The Market Strikes

Affordable Solar

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3 Responses to The Market Strikes

  1. I’m not an electrician, or even reasonably well schooled on electrical matters, but it just seems a bit too simple.

    As in, how do you stop that power from entering the grid? Especially in a situation where, say, the power company has shut down power to do work of some sort, and they’re expecting your line to be cold, but, because of your plug-in solar panels, it’s not.

    Methinks they wouldn’t be too happy about that.

    I know everything I’ve ever seen written about hooking up a generator to your home has included a bit about making sure you can’t do what I just described. Is solar somehow different?

  2. at $600, and claiming the $50 energy savings per year you are still looking at a 12 year span to break even.

    That’s about a 6% return, if you can take the advertiser’s numbers at face value. (which probably assumes ideal placement, high power cost, etc)

    The built-in “grid tie inverter” will not let power flow during a blackout, so you’re not getting any “belt and suspenders” utility.

    money quote: “…Four years or less. That includes tax cuts and rebates, and will obviously depend on the cost of your electricity…”

    Solar will have arrived only when it makes sense without government subsidy programs.

  3. MadRocketScientist says:

    HL – Unless you have a special meter, you electrical meter will not allow power to feed back to the grid. Many utilities will happily switch out your old meter for free. I think the meters also have a feature that prevents power from flowing to the grid unless the grid is energized.

    SM – You are missing the point. To date, a PV installation would easily run you $20K – $30K for the panels, the inverters, the batteries, etc. Now you have a company offering a PV install for a tenth of the price. That, my friend, is the free market at work.

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