Comment on Trump Is Obsessed With Oil. But Chinese Batteries Will Soon Run the World.

• Powderhorn@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  What sort of load do you have? Like, kWh/month?

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  • scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I’d have to check, I’d say slightly above average. All of my appliances and HVAC are electric now, and I have a fair amount of other electrical use. If we include the EV, well above average. I don’t expect to ever get 100% off grid, but I wonder what percentage makes it worth it

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    • Powderhorn@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      “Slightly above average” is not a useful metric, I’m afraid. So, an EV means there’s not avoiding a grid tie unless you’ve got acreage for solar and are interested in buying a shitton of batteries.

      This is not the end of the world. What you can do is get a modest amount of solar and battery to lower your bills … it doesn’t sound like you’d be in a net-metering situation, so whatever shit rate your utility provides is off the table.

      What I will say is that ROI is only going up currently due to endless rate increases (and our power is city-owned; YMMV).

      How many watts do you think you could fit on that part of the roof? I’m assuming you’re looking into 450-500W panels.

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• LallyLuckFarm@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I can’t really tell you about your situation, but my wife and I did the math for our ROI on a set of roof mounted panels by assuming that the power company would continue raising rates. We averaged the delivery increases and generation cost increases over the number of years we had been in our home, then ran that annual increase over the lifespan of the panels. Rather than being a twelve year break even point it worked out to about seven. In our case, Maine has okay laws about net metering so check what your state and municipality’s regulations about it are. Look at your overall financial picture. If you can’t do it without a loan, shop for your own loan rather than just taking the installer’s.

  To answer your question anecdotally, this past summer we were very happy to only pay our grid connection fee of $18 monthly while our neighbors complained about $300 (or higher) each month. You might not hit your full generation needs, but you might make enough of a dent to make it worth your investment

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  • Powderhorn@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    People seem to be missing out on the ROI accelerating. Grid energy gets keeping getting more expensive per unit, and base fees, at least here, are absurd – it was about $42 to get my first kWh. Between that and them cutting power for a week when temps were in the single digits, I did the late-night infomercial thing of saying "There’s got to be another way.

    Also, agreed: Never get your loan from an installer.

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    • locuester@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I ran the numbers on mine and it’d be 25 years ROI, which is also likely past the life of the panels.

      I live northern US, with a hydro dam nearby and a non-profit co-op utility. $0.06/kWh. $25/mo hookup fee. And natural gas for heat.

      Doesn’t quite make sense yet.

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