Heh … I just finished reading this story from another source.
I’ve been offgrid on solar for over two years at this point. The future is here, it’s just not going to be evenly distributed.
And, hey, if you feel like you need to provide corporate welfare to utilities that are endlessly raising rates, that’s certainly your right. But it’s very nice to have neither a monthly power nor natural gas bill.
Is it perfect? No. Sometimes I have to plug in to rebalance the batteries, and when things get truly frigid, I have to flee to shelter. Still, a few days in a motel a couple times a year is far cheaper than paying for power each month.
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
I live in a van, so there’s no plumbing to worry about. Just turn the master switch on my power system so that the batteries aren’t trying to charge in too cold of an environment.
Powderhorn@beehaw.org 1 day ago
Heh … I just finished reading this story from another source.
I’ve been offgrid on solar for over two years at this point. The future is here, it’s just not going to be evenly distributed.
And, hey, if you feel like you need to provide corporate welfare to utilities that are endlessly raising rates, that’s certainly your right. But it’s very nice to have neither a monthly power nor natural gas bill.
Is it perfect? No. Sometimes I have to plug in to rebalance the batteries, and when things get truly frigid, I have to flee to shelter. Still, a few days in a motel a couple times a year is far cheaper than paying for power each month.
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 1 day ago
I’ve been wanting to, but I only have one southern-facing roof and I can only get a few panels on there. Do you think it’s worth it for partial power?
Powderhorn@beehaw.org 1 day ago
What sort of load do you have? Like, kWh/month?
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
hodgepodgin@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
any issues with your pipes freezing during those months? heating seems difficult to come by without much sun
Powderhorn@beehaw.org 1 day ago
I live in a van, so there’s no plumbing to worry about. Just turn the master switch on my power system so that the batteries aren’t trying to charge in too cold of an environment.