Those are some heavy incentives from the govt. Just more and more debt, I guess.

This is a business, not a charity and taking a big chunk out of my energy bill sounds pretty good to me.

So this is for a business, not residential?

Compare the environmental costs of making the panels to the drilling, piping, spilling and refining of coal based energy and it's pretty hard to see how this is a bad deal.

The problem is that we won't know exactly how much larger the impact will get as the demand would grow. The mining of minerals would grow exponentially, harsh chemicals from manufacturing disposal issues (especially in the countries where they will be made), disposal of the panels at end of life (they don't last forever), massive tracts of land required for the farms, environmental impacts for storage cells, etc. I look at it like ethanol. We did not realize all the downsides to it until after the fact. The green movement was all about ethanol. Now that we've seen it's impacts on food prices and how that impacts impoverished nations and even our poor, the environmental impact of farmers planting more margainal land to corn since the prices are so high, etc, it's not quite as pretty of a picture.

The point is all of these technologies have an impact on our environment. How big those may be is just about impossible to say up front.

[eric1978]

The point is all of these technologies have an impact on our environment. How big those may be is just about impossible to say up front.

They pale in comparison to fossil fuels...that much we know.

[Tim Smith]

Confused on what you mean here. Are you paying them $100 a month to lease it? Those are some heavy incentives from the govt. Just more and more debt, I guess.

Somehow I knew you would bite on the 30% government tax break. So your position is that we're better off with more taxes? Maybe we should just tax the oil companies another 30% if that's the solution to this problem.

So this is for a business, not residential?

It's for anyone who has energy needs.

The problem is that we won't know exactly how much larger the impact will get as the demand would grow. The mining of minerals would grow exponentially, harsh chemicals from manufacturing disposal issues (especially in the countries where they will be made), disposal of the panels at end of life (they don't last forever), massive tracts of land required for the farms, environmental impacts for storage cells, etc. I look at it like ethanol. We did not realize all the downsides to it until after the fact. The green movement was all about ethanol. Now that we've seen it's impacts on food prices and how that impacts impoverished nations and even our poor, the environmental impact of farmers planting more margainal land to corn since the prices are so high, etc, it's not quite as pretty of a picture.

This program use roofs, not vast tracts of land. We're not talking about ethanol.

The point is all of these technologies have an impact on our environment. How big those may be is just about impossible to say up front.

Impacts from solar panels on roofs? Compared to the Gulf Oil Spill, the Nigerian disaster, innumerable Middle East wars, OPEC...it would be pretty hard to be worse than that.

....as I said before, Jeb, I don't see much benefit in discussing alternative technologies with you. Your position has been that solar is "bad" and you're saying we should stick with carbon based technologies that we already know are altering the climate and increasing our dependence of foreign oil. Your position that we can't make any transitions now is demonstrably false. We're already in the process of diversifying our energy sources on very small scales. Some of those solutions are viable now.

[Feathers and Fins]

Yes it uses roofs and as a roofer I can tell you the cost for a new roof when you have to take one of them off and the damage they cause to roofs IS NOT cost effective in the long run. Then take into account we live in Hail Alley AND if that wasnt bad enough POA HOA rules that may prohibit then from being installed or installed to maximize their benifits.

Im not saying solar is not a bad thing but for the residential application, its not the way to go YET. Commerical application yes it could have benifits.

[Tim Smith]

Yes it uses roofs and as a roofer I can tell you the cost for a new roof when you have to take one of them off and the damage they cause to roofs IS NOT cost effective in the long run. Then take into account we live in Hail Alley AND if that wasnt bad enough POA HOA rules that may prohibit then from being installed or installed to maximize their benifits.

Im not saying solar is not a bad thing but for the residential application, its not the way to go YET. Commerical application yes it could have benifits.

This particular company owns the panels and handles problems due to weather etc. I'd be curious to know what the specific roof damage might be.

Last night I also noticed a commercial for roofing shingles with embedded solar panels. Amazing stuff.