Sunpower system in San Diego - Good deal?

[centralCalsolar]

Just so you guys know, I am a energy freak. In our previous home, I turned a 40+ year old home into an energy conserving freak. I put in a intellipro VR pool pump, invested in a breezeaire VR evaporative cooler, new windows, reflective/radiant barrier and more... Basically our 12 month average was about 500kW / month while the house never went above 75f even when it was 110 out and there was no point to get solar with what I did with that home but I don't think I can streamline this new home like I did with that one story 1800 sqft house.

I am already planning a whole house fan and other stuff to reduce the usage but there is only so much I can do with a 3500 sqft house

[bonaire]

Just so you guys know, I am a energy freak. In our previous home, I turned a 40+ year old home into an energy conserving freak. I put in a intellipro VR pool pump, invested in a breezeaire VR evaporative cooler, new windows, reflective/radiant barrier and more... Basically our 12 month average was about 500kW / month while the house never went above 75f even when it was 110 out and there was no point to get solar with what I did with that home but I don't think I can streamline this new home like I did with that one story 1800 sqft house.

I am already planning a whole house fan and other stuff to reduce the usage but there is only so much I can do with a 3500 sqft house

I've heard the "swamp coolers" are great for cooling. If you do get an EV, the best charge time would be midnight to 7am. That is enough time to fill a Leaf or a Volt. I have a volt and it is four hours to charge completely to give up to 45 miles in the warmer weather. Leafs have bigger batteries and can take 8 hrs at 240v or the new 2013 model can do it in about five and that gives about 70 total miles. Leaf leases are dirt cheap now in CA.

[KRenn]

this is the kind of things I need to hear from real world people. So yes it is a good product, but only because of service and higher output per SQFT, is that the sum of it?

So yes, if I could only put 18 panels on my home, I would want to max them out.

So west facing panels are no good? I see them all the time though

Quality matters. I've never believed that solar panels are a commodity the way some installers treat them. I see SunPower as top-notch quality, if you're going to invest in something for 25 years, I think SunPower is probably the best choice as far as things go. For a long time the cool kids mantra was "a panel is a panel is a panel" but now with various manufacturers going bankrupt left and right, even with behemoth's like Suntech having issues, I'm all the more further behind a company like SunPower.


You get better efficiency panels which matter if you have limited roof space, better temperature coefficient than many comparable panels, a different doping process during production which does limit initial light-based degradation and a company that derived from actual scientists and researchers and not cute marketing guys. Yeah their sales pitch is a little BS-filled, but the product really does sell itself.

[russ]

For the effects of orientation try the Sharp estimator http://sharpusa.cleanpowerestimator.com/sharpusa.htm

It allows you to play around and see differences fairly easily.

[KRenn]

For the effects of orientation try the Sharp estimator http://sharpusa.cleanpowerestimator.com/sharpusa.htm

It allows you to play around and see differences fairly easily.

I was going to say that PV Watts allows you to do the same as well.

http://gisatnrel.nrel.gov/PVWatts_Viewer/index.html