Thats not gonna be the minimum, its a sliding scale of how much solar you can afford.
Comment on How do Texas residents afford electricity?
Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world 5 months agoI hear you, but a solar set up with batteries for a house in TX is often well over $100K. It’s not easy for most of us to pull that off, even with financing. And it’s not an option at all for renters.
blazera@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world 5 months ago
When you include enough battery storage to keep your HVAC working without interruption, the price becomes extremely high.
blazera@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Crazy thing about AC, its power draw lines up perfectly with solar production, you dont need much storage to run it.
Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world 5 months ago
That is simply not accurate in south Texas. It’s 90 degrees at midnight with 80% humidity. You need a great deal of storage.
Also, the system needs to over-produce and store that excess energy during the day so you cam continue to run all night. If there is heavy cloud cover, you will be relying on that storage during the day as well.
thr0w4w4y2@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
that’s ten times what it costs to install domestic solar, battery storage across all of Europe including major cities. Why is it so expensive? Panels are ~$200 each online and an inverter is $5k for a really good one.
Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world 5 months ago
In Texas, you must also have enough battery power to run your HVAC for at least 12 hours, which is extremely expensive here (~$80k for my home), given how hot it is. Without a substantial battery system, you will lose power when everyone else loses power.
A whole-home natural gas generator is only about $15k installed, and will run everything as long as your gas stays on.