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<p>Definitely a fan of wood. We have a wood-stove in one part of the house and it is still the most efficient heating system per square foot.</p>
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<p>AC, the numbers you see as a purchaser of power are hardly reflective of the costs to produce the power or the purchase costs of the utility companies. The market is saddled by cost recovery issues and does not fully account for external costs or long term environmental liabilities. For instance, the displacement costs of hydropower, the decommissioning of nuclear power, or the pollution costs of non-clean coal are buried until a fully leveled playing field arises. </p>
<p>In an era of low capital costs, energy sources that do not have fuel costs are faring better. Commodity pricing and abundance of say natural gas also play a role. Yet, we can assume that heating and cooling expenses will continue to rise and that renewable energy will further its competitive role. </p>
<p>Fwiw, the wind industry development in Mexico and the purchases by retailers and industrialists offer real interesting insights into the economics of wind energy. Wind farms are built for the exclusive use of large concerns such as Delphi. </p>
<p>PS None of the above applies remotely to the residential consumer in the continental US. Wind and solar are still needing huge fiscal incentives to make them affordable. </p>
<p>PPS The term reliability is not appropriate in discussing solar panels. Very little reliable information is available for LONG TERM production of solar panels, and especially not for the recent technology. There are tons of pure garbage that was produced in China on the market. The availability of sun or wind is a totally different animal. </p>
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<p>And so should your fax machine and VCR! How many companies are there in the market that produced panels for 30 years? Or even a decade? Read a press release from 2008 and read the financials of 2013! </p>
<p>It takes a huge leap of faith to accept most of what the solar energy industry has been trying to pass for facts. It is an industry with a rosy future and a horrendous past. And a present that is smoke and mirrors. </p>
<p>Awcntdb,</p>
<p>I’m in Iowa. We have farms, businesses, and homes who have installed solar PV. Most of them had fairly high electric bills. </p>
<p>I have seen installation invoices for as low as $6000 and invoices for well over $100000. We also serve parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin.</p>
<p>I agree - it is not for people who would have to take put a lot of debt to install it. It’s also not for people who will (from point of installation) only be in their homes for seven years. Customers should be committed to their homes or farms/businesses.</p>
<p>So for now, it’s for mostly upper-mid and upper-class people. I hope that economic forces can bring down cost of panels and inverters (labor isn’t going to decrease…) to bring it more into the wheelhouses of the meat of the middle class.</p>
<p>Finally – I’m not in sales, and we have no competitors. I just look at ops processes and cost all day long. </p>
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<p>Now you are switching to commercial. Thanks for the clarification. That is not the average home, so your $300 is not usable for the standard CC reader and poster. That was all I was saying, mathematically and demographically.</p>
<p>And with the costs of college at $60K a year, the average upper-mid family would be silly to invest in this stuff, as compared to a college fund. Sorry, the math still does not work.</p>
<p>I didn’t say it was for everyone – just that it makes sense if folks can swing the large sunk cost. Hopefully prices will come down, because how it works is pretty neat and (aside from metals/plastics used in production and installation) environmentally friendly.</p>
<p>As long as a panel doesn’t, you know, blow off the roof and obliterate a bird nest. Hehe </p>
<p>Are these average monthly electric bills for all users, or just home owners? Because the monthly electric bill for my daughter’s tiny apartment is tiny as well. The bill for D2’s house is significantly more, as is the square footage of the house compared to the tiny apartment.</p>
<p>^^ It has to be for homeowners, including condos and apartments. In this case, a renter is considered the homeowner since he probably pays the utility bill. Cannot be commercial, as the average commercial bill is upwards of $1K+, varies by business, of course.</p>
<p>EDIT - the sources state “residential properties,” as I thought. </p>
<p>Well, it seems if one is going to argue about how cost effective solar power is, we should be referencing only those who would be able to put it in. An apartment renter isn’t going to be putting in solar panels (or are they?), so it seems including his utility bills as an argument against the cost effectiveness of a given energy plan seems kind of disingenuous. I would want to know if investing in solar energy would pay off, but how can I know that for certain if the figures I’m being given don’t reflect the average energy bills of people who actually live in homes which would conceivably be using it?</p>
<p>Living in Texas in a large home, our electric bills could be over $1000 a month in the summer. I’m thinking we should have considered solar when we built (we lived there for 15 years).</p>
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<p>I disagree. I live in one of the states mentioned and they have to be including lots of apartment and townhouse dwellers because in my single family home, I’m thrilled when my bill is under $300. Last winter when it was so very cold my bills were $476, $472, and $364 for January, February, and March. We’ve had a very mild summer and I’m thankful that my latest bill is for $228,</p>
<p>And no, I don’t live in a McMansion, just a nice average sized house for the area.</p>
<p>^^ Mine is higher as well in winter, but that does not mean the average is not correct for the average home. There are many more homes in very populous areas (CA, TX, FL, The entire South,) which do not have anything close to the cold winters you mention.</p>
<p>I took into consideration houses, businesses and farms. Not apartments.</p>
<p>We have had apartment complexes/agencies do solar PV, but obviously not individual renters…</p>
<p>^^ I think the sources did the same thing as well. Plus, it is easy to standardize the heating of an apartment and condo building to what it would be if the total of the units were “X” number of the average-sized home. I bet it comes out the same anyway on a per person basis.</p>
<p>Yeah. And some coastal climates might require less heating and cooling. In the Midwest, you are freezing in the winter and (due to humidity) sweating in the summer. The southeast has milder winters but awful summers. I’d imagine the northeast is similar to the Midwest.</p>
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<p>For a product’s external costs and long-term environmental liabilities re cost recovery issues, commercially we have a term for that - a WAG (wild a** guess). I have seen so many of those external costs and expected environmental liabilities cost estimates over the years, which have come to nothing that it is something of a joke. And since these “external costs” and “environmental liabilities” are really just guesses, it is easy to say something costs us “X” even when there is no evidence that it will or did. More importantly, those are backloaded estimates that do not affect the actual production cost of the product.</p>
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<p>It is also easy to create a false market comparison with subsidies, and this is what we see with the solar and wind markets, i.e., tax credits for the producers and purchasers make the market much more viable than it would be on its own. Competitive? For per unit of energy cost still not even close. So, competitive as a system price issue is a false comparison. But, it darn sure looks competitive with the tax breaks when including these breaks in the final per unit of energy cost.</p>
<p>@xiggi - Ignore my second comment above about false market comparison. I just re-read your PS about the home market, and I agree with your PS.</p>
<p>The solar people who presented to me used my actual bill not an inflated marketing estimate. In our area, if you don’t buy the panels, they set up the arrangement so your bill gets cut in half. If my bill is $130 month average, then I’d see $65 month average savings. This would be attractive to landlords (flat roofs and all that), even if it just cuts common electric expenses. </p>
<p>Owning is different, as noted. I’m not going to get into my impressions of that. </p>
<p>We have solar panels on our home, purchased three years ago with the help of state and federal tax credits and a builder incentive(a very green builder). We estimate that our payback is a total of 7 years-4 more to go. My neighbors easily pay $200-$300 per month in electric bills depending on their appliances. We are all electric. My bill this month is -$80 (a credit of $80). The past two years we have generated 95% of the electricity we have used and with the milder summer we have had this year we hope to have created a surplus. The state also buys SREC’ s from us which is a couple of hundred dollars per year. This is our retirement home and was a great decision for us</p>
<p>In the south, AC is the expense</p>
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<p>Thanks for your personal example.</p>
<p>Lots of things make sense when you know you are never going to move. You also did not pay the retail costs, which again, changes the calculus to do it. In short, you essentially got paid to do it, or better said, the taxpayers paid for you to do it. Many things make sense when people hand you the money to do them. Smart thing to take advantage of at the stage you are at. </p>
<p>Retail is another whole question entirely, especially if your electric bill were closer to the average and you have kids in the house.</p>