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I had 4 solar salesman come by this year promoting the net metering program. The installation cost always makes them seem not very cost effective. I might need to look into this DIY option.
If you are going the DIY route first check what the requirements are in your area, Where I live I had to pay an engineer to certify the installation and sign up with my power company's net metering program so they could start tracking the system on their end. The reason is that the net metering equipment needs to be compatible with your local grid or you will cause damage to the grid and your own equipment.
Yeah that combined with the local hydro company only offering 50% credit for energy produced, it’s in no way cost effective to install solar in my city.
You both should check out Will Prowse. His channel explains in huge detail the best and cheapest way to set up battery systems. Be cool to see a colab with him.
@@Andy-gti It's promoting a technology, sure. The fact Zack suggests people should check around because there may be cheaper options where they are means most people won't be too-bothered by the sponsored bits.
After living with roof mounted solar panels (grid tied) for 4 years I can say with confidence that if you live where it snows, and you plan to go off grid, you need to mount the panels on a steep angle. Don't worry about it being too steep for the summertime, there's tons of sun in the summer. It's the panel's ability to shed snow, lower sun angle and shorter days in the winter that you need to plan for.
Watching the youtuber timbatsea he has a setup that is mounted were when comes on in the morning it drops the panels down to dump any snow in the winter. And it will even dump it in a different spot everyday so it will not buildup on the ground. Nice idea so you don't need to go out everyday and clear it off
@@kb9liq That sounds neat. To me, the best part about solar is the simplicity and lack of maintenance. If I had the choice I'd go rack mounted and, at most, I would adjust them once in the spring and once in the fall.
Continuous snow will get you near zero power. After it's done I go out with the squeegee and it take 10 minutes to clear the snow. The bigger problem is going from 12 hours of sun in the summer to 4 in winter. In the summer I can run my A/C all day long and do laundry without problems. In the winter I run out of power after a few days of clouds.
As someone who lived through that Texas Freeze, that wasn't the half of it. We were freezing to death in our homes. We couldn't drive anywhere because there is no deicing of roadways. I didn't have drinkable water for almost 2 weeks, we were just lucky to have some bottled water. At least our food didn't go bad because it was refrigerator temp inside the house Yeah that really blew. Get some solar power and batteries.
Twas crazy. We had a little generator (20 years old and i had to rebuild the carb) that we ran all our gas furnaces off of. Our house was 68 degrees while the rest of the neighborhood was frozen
I remember that storm! The Governor blamed it on the wind farms if I remember correctly. I also heard Ford was kind enough to lend out some of their hybrid F-150 trucks that could be used as a whole house generator. Ford did not get enough credit for that.
I just got solar installed, I'm so amped! (Pun intended lol) So far we're 100% grid independent, with a 6KWp system and 7.2KWh of battery storage. We also had pretty heavy rain for a couple days and we still managed to not use the grid! About ¼ of our roof is covered so we very well could expand if we get an electric car (hopefully soon) or something. So far though we're completely fine with the setup we have, 6KWp is way more than enough for an European home. We use 250-400W constantly with some short peaks at 1.5-3.5KW, so we're good. The 7.2KWh battery does last the whole night Here in Italy we had a 110% tax credit (yep, 110%!) last year, we just missed it so we had to "settle" for a 50% credit, a friend used the 110% thing and made money before even having it installed lol Here in Italy electricity prices are absurd right now, at 0.35€/KWh, fluctuating a bit every month. In a week we already saved about 30€ in energy we would have consumed and didn't, and are selling excess energy pretty much during the whole day! Yes, here in Italy we don't have a "grid credit" but excess energy gets sold to the grid, for about 0.14€/KWh on average during the year. You get a check from the energy company once a year for it. The profit might be quite a bit higher this year, looking at energy prices. We'll see, as we've only had the system for about a week lol. So far, it's good!
I have 1.8KW system and 7.5KW of battery. During sunny days my batteries are full before noon. I hope you use that wasted power. I'd have gone for bigger batteries. I ''had'' to put an A/C in my off grid cabin to actually use the most of the pannels.
Here in Saudi we don’t have tax credit because we pretty much don’t have taxes and electricity in general very cheap $0.04 KWh. The electricity company buys back the excess electricity which’s kinda good but I don’t think it’s encouraging since the electricity already cheap.
I installed my solar wholesale setup just over a year ago with help from your videos. Same experience as you, working really well maintenance free. Thanks for posting the update!
Same here! We went with 9.24KW grid tie. We were averaging $400 a month in electricity. System will have paid for itself by next year. I ended up doing my uncles house, my cousins house and now my other uncle wants it too! Friends and family only! 😂
@@scotth9822 unbound solar wholesale Formerly known as wholesale solar This company is based on the west coast. It’s ideal to find a seller that’s at least in your time zone so you can access customer support more freely if need be.
We went with solar last year. Insane on the savings from having to pay the full amounts. The last 6 months have cost me $14 a month just to keep on my electric companies grid. So, the last six months have cost me zero for actual electricity, minus the cost of the panels and grid dependence.
@@orppranator5230 Most panels cost in the region of $1 to $2 per watt, about 3-5kW is roughly the minimum to run an entire house and rarely need the grid, so $4500-$7500 + installation would be a safe estimate.
@@orppranator5230 With a system that covers your entire house's energy usage, after degradation, inefficiencies, installation, costs of inverters, panels, wiring, etc, it'll take around 10 years to see a return. Depending on whether you can sell back to the grid, and how much you can sell for, and other considerations. It'll be paid off right around the time the panels have about half their life left. Not as bad as an EV, where their batteries are degraded and need replacement after around 9 years, and the battery replacement costs more than the car is worth. (Around $15k-25k.) But it's still something to think about. Shelling out $10k-20k+ for a solar system is a lot of money.
@@orppranator5230 oh, and you should really weigh the cost of putting on a new roof before you add solar panels. If your roof is 20 years old, and you're covering most of it in panels, it'll make sense to put on a new roof BEFORE you add the panels. Rather than having to remove all the panels, support structures, and electronics in a few years to replace your roof. This is obviously dependant on the type of roof, typical lifespan of that type of roof, she of roof, number of panels you'll be installing, etc. But it's a cost nonetheless. Chances are, you'll need to pay someone to remove all the solar equipment, at least once, to install a new roof.
So in San Diego the rate starts at 0.39 per kwh for the first 125 kwh of use then the rate jumps to 0.49 for any extra kwh you use. In your case the 12,639kwh you produced last year is around $5,687 in savings if we consider the average rate is 0.45 .
Exactly why I just installed solar with battery back up, saw that in January 2023 SDGE is raising their rates by another 11%. Pretty soon they will be scrambling for customers. It’s a fine line they were walking with such high rates, they finally fell off that line and the dominoes are falling one by one. Solar is a no brainer here with the amount of sun we get every day.
I live in Texas and was one of the people without power for about 3 days. Since then I added more solar, I already had solar, but solar power is required to turn off when there is no grid power so it didn't help. I now have two Tesla powerwalls, and went from 5.4kw of solar to 9.1kw of solar. Now, with the powerwalls, there is a Tesla box that will automatically disconnect the grid when there is an outage allowing my solar to keep producing and I can run off battery when the solar is not producing. Now, I not only produce way more power than I use during winter, but in the summer as long as it isn't cloudy it looks like I can pretty much break even on some of the hottest days. It is really nice having the piece of mind that comes with this type of system. Of course it is quite expensive, so definitely not something that I expect many people to be able to do right now.
At 4:55 Your "Year 1" vs "Year 2" difference is normal: Brand new solar panels actually produce more than their rated power output. So the first year production is always noticeably higher than subsequent years. The panels do also degrade over the years: so you'll see that year 10 will be lower than year 2. But the drop from Year 1 to year 2 is by far the largest drop and then it levels off. 7:15 I was one of those 5 million people without power in Texas. I should say without "grid power" because I used the LFP battery I built for my motorhome which produces 240v split phase power to backfeed my panel and was able to run all of my household appliances: Well pump, water heater, clothes dryer, etc. On Day 1 of the outage I was recharging my battery with the diesel generator on my motorhome, but on day 2 I cleared enough snow off my solar panels to run entirely off of solar. Since our well was working we were providing our neighbors with the water they needed and since our water was flowing none of our pipes froze thankfully. I now plan to build a dedicated battery for my home to avoid these situations in the future. At 7:50 I would disagree: The cheapest option is buying the raw cells and building your own pack. You can buy the raw cells wholesale from China for roughly $160/kWh so you could build an F150 sized battery for about $16,000. Once you add in inverters and BMS you're looking at closer to $25,000 all in. That is cheaper than an F150 but at least an F150 can do double duty: You can drive it around and use it when you don't need the backup battery capability. :)
Hey Zack. Awesome work.👍 The drop in power in year 2 can be attributable to PV degradation, which is abt 0.7% per year. Thats also how you get to the 80% power warranty at 25 yr. And ofcourse clean the panels, soiling loss is one of the biggest controllable losses. Please do not keep heavy items (like batteries) on the panels, there can be microcracks on the cells 😟
I have a solar sysyem for two years now. My system has six 390w pannels and four batteries, 280 amps each. The only thing I have connected to the grid is a 220v outlet for a range and three 110v outlets for small appliances and a small grill. The rest of the house is totally independet. My system cost me about $10,000, and my total savings are around $114.00. Electricity here is abot $0.26 KwH. A great investment considering it will pay itself in 5 years. I live in Puerto Rico and do not need air condioning or a heating system. If anyone have doubts on solar pannels, do it, you won't regret it.
I've been watching this channel for years and I'm only NOW realising Zack doesn't use graphs or charts or any fancy animations AND still keeps the videos interesting and entertaining. 🤯
I'm loving the projects that you do and the EV content. I subbed for the phone destruction, but the channel content just keeps getting better and better!
So the only thing I'm going to add to Zack is that if you're going to go with a local solar installer do your research some of those installers will go through and actually put a lien on your house. Make sure you read the fine print because if you ever want to sell your house you will either have to pay off the lien or the solar company will come and take the solar and they won't take it very nicely or you will have to pass the lien on to the new owners which a lot of loans will not cover solar leins. Just make sure you do plenty of research!
In germany my kWh price went up from 0,30€ to 0,37€ (1€ = $1,05). When you produce more power than you need, you will get 0,06€/kWh and also have to pay tax for that. If you're getting a tax refund on the solar panels at beginning, you have to pay tax on all the power that you use for yourself. Here we just can dream of getting 90% power credit from the grid operator without any bureaucracy or paying tax on everything. It's very sad.
Hey Zach I’ve been keeping up with you since high school and am planning an off grid self sufficient cabin build in the next 5 years. As you keep producing diy content it will drive down costs and make clean energy more realistic for the masses. I have friends who sell solar and they’re getting paid way more than what it’s worth to have and install units. Thanks for documenting your experiments it inspires a lot of people.
The installation costs are indeed a nightmare. But the hardware also costs a whole lot to be honest. Unfortunately grid-tie systems often go offline when the grid is down, unless there is a master inverter that separates the microinverter array from the grid and provides a baseline for the separated system untill the grid kicks back in. I have found a pretty good niche myself - broken hardware. Received a damaged 6KVA UPS for effectively scrap value and I'm making a 12V buffer system for it, powered with random solar panels i find for little to nothing. For now the main battery is a string of 15 lead acids in series, but in the future ill go for lithium ions. The 12V buffer is a 200Ah Liion battery from a wrecked vehicle, turned out only one cell out of 6 was shorted. Using broken hardware is really the highest cost/efficiency ratio you can get, of course at the price of knowing what you are doing, but many things could be handled by literally anyone! :)
My PhD research is in solar panels and maintaining efficiency throughout its entire service life. Soiling is a major issue in solar panels, and will accumulate over the years. Always make sure to clean the panels annually, or biannually, and think about applying an optically clear hydrophobic coating!
@@brendanlaird5831 rain can dislodge cementation of dirt, dust and biological debris which is good. However, it cannot dislodge bird droppings, also, with the increased amount of rain you need to look out for moss and lichen build up. 👍
@@brendanlaird5831 Mount a sheet of glass at the panel angle in your yard. Something you can touch and look at. It should soil at the same rate as your panels. Clean and cover a part of it for reference.
I worked at an ISP that provides internet to rural areas, and the only solution to power the repeater antennas is solar energy. So it's great to see technology evolving over time.
Those electricity prices are crazy. In the UK I'm currently paying 31.247p/kWh daytime and 20.3742p/kWh night (about 38 cents/25 cents). Using a small solar panel setup with a separate battery inverter and pretty big battery setup (16kWh lead acid, picked the batteries up for free) which does a good job of shifting most of my usage onto solar or night rate.
FYI, Lithium Titanate batteries have a chemistry that allows you to charge below freezing - also, they cycle tens of thousands of times. They are, however, a bit more expensive.
The more I look at this guy, the more confident I feel for him if he ever decides to act as `Lex Luthor`. Appreciate your informative videos Keep rocking... you evil genius
Northern California here. Our longest blackout in my town (Foresthill) was 16 days. Thank god I had my Tesla powerwalls and solar to make it hardly noticeable, and the opportunity to lend help to neighbors.
A seedling heating mat may be worth looking into for your 3 battery system. It seems you could run it off them and heat them all slightly when needed. Such mats only raise the temp up to 20 degrees so could be easily managed with a timer or sensor.
I wish I had the skills and health to install, as well as being an age where I would benefit from the 25+ years of energy :). One of the things that surprised me when moving from the UK to Arizona 20+ years ago was that every roof didnt have panels on them in the valley of the sun.
Great video. I have had Solar hot water and Solar panels on my home since 2007. One thing everyone should be careful of. Do not lease a solar system from any company. If you can not purchase it yourself don’t do it. Thanks again for all the videos you put out.
Yes the F150 Lightning could be used as a power bank for the house AND as a truck, but not at the same time. The house should have its own power bank if you want the fridge running at all times.
I just did my solar system, installed with just me and a friend. 4 Lv6548, 4x 13.4 kwh batteries and 60 panels. Producing about 120kwh a day. Total cost was about 50K but hoping to get some solar tax credits in 2023.
Where do you live? We are looking to do a 15.2kW system in MA and are wondering if we are overdoing it? We want to be 100% self sufficient and will likely get an EV (or two) in the next five years. We will also have about 25kWh battery backup.
@@belavet I live in Arizona, so it's usually sunny here and I just commissioned the system 2 months (roughly) ago, so I haven't yet been able to test whether my 54kwh battery storage is enough or not during a cold snap or harsh weather. But, in general, I would love more storage - my solar array can produce up to 120kWh per day when sunny and i'm only home at night so, during the week it'd be nice to charge my EV more off the battery. Until i collect more data i really can't give advice - other than, a little bigger and little more storage is always preferable. But so far my system just works the juice coming in is plenty and haven't had any issues knock on wood.
In Belgium the government has really screwed solar owners over. At first they heavily subsidized it. Up to the point where there were companies renting roof space from other companies to put the roofs full of solar to strike up the eco credits. The government then took a long time to shut that down, but when they did they went further. There came a tax on the DC/AC converter which made solar a lot less attractive. When that tax was finally changed, they started forcing these "smart electricity meters" upon us that wouldn't roll backwards anymore but they promised us that the rewards for the power we push to the grid would remain the same. And then they slashed the rewards we got for that excess power to zero, or about a fifth of what it costs to buy power if you sign a contract. Right now they're trying to force every new solar owner to install a far to expensive home battery, giving them a very tiny subsedy that gets smaller the bigger your battery gets. Oh and the electricity company gets the right to use the energy in your battery when they're short on supply. Nearly for free, of course.
I recently bought a house with a solar lease that I had to take on.... DON'T EVER LEASE SOLAR PANELS, it's entirely not worth it, you don't get any of the incentives, and in the long run you pay more than 3x what an install would have cost. Luckily I was able to pay off the lease early which saved me about $48k in the long run, but still cost almost 2x as much as it would have to just install the same system. Leasing is so darn predatory.
Glad to see you went with a micro-inverter setup. I've been installing solar on houses in Aruba for about a year now (my own house included) using mostly the AP-Systems micro-inverters and they turn out to be more efficient than a string-inverter setup, plus the benefits of being able to monitor each panel individually. Also, if by any bad luck a panel breaks down, this doesn't influence the performance of all the other panels, so production loss is minimal. Both string- and micro inverter setups have their benefits and drawbacks, but still I prefer the micro-inverter systems. What's also interesting is the development of hybrid micro-inverters, allowing you to tie into the grid, but also have a battery backup system. No need to split your solarpanel-array between on- and off grid. We're about to install one of those systems in the near future and I'm excited to get my hands on it. As always a great video. Thank you and keep up the good work!
The hybrid aspect is part of what has influenced me away from looking at micro-inverters, that and dual conversion if you want to charge a battery bank
@@michiganengineer8621 you don't have to go hybrid to get battery storage. There are dedicated units such as the Sofar ME3000SP which monitor your supply and solar output and charge or discharge as needed. I've got Enphase microinverters and the above Sofar storage inverter playing nicely together.
I installed a cheap second hand solar system on my mums roof (6kw) and connected it up the power box to feed into the grid and directly offset the meter box so was getting a 100% rebate on all power going out. It paid for itself in less than 1 year...I cant however recommend anyone do that themselves for various reasons...
You already have about 100kw of batteries that you can use for house backup when needed! Yes, I'm talking about the electrified Hummer... I'm sure you can figure out a V2G (vehicle to grid) upgrade for it... 😋 It would definitely be an interesting project to see!
I'm in the middle of getting a 9kWh system installed on my 'new' house. I gotta say, the worst part is still just dealing with all the local regulations, permits, and installers. I started the process in February and it is now May and the permit still hasn't been approved. It's no wonder I hardly see any solar setups in my area of north west Indiana.
@@Thros1 My county has a rule that part of the installation has be done by an approved 'master electrician' in the county. It's that guy who's been taking his time... he's the only one allowed to do it though
@@blindtechworld Yes and no. If it were completely off grid and I never planned to sell the house, I could DIY it. If it ever caused an issue and was un-permitted, insurance would not cover anything. Because it's grid tied, a permit is required which has all these strict requirements "for safety".
For those interested in Tesla Solar, please look up reviews before you get too far into the process. There are a lot of videos on RU-vid talking about significant delays and post-signature price hikes- stuff that doesn't speak well about the vendor...
I love this kinda stuff & Zach is so entertaining to watch! I know he built this channel by testing phones, but personally I enjoy the vlog style more! 🙌
I don't understand how it's already been 2 years since you installed these. Now that I've got my own house, this is definitely something I want to look into and save and invest for. So thank you for these super informative and helpful videos!
I don't see why anyone would not want some sort of solar setup like this as backup. I have a power bank for emergencies and it has kept essential power (fridge, lights, medical equipment) during outages and I never had to use my gas generator or top up during the outage. For less than $1,500, you can find relatively affordable options to weather through outages, conservation mandates, and for emergencies. The sun is a great gift to our solar system, especially to this planet. Take advantage of it if you can!
As someone with a big solar installation, another thing I really like is that they are very good at keeping the heat out of your house. It's litteraly an extra roof over your roof. My roof was very will insulated to begin with, but adding a layer of solar over it has made a noticeable difference Other than that, very nice and clear video. The 90% credit back is steep and does completely invalidate setting up your own battery (unless you could/need one for emergency back up).
you explain it so good, that even a non tech person can understand it, but when i saw the panels of you, i do recomment cleaning them(more light can touch the panels) EDIT: this whas written before seing the full video
I have a 6 kw system that was installed by ADT Solar. I also have a model 3 performance. I wish that electric cars would offer V2G. My Model 3 has a 70kwh battery that is sealed and heated. I could power my home for a few days on the battery alone and with my solar it would take me a month or so to run out of power. For you with 3 electric vehicles a V2G solution would allow you to probably run indefinitely. I feel like it is a massive missed opportunity as it would offer insane levels of grid stability even if the grid went down.
I love Solar, problem is I never plan on living in the same house for 25 years. I don't want to spend 35k every time I move even if it can raise the house value.
@@Adrian-dv1sl You would not take it to your new house, the new house would not architecturally be the same and you would not use the same amount of solar panels, or the same size panels. The dimensions are based on the roof. You also would leave hundreds of holes in the old roof, from mounting them.
...sun light hits this panels and magic science stuff happens... That magic is When sunlight hits the pannel due to photovoltaic cell it generates DC current, When the sun hits the semiconductor within the PV cell, electrons are freed and bus bars collect the running electrons which results in electric current. Love from india ✨🇮🇳❤️
PNW Have zero electric bill since 2019. 6.3KW array, 8,500KWH per year every year pretty much. I burn off the surplus to trim my winter fuel bill. $10K after tax credit installed cost. I got the Solar Wholesale package and had an independant guy do the whole installation, done in two days. Zero issues. $ 2.38 per watt installed cost. Really good Free solar calculators out there. AVISTA and others Good video.
In India we get break even at just 2.5 years. Panels are super cheap here + Govt subsidizes cost by 20% for large system and 40% for small system. I have 4 kWh system and generates around 5.3 MWh per year, enough for my all electricity needs.
Great video and great explanations! One thing you forgot to mention is that a grid tied system will not produce electricity if they do not sense power from the grid. This is why tons of homes in Florida with tens of thousands of dollars worth of solar panels didn’t have any power after the hurricanes. This is also why Texas homes with solar panels did not have electricity more recently. It is a safety measure to ensure that you’re not creating power and putting it into a grid that a lineman may be working on thinking there’s no power running through the lines. I’ve had to explain this to many people saying that solar won’t help you if there’s no power because they don’t understand how the grid tied inverters work.
You probably haven't heard about Grid Forming Micro Inverters. Check out the new Enphase IQ8 series microinverters, they call it the sunlight Backup option. Yeah, you can have power even when the grid is out.
As you said Zack, a grid-tie system doesn't do anything for you in a black-out situation. You're still without power. Plus, you're always tied to an almost "government agency" in the power company itself, that can change prices and policies on a whim. You're better off buying some Class A, LiFePO4 cells (280-300 Ah per cell) batteries and building your own battery bank. With a cycle life of about 7000, that's about 20 years of service. I know when you have a lot of money, it's easier to just increase Tesla's stock value and go the easy route, but there's very little personal satisfaction that way, as you've learned in your Humvee build. I live in an apartment and I'm relatively poor, not like you. But, I've still built my own 7.1 KWh battery backup system out of eight 280 Wh LiFePO4 batteries in series at 24 V, with a 2500 watt inverter. I got my eight batteries a couple years ago and it was about $840 shipped. Now, it's about $1100 shipped, but still not that bad a deal. I can power everything I usually do, for a full 24 hours and if I conserve, I can go for days. Except air conditioning in the summer, damn! Time to build a bigger bank! :) Cheers, Sev PS - The fanboys of Tesla, Apple, Musk, etc... have always just made me cringe. It's an inexplicable and almost psychotic level of false deity worship, without any reason.
Building your own custom batteries is always super satisfying. Congrats! Sometimes its not really cheaper especially for e-bike batteries which I find strange, but it is the way it is. With prices going up that mythical $100/kwh of batteries is pretty much gone.
Hey! Thanks, some questions... How much of your vehicles' electricity are you providing from your own panels? How is that savings accounted? Thoughts on using the vehicles as part of the system? And what of the arbritige? My thought is that an app oversees the charge/discharge rate and time for any connected battery, powerwall, local neighborhood megapack-ministation, or vehicles. The overall strategy would be to charge mostly at low cost times, late at night, while discharging into the grid during the day, during peak. Personal calendar, weather apps all tied in. How about a solar water-heater for that off-grid section? Run some water down to it. Sunny winter days would generate enough to warm up the battery compartment. A super out there follow up would be to run heated water into those raised beds. Warming up the soil earlier, extending the warm season, and at times even cooling off the soil's temp can all be done to great advantage. Could dial in a crop of corn to mature earlier than others locally, can also extend vine ripe picking of tomatoes until first hard frost. The hummer could be tied into the system, no? Charge up at night/discharge during the day? Set reasonable limits in an app.
Nice setup. I wish I had the know-how and skill to install everything myself. But we just bought our system from Tesla with Powerwalls. The goal was more to always have power than save cost, since we have been working from home for many years. And when you develop software, if you don't have power, you can't generate revenue. So far everything has worked out well. We no longer have an electric bill and when the rest of the block's power is out, we can still work, surf the web, cook, run the heater, or watch TV.
I was literally just talking about this. I'm building a 12 volt solar RC car. I already have small lead acid 12 volt battery and two 12 volt solar panels and 12 volt solar controller. I want to do a full scale solar on our apartment and do all the wiring myself because that's my hobby. I was thinking about setting up some poles in the ground with some solar arrays on top and miniature telephone pole lines that can go from the solar panels to my apartment and neighbors apartments.
Not sure if you've heard of this before, but you're planning something akin to a 'microgrid' You may find some interesting/ helpful research papers with that keyword :)
Hoping to try getting ahold of some used panels or ones that have been in a warehouse forever and putting a 9kw array on the roof. Panels aren’t too bad price wise it’s just getting proper equipment that can properly convert DC to AC
You guys are fortunate to have a supportive government and power companies that buy your excess at a reasonable price. Here in NZ we pay 30+ cents per KW/h and get only 8c back. Less than 1/3. So basically, solar panels are good, but only if you're a higher user then the ROI will work.
Ideally. For many kiwis their electric car will be taking them to work. In my case I don't have one yet. It's still all a bit new we have not a lot of convenient infrastructure. Electric cars are expensive. The Nissan Leaf is the most popular.
I installed mine myself in June of 2021, and they work fantastic so far. I am currently planning to expand the capacity as I need more power now. Clean energy is just another form of happiness.
Zack something that I've been wondering about with roof solar systems is - what if you need to do roof work; like shingling or other maintenance? Does that add any extra cost when the time for those things come around?
Yes. You will eventually have leaks. The holes in the roof are filled with some kind of silicone or some other kind of sealant. Over time, due to weather (heat, cold cycles, wind) the sealant will fail and cracks will develop and grow. Every attachment to your roof is a roofers dream, as they know it will eventually mean work/money for them!
I’ve installed solar myself, and I would say that the risk of a leak due to the solar installation itself is very slim granted the installation was done properly. I’m more worried about things happening under the panels (tiles breaking due to whatever) that I can’t see since there are panels in the way.
I was worried about the same so what we did was mount the panels on a framework we built above the roof. Since the panels are now up above the roof the space is used for keeping some plants and the centralized air cooler
@@ahaveland Solar panel mounts used for tiled roofs must be installed with some margin to the underlying tile, otherwise the bracket will "sit" on it and potentially break it if you add a typical Swedish amount of snow. I'm quite certain I had roughly 5 mm of clearance on all my brackets, but who knows how long that clearance remains. Also, I just have masonite (wood fibre board) underneath my tiles, so any continuous leak wouldn't be very awesome... so, some light worries there but nothing that keeps me up at night
Hi Mate, Share with you something i saw before. Our printers we use in warehouses does not work below freezing. So we put in a low power filament bulb 5W 12VDC, these are super cheap that is low power but generate a bit of heat to keep the printers warm enough. We then put it the printers in an insulate cabinet and have a window slit that we can open up during summer times. And close the slits during winter. Pretty sure your powerstations can power up a 5W bulb for a very long time. Good luck rigging it up.
Off-grid systems to me seem a bit more straight-forward to setup than grid-tied systems. Having to worry about a system that connects to the electrical grid such that you do not send power into it at times or in ways it cannot accept (e.g. correct voltages, current, phase, etc.) which then introduces fire risk, etc. Way too daunting for me to tackle myself. I can do basic electrical work and have actually wired sub-panels for home additions and wired entire rooms with multi-gang switchboxes, etc., but now that I have a grid-tied solar system with battery backup and NG powered generator for grid down backup situations, the wiring of that and understanding of how it all works escapes me (except at a high level). Glad you are able to figure all this stuff out without burning down your house.
Phenom is the word Jerry! I just found you by accident today and watched your reviews of your Rivian and F-150 Lightning and now your home solar systems. Excellent! Thank you! I'm a full subscriber for sure!
Thanks for the info. Our solar and battery has been running the house completely since turning it on, and 2 x EVs. We never have a power bill ! And no fuel costs either. It’s awesome, I just wish I had done it sooner tbh. If anyone is thinking about getting solar installed, do it yesterday 👍
Thing about energy storage is, your own home is already a massive energy storage device. We're just talking thermal, not electric. When talking about being worried about pipes freezing, etc, even if all you have is power in the day, if you use all of that which you can to heat the home, (even beyond the point of comfort) in the day, you won't have to worry about anything freezing indoors at night.
I watched these videos when they first came out. Shortly after I bought a diy kit for my parents house. 2 years after install they have not paid for electricity. Which was averaging $400 a month. Thank you!
@@JediWebSurf all told with permits and trips to Home Depot. We came in just under $15k for a 9.24Kw grid tie with optimizers and one inverter in the garage.
Ive looked at doing ATS and hybrid 240v inverter/chargrer and battery bank. That way it works as both ups for backup , and to offset electric use. And less electronics on the panels makes it easier to centralize the equipment for maintenance, modifications and upgrades. And until I get batteries could still function similar to how you do.
My system produces about 17.6 MWh/year. Got it in 2018 for about $30k net after rebates through Tesla solar. About half the costs came from installation and permitting. Pretty amazing you were able to get 12 MWh/year for $8k. It’s going to take me 10 years to break even in late 2028. Being able to break even in just 6 years is a really great deal.
Good morning. I have recently installed a Sungrow battery backup system and seems to be working exceptionally well might be worth a look for you , keep up the good work chat soon David
Nice stuff as always Zack. We're 5yrs in on 3.4kwh system. Solaredge AP sez lowered co2 by 25,000 lbs. Added used model 3 used leaf in 2019. Also lowered co2 by around 20,000 lbs. Financial savings is icing on the cake for this grandpa and recently great grandpa
