Comment by enraged_camel
7 hours ago
>> You’d think essentially free energy would sell itself
I think it would if it was indeed “essentially free”. Rooftop solar is unfortunately a racket though, and companies price-gouge like crazy and also collude to keep prices inflated.
American solar installer companies do seem to charge way more than European or British ones. I got 3.9kW installed almost ten years ago for just £5500, including all the paperwork for feed-in-tariffs. It has long since paid for itself just in subsidy, let alone actual consumption.
We had 18x510w panels (9.2kw), 2xZappi chargers, PW3 & Eddi (to heat hotwater) installed ~5 weeks ago. Total cost was £17k (inc. scaffolding, cert, etc), in the SE England, with a small recommended contractor. The UK solar market is full of rogues as well, charging massive sums, many for pretty questionable systems. We had 5 quotes to get there, 3 of which were crazy in one way or another.
We hit our first MW/h of power today. In England. In April. Total electricity bill for the last 6 weeks is about £30, and that includes our driving (previously £150 to £200 p/m) and most of our hot water. If you have the property for it and available investment, the ongoing savings are instant and obvious! My instant regret was not having done it sooner. Driving around on your own sunshine does feel magical as well!
In general, contractor overhead in America is obscene, compared to Europe. We have a lot of regularly capture working to keep it that way, too.
DIY is viable if you're a bit nutters (like me).
I just paid ~$35k (pre-now-expired-tax-break) to install a grid-tied 25kw ground mount system. I DIY'd everything except the connection between the array and the grid, which I paid an electrician to do, and the trenching which I paid my buddy with a mini-excavator to do.
It was a bit of a PITA, but mostly because I didn't finally make up my mind to do it until October and had to have it constructed by Dec 31st to take advantage of the expiring tax credit. If I'd given myself 6 months, it would have still been a big project, but way less stressful.
My neighbor's paid the same price to a contractor for a 11kw system.
Even at 46°N, and with relatively cheap electricity, my system should pay for itself in 6-8 years.
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I am counting on physical, semi technical contract work to pay once SWE opportunities shrink to the point where it’s not worth it anymore.
Now is the time to get handy if not already. Robotics /physical automation will lag info by a good stretch.
It all comes back to insurance- they're used to getting crazy sums of money because nobody questions the rates
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We looked at trying to get some mini-split heat pumps for my mom's place & were getting quotes $30k figures for two modest units (it's a tiny well insulated house). I don't know what the frak is wrong with this nation; this is so fantastically worrying.
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> American solar installer companies do seem to charge way more than European or British ones
One of the reasons for this is that in many parts of the US, solar has sadly been market segmented as a luxury product, just like other high efficiency products like heat pumps or EVs.
This is enabled by both the prevailing cultural attitudes about efficiency and renewables as indulgences for the better off, and industries that are happy to keep captive high margin markets of those customers, i.e. the continued lack of a US produced low-cost EV.
The American cult of individualism is also at play, wherein collective solutions are shunned vs private ones, which is why renewables and storage are so popular among off grid libertarian types.
One of the things I like most about balcony solar is that you can DIY it (at least, in the places I know that have approved it) instead of getting scammed.
The disruption from below cycle is coming on hard here. I'm so excited for balcony solar. This is going to expand solar access for so many people & be such a great thing!
It's also such radically better priced equipment when it's consumer focused. My little Bluetti Elite 100 v2 was $400. It's a 1kWh battery. But as much as anything I bought it because it takes 800W of solar input! On this tiny cheap thing! That's better solar input density than most of these stations, but also, the other guys don't really have an excuse: if you are making a power station like this, it's such a minimal extra cost to integrate a decent solar buck MPPT controller controller on too. 60v 20a capable mosfets transistors have become unfathomably high performance & affordable.
There's all sorts of really amazing units being built. Zendure SolarFlow 2400 Pro doesn't come with batteries but is ~ 1500$ for a 3000w input unit. Not quite as good a proposition (2W:$1 again, but no battery) but is more home sized, to put down another data point. Lots of players & competition, vs the "buy Victron" age! (Still, that Victron reliability.) https://www.notebookcheck.net/Zendure-SolarFlow-2400-Pro-rev...
When there's so many contractors involved, it's like, yeah, give me the good expensive electronics; the marginal cost is whatever. I like how balcony solar is so disruptive from below though, how it breeds a cost conscious
I have one of those terrible fake balconies on the front of my house.
I am working on replacing it with a real deck/carport combo and will probably put 600w solar over it, should be room for 4-6 of them.
That will be a 2-3kw solar install, not enough to replace my entire draw by a long shot, but enough to carve a pretty big dent out of it.
I'm already going to be spending $10k-$15k on the deck/carport install plus the french doors to replace the window looking over the fake balcony, so what's another $3k-$5k for a modest solar install?
There are so many scams in the solar industry. I feel like a ton of installers joined just to make a quick buck with no effort.
This tends to happen when a lot of government “free money” is on the table.
See also: War profiteering.
Sure it isn't up front, and there's probably something to be said about scammers seeing green with subsidy money.
But the very idea of not being dependent on the grid or fossil fuels, if one can afford it and costs are comparable, should sell itself.
But my dad watches Fox News so he brings up lies like how bad wind turbines are for the environment (coal anyone?) or how we shouldn't make ourselves dependent on China for solar (as if we aren't dependent on a lot of bad hombres for our current energy mix or as if receiving solar makes us dependent at all).
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Edit: HN's conversation throttler childishly patronized me for "posting too fast". At least do me the honor of telling me you don't like what I'm saying, instead of telling me I'm posting too quickly when I'm making 1 message/hour.
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In response to dataflow below:
It still reveals an ignorant cult-like derision for renewables that isn't explained by reality. The people who gleefully mock the issues with renewables do it because they have been trained to want renewables to fail, and to see active support for renewables as a signal for softness and liberalism.
My local town Facebook group gleefully mocks local solar each time it snows/is cloudy, as if. There’s never been anything (eg, a war in the Mideast) that could disrupting fossil fuels pricing and availability…
> My local town Facebook group gleefully mocks local solar each time it snows/is cloudy, as if. There’s never been anything (eg, a war in the Mideast) that could disrupting fossil fuels pricing and availability…
Your counterargument is even worse than theirs. The predictability, frequency, severity, mitigability, etc. of these are extremely different.
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