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I'm not quite sure wotinel I clicked on, but I received exactly eighteen phone calls plus a few texts today from outfits trying to sell me solar.  Hell, one fella called from Nova Scotia! 

 

There's a big push on to sell systems before April 15, after which PG&E will reduce the amount they pay for homeowner generated electricity by 75% for new systems.  Also, government incentives in the form of tax credits will be going away.  

 

However, I'm a "seasoned citizen" in my seventies.  Tax Credits will do me no good whatsoever.  And I don't have $20k to $30k just sitting about to spend on something I may not live long enough to see pay for itself.

 

When I told a couple of those drummers this, they tried to convince me that  there's a product just for folk like me - "Power Purchasing Agreements," or PPA's.  This is where some outfit installs the system on your home but retains ownership; but you still get a break on power cost.

 

So, I'm curious... anyone here gone that route?  

 

Right off the bat, I see this as a possibly significant problem if one decides to sell his house and get the *bleep* outta california in a year or two down the road.

 

Thoughts and or comments?  :huh:

 

[We've been promised a 36.2% rate increase this year, following 25% increase over the last two years.  Also the electric company is trying hard for a separate fee of $70+/month to be levied on homes with solar.  As an aside, the state mandates solar on all new homes] 

 

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I don't think there's enough sun here to generate much power. I have those solar lights in my front yard and when there's no sun there's no light. It's pretty cloudy here in the winter (NE OHIO) How about other cloudy cities, Seattle, Detroit, Chicago etc. ??

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We installed a solar system about 15 years ago our monthly bill was $750.00 + last year we paid $1,137.00 for the entire year and most of that was fees, taxes etc. we’re looking at a 23% rate increase this year and another big one next year. I’m in the process of adding 10 more panels and mini inverters to our system so that we can afford to run the AC after these increases go into affect. Our house was built all electric except for the central heat which is propane. The 2 electric water heaters use a bunch of electricity and so does the induction stove top and double oven. My wife dries the clothes on a drying rack out on the patio. Oh, and did I mention that I have a bunch of electric woodworking tools?

 

Make sure you check the reviews on any solar company that you do business with because there are a LOT of flakes out there. A friend of mine does solar installations and he’s helping me add the additional panels to our system. The Power Wall and other back up batteries only power your house during power outages, they don’t run your lights and water heaters at night. My granddaughter and her husband had 2 of them installed when they put their solar system in and found that out. I put in a standby generator for a fraction of what they paid for the batteries.

 

As I understand the PPA’s if you sell your house the solar company gets part of the proceeds put in escrow to pay for their system.

 

The push by the tree huggers to do away with fossil fuels is going to take a huge bite out of everyone’s pocketbook. Going all electric is very expensive.

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You'll never get to a net zero payback. As in invest $30K and then wait to have saved that amount.

You'll never have the consistent day to day power they do their calcs on.

The panels loose efficiency over time.

And here's the really cool part, if roof mounted. They are going to punch a gozillion holes in your roof. Every one a potential leak.

And if you need to re-roof, then the whole system has to come down and back up.

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1 hour ago, Texas Lizard said:

The question I have is...Will you live long enough to see the saving...At my point in life, I kinda doubt it....A lot of money going out and a long time to see it come back...Just my thinking....

 

Texas Lizard

We did it a couple years ago. I had two primary reasons.

(1) Tax rebate. We got $9000 back on our income taxes that year. That allowed us to pay off a LOT of bills Which allowed me to retire.

(2) I may not see the savings, but if my wife outlives me, she won't have a high electric bill. I think our highest bill this summer was about $100. And that was a Tucson summer with the A/C running. 

Edit. We just got a new roof a few years ago, so I'm not worried about that.

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Thanks for all the input ~ good stuff.

 

Specifically, though...  any experiences or opinions on the "Power Purchasing Agreements," or PPA's?  This is where some outfit installs the system on your home but retains ownership; but you still get a break on power cost."   :mellow:

 

Seems to be tailored for those folk who think that leasing automobiles is a good deal.  :rolleyes:

 

 

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1 hour ago, irish ike, SASS #43615 said:

You'll never get to a net zero payback. As in invest $30K and then wait to have saved that amount.

You'll never have the consistent day to day power they do their calcs on.

The panels loose efficiency over time.

And here's the really cool part, if roof mounted. They are going to punch a gozillion holes in your roof. Every one a potential leak.

And if you need to re-roof, then the whole system has to come down and back up.

Our power bill annually was nearly $9,000.00 back when we installed the system and today the bill would be more than double that. Our system cost $46,000.00 and with the state and federal tax breaks and incentives it cost a little over $19,000.00 out of pocket. Most of those tax breaks and incentives have expired or are disappearing by the end of the year here so solar system installations are going to be very costly. Our system paid for itself in a little less than 3 years. Our panels are 15 years old and still put out  what they did when they were new, I check the output readout display quite regularly.

 

My system is mounted on the roof of the RV garage on composition shingles and we’ve never had a leak. In the winter when the sun is to the south the generation is much, much lower than the other 9 months of the year. We pay one annual payment and that’s called our true up that falls in November. We get a monthly statement of power usage and every December when we get our November statement my wife swears the solar system is not working so I take her outside and show her the position of the sun or that wet stuff falling from the sky and then I show her the display on the Sunnyboy inverter that shows that even though it’s cloudy and rainy or the sun is low to the south that the system is still generating but not that much. Once March rolls around the statement goes the other way.

 

We’re in a 20 year agreement with the power company and they have to buy the excess power that we generate and in 5 more years they get out of that and they get the excess for free thanks to our corrupt Public Utilities Commission and corrupt lawmakers. Had we not installed the solar power generating system our power bill would be pushing $20k annually now. When they no longer pay for the excess power we’re probably looking at $800.00-$1,200.00 per month power bill with all of the new rate increases coming up in the future. 

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4 hours ago, Texas Lizard said:

The question I have is...Will you live long enough to see the saving...At my point in life, I kinda doubt it....A lot of money going out and a long time to see it come back...Just my thinking....

 

Texas Lizard

Things may have changed since I stopped doing Dig-Safe 6 years ago. I many jobs for solar systems at residential homes. Most of the customers were elderly retired folks. Their normal power bill was in the $100 ballpark, the ones I'd see later on that were upgrading would tell me it lower the bill to just a few dollars. The catch go for me was that the system cost 20K plus,plus! 

So even if they got all their electricity needs from the solar, it would take just shy of 17 years to get payback if you had no upkeep costs. I would rather pay the power company a hundred a month and keep that 20K in my bank account for emergency at that age. 

 

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I'd wait until they can offered me a back yard or basement Cold Fusion or Nuclear reactor.

Till then, I'd stick with a Generator.

YMMV

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3 hours ago, Hardpan Curmudgeon SASS #8967 said:

Thanks for all the input ~ good stuff.

 

Specifically, though...  any experiences or opinions on the "Power Purchasing Agreements," or PPA's?  This is where some outfit installs the system on your home but retains ownership; but you still get a break on power cost."   :mellow:

 

Seems to be tailored for those folk who think that leasing automobiles is a good deal.  :rolleyes:

 

 

My neighbor, who is 82 installed a Sun Run system a couple of years ago and seems to be happy with it. He had no out of pocket costs and says that his power bill is much lower than it used to be even running the a/c quite a bit in the summer. He still pays the power delivery fees and other regulatory fees and soon all home solar systems will be assessed another $70.00 or so per month as punishment for going solar, my opinion of course. The neighbor told me that their contract stipulated that if they sell the house then the balance remaining on the cost of the system would come out of the proceeds of the sale. I asked him what happens if he has to sell the house at a loss and he said he wasn’t sure what happened then. He’s had it on the market for well over a year and it hasn’t sold.

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8 hours ago, Marshal Dan Troop 70448 said:

One thing never mentioned is the cost involved when its time for a new roof under the panels and cost to remove and replace bad panels and disposal fees.

Yes, they will pay for and maintain the panels then you pay for removal and disposal.   Paying a panel recycling processor,  not the dump. Who knows what it will cost to process them in 20-30 years.  The EPA will have new rules by then.

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On 2/10/2023 at 9:02 AM, Marshal Dan Troop 70448 said:

One thing never mentioned is the cost involved when its time for a new roof under the panels and cost to remove and replace bad panels and disposal fees.

My solar is leased.  THEY pay for any maintenance to the system including removing and reinstalling the panes in case of a roofing job...which is why my mew roof has been delayed two months.  They have a backlog because of a lot of hail and wind damage to roof sin the last couple of years .

 

I also am grandfather in for any rate increases for 25 years, five years past the end of the lease payments.  I have seventeen years left which will make me ninety eight years old.

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On 2/10/2023 at 2:29 AM, Hardpan Curmudgeon SASS #8967 said:

I'm not quite sure wotinel I clicked on, but I received exactly eighteen phone calls plus a few texts today from outfits trying to sell me solar.  Hell, one fella called from Nova Scotia! 

 

There's a big push on to sell systems before April 15, after which PG&E will reduce the amount they pay for homeowner generated electricity by 75% for new systems.  Also, government incentives in the form of tax credits will be going away.  

 

However, I'm a "seasoned citizen" in my seventies.  Tax Credits will do me no good whatsoever.  And I don't have $20k to $30k just sitting about to spend on something I may not live long enough to see pay for itself.

 

When I told a couple of those drummers this, they tried to convince me that  there's a product just for folk like me - "Power Purchasing Agreements," or PPA's.  This is where some outfit installs the system on your home but retains ownership; but you still get a break on power cost.

 

So, I'm curious... anyone here gone that route?  

 

Right off the bat, I see this as a possibly significant problem if one decides to sell his house and get the *bleep* outta california in a year or two down the road.

 

Thoughts and or comments?  :huh:

 

[We've been promised a 36.2% rate increase this year, following 25% increase over the last two years.  Also the electric company is trying hard for a separate fee of $70+/month to be levied on homes with solar.  As an aside, the state mandates solar on all new homes] 

 

First off.. there is no such thing as a solar panel company in Nova Scotia. Have you ever been there? The nearly daily, persistent fog and mist rolling in from the ocean make it impossible to collect any rays.......So that one was a hoax.  Apologies to our Canadian friends.

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I have solar, my total bill is 80 a month, 15 of that is the power company with there hands out for their cut.

 

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9 hours ago, Capt. R. Hugh Kidnme said:

First off.. there is no such thing as a solar panel company in Nova Scotia. Have you ever been there? The nearly daily, persistent fog and mist rolling in from the ocean make it impossible to collect any rays.......So that one was a hoax.  Apologies to our Canadian friends.

 

Nope... not a hoax:  https://energypal.com/ 

 

The fella who called me was in Nova Scotia.  Marketing outreach operations are commonly well remote from the manufacturing/servicing operations.  In fact, calls are not even necessarily made from a corporate facility.  Ever called the phone company and gotten someone named "Daryl" in Mumbai?  Or UPS, and connected with a customer service rep in the Philippines?  :rolleyes:

 

How did I know he was Canadian?  I asked ~ his pronunciation was a dead giveaway.  I have family in Nova Scotia; we chatted for quite a while about the province and locales.    :lol:  

 

But I still didn't sign up.  ^_^

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15 hours ago, Hardpan Curmudgeon SASS #8967 said:

 

Nope... not a hoax:  https://energypal.com/ 

 

 

 

How did I know he was Canadian?  I asked ~ his pronunciation was a dead giveaway.  I have family in Nova Scotia; we chatted for quite a while about the province and locales.    :lol:  

 

 

 

 ....... they've probably gotten calls from him by now .......  :mellow:

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On 2/11/2023 at 2:55 PM, The Shoer 27979 said:

I have solar, my total bill is 80 a month, 15 of that is the power company with there hands out for their cut.

 

My power company sends me rebates in the winter time for power I generate and they HAVE TO buy back from me.  It about breaks even in the summer when I run my AC a lot. 

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I have the perfect roof angle for solar.  Clear of trees and lots of open roof space.  The only problem is, we get our electricity at about 8 to 10 cents per kilowatt hour.  Ok, that's not really a problem.   If I produce any excess, they only pay me 2 cents per kw/hr. (wholesale rate)  We have a natural gas water heater, furnace and one of those environmentally unfriendly stoves.   My power bill is usually between $100 and $200 per month.  I like the idea of being self sufficient but I just can't justify buying solar with those numbers.  

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12 hours ago, Forty Rod SASS 3935 said:

My power company sends me rebates in the winter time for power I generate and they HAVE TO buy back from me.  It about breaks even in the summer when I run my AC a lot. 

We got 1 rebate so far, we also just got everything approved  to use about 2 months ago.

 

We are going to put our house on the market next month, so we can buy our RV to travel around the country. I have looked  into solar for our RV And I am going to put solar on our RV

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