Request for input on solar proposal - Q Cells and Enphase Microinverters

[bcroe]

I’ve been switching my oil usage to electric. My oil bill would have been at least $6k this year but now it will be zero. That’s because I’m using heat pumps now.

I think the extra cost of a few more panels is well worth it but of course like I said before nothing beats conserving energy .

I have been doing conservation for half a century, got the electric under 5000 KWh
a year. But more recently noticed, I used less nat gas every year, but my gas bill
kept increasing. The meter fee (had the same meter for decades) went from $2, to
$7, to $10 a month, they are determined to get my money no matter how much I
conserve.

Moving here, they said I could get connected to a new gas line with a MUCH HIGHER
monthly fee. That is when I went solar, 30,000 KWH a year and all the heat I want
in 2 buildings. DIY held the experimental costs down, but the way energy is going,
I may yet be in the black. Bruce Roe

[Mike 134]

If you're on the fence about solar and it's ROI, have you remodeled any perfectly functional rooms in your house? There your ROI is "it feels good/looks pretty, etc." I'm putting solar on my house and at 65 my ROI looks to be 8-9 years, but it will be pretty to look at and, in the meantime, and will more than halve my electric bill.

[J.P.M.]

If you're on the fence about solar and it's ROI, have you remodeled any perfectly functional rooms in your house? There your ROI is "it feels good/looks pretty, etc." I'm putting solar on my house and at 65 my ROI looks to be 8-9 years, but it will be pretty to look at and, in the meantime, and will more than halve my electric bill.

Aesthetics are subjective, beauty in the eye, etc.. There are actually some people who think a rather large, black monolithic slab on a roof is an eyesore regardless of how it's perceived to improve the looks of their financial picture.

Most folks get residential PV because of a perception it reduces their electric bill. For those folks it's all about the bottom line.
Few folks get residential PV because it pleases their sense of the aesthetic.
Residential PV is not, in and of itself, a remodel any more than a changeover in HVAC equipment.

[mjs020294]

If you're on the fence about solar and it's ROI, have you remodeled any perfectly functional rooms in your house? There your ROI is "it feels good/looks pretty, etc." I'm putting solar on my house and at 65 my ROI looks to be 8-9 years, but it will be pretty to look at and, in the meantime, and will more than halve my electric bill.

Although solar might pay for itself with a simplified calculation once you factor in finance charges and/or lost opportunity costs solar rarely truly has a positive ROI. I had a Sunpro sales guy go through his pitch and with basic calculation and assumptions that favored the seller and my savings over 25 years were around $80,000. I told him if I took my $30k and simply put in the S&P 500 it would be worth around $260,000 in 25 years time. It gets worse for solar when you consider in the south shingle roofs rarely last much longer than 20 years, even assuming you keep the house that long.

Like others have said the true savings of solar are unlocked when you go EV. Electric motors are about 2.5-5 times more energy efficient than gas engines, and when you generate your own electricity the savings are huge.

[Ampster]

When spending money on personal residences or vehicles for transportation the term "utility" comes to mind. Whether it is functional utility or cost savings those type of expenditures are always subjective.