I live here in Nigeria where electricity has been epileptic since I was born (I'm 23 now). Like, I live in one of the nicer suburbs in my state, but 12h of power isn't guaranteed.
So, last year, I spent $7k on 8.4 KW of panels (400W * 21), an inverter, and 20KWh of batteries.
It's been life-changing. I've been able to go completely off-grid. Like, I disconnected from the grid (i.e., my meter) completely. And my usage has gone up to around 50KWh daily (air conditioners, fridges, etc.) but it hums along day-after-day. That assurance that the power won't trip off while I'm on a meeting with a client has done wonders for my mental health among others. Just reliable, stable power.
And, given that I used to pay $0.12 per KWh, the whole setup will pay for itself in 2.7 years. Just under two years to go.
This compared to my own experience shows how much location matters for these things.
I live in a place with cheap and stable hydropower. There's winter time price spikes but average solar earnings compared to grid cost from solar during sunny months would be pocket change. In winter solar would give virtually nothing.
The overwhelming conclusion was that instead of buying a pile of hardware to install, configure and maintain I will earn more by clicking a button that puts it as a financial investment into anything with more than 2-3% annual yield and just paying the electricity bill and reinvesting whatever is left over.
I wanted to find an edge case that would make me feel smart for buying a multi kWh home battery but with the exception of a market apocalypse or the likes every outcome suggests that I just put it in dividend stock, high interest savings accounts or whatever else until either power prices increase tenfold or $/kWh for batteries drop tenfold.
Different strokes for different folks. If you already have sufficiently reliable power and the savings won't beat the S&P500, then I guess sticking to the grid makes more sense. It's just the flexibility and reliability of solar I'm commenting on, especially if you live close to the equator.
This seems like a "green brag" without much substance. Great that this person is privileged enough to afford solar panels, I guess. Nothing to be learned here though: no wire diagrams, placement schematics, or BoM. Just someone telling everyone how green they are.
The idea is the important part. The details (wiring schematics and so on) are not. The cost of solar is rapidly approaching where you’re prepaying for your energy for the rest of your life with a few thousand dollars. You can get solar panels for 10 cents/watt today, for example. That price will potentially continue to decline (historically, price has declined ~20% for every global doubling of PV manufacturing capacity).
I think the details are actually important to the idea. Mainly this green brag doesn't seem to add up. The battery system is crucial.
While there's a bit about needing to replace it in 10-20 years coming out to a $83/month, this is essentially burying the $15,000 bill coming.
Also, unless their battery system is wildly over provisioned at the moment, you can't just add a bunch of new panels. Are they selling back to the grid? I don't think so, they mention grid independence wrt natural disaster. Do they have some sort of system to heat the water in the day only? Did they just take the name plate capacity of the system and multiply it by 40 years? who knows?
These "details" will make anyone buying into their big idea quite frustrated.
I also don't understand the part about chopping wood. Yes it's probably a idilic bit for the story, but that's almost one of the worst fuel sources. Dangerous, carcinogenic, and polluting.
edit: yes in the footnotes, burning wood. Getting rid of that would be the number one way to improve their impact on the earth and their community.
I’ve mounted ~8kw of solar on a south facing roof in ~4 hours with two other people. You need not multi acre lots, only a surface that can see the sky mostly unobstructed, although if you’ve got the land and aren’t using it, ground mount solar is cheaper, faster, and safer to deploy.
(In the United States, the majority of housing units are single-family houses – about 82 million out of the total 129 million occupied units in 2021)
I agree about this article being vapid, but at least it does introduce the fact that PV doesn't degrade. A lot of people have been poisoned by oil industry propaganda that every PV panel needs to be trashed in 20 years.
Aside from propaganda, what if the roof only lasts 25 years?
And doesn’t mounting panels on top of a roof increase possibilities for leaks?
I really would like solar to work. But have seen too many crazy storms and even a minor tornado in the past 5 years to make me wonder about 20+ year longevity.
It doesn’t sound like it’s that expensive. Certainly less than most households pay for electricity, although I imagine they also use less than most people judging by their very tiny house. Probably some kind of financing available to reduce the initial capital outlay.
Unless you just mean they’re privileged in the sense that most Americans and Europeans are relatively well-off and secure by global standards, in which case sure, but what’s your point?
I wouldn’t say so honestly. In the pantheon of green bragging you can do much, much worse. I think these folks are more down the earth given they recognize their mortality and that what they’ve got here will outlive them, but in general they are gridless people and as such a bit outside of the benefits of bragging.
The shit shows unfolding elsewhere fall into hypocritical territory - concerned about climate change yet are regularly flying. For these folks here, I’m willing to be more charitable. Looking forward to seeing more photos of, hopefully, simpler life.
It's nice to have solar panels, I have them too and while they do generate even more electricity than I need, they do so in around 6 to 7 months peaking in July. So in winter, it's grid power and in summer I might need to pay to feed in the surplus. This is in the Netherlands. It's kind of sad to see all that electricity unused in summer, and knowing I could have enough for all of the winter if only there was some way to store it, all of the 1MWh..
Sure. Of course. Not being allowed to disconnect them would be ridiculous. But do you want to keep an eye on the market every day, and run to the breaker to turn on an off your inverter? No. So you need a solution for that. Then a battery is much more interesting.
All modern inverters have control interfaces that allow them to fold back their power output on command, this can be set up to track feed-in rates going negative.
Wow,interesting. But， the idea of storing the surplus electricity, it does raise a question about the energy consumption of storage batteries. i has been researching European home energy management recently, especially with winter approaching. Just share information. enjoyelec HEMS (Home Energy Management System). Use AI optimize energy usage in households. With features like real-time monitoring and intelligent control, it aims to reduce energy waste and potentially lower costs. Maybe can get some money from grid to pay from winter electicity bills.
Why not have the panels disconnect themselves in this case? Is this too small an expense to justify the cost of additional hardware to manage switching on and off?
It all depends on the situation. Here in the Netherlands almost everybody has an PV installation with no way other than the breaker to turn it on and off. Some inverters do have an interface, and sometimes it's available. Even less people know anything about this at all, they just had panels installed. The technical solution is simple, bit implementing it will cost much more, I assume.
> This is in the Netherlands. It's kind of sad to see all that electricity unused in summer,
This is literally what local and state government is for; talk to others and get policy moving on excess energy being used to generate bulk stored energy at scale for winter months, be that gas, deep thermal storage, tradable goods to offset winter costs, etc.
"pay to feed in the surplus"? In my U.S. context, this sounds surprising: are you saying that sometimes the energy utility CHARGES you money when you feed solar energy to the grid? That sounds... bizarre?
If I were to deliver you 1000 gallons of milk that expires in 10 minutes*, would you pay me or want to charge me for that priviledge. Assume you have enough milk already.
* (< 1 millisecond for electricity but hey for the milk analogy say 10 minutes).
When there is a lot of wind and sun simultaneously there is effectively too much electricity supply on the net, and day-ahead prices drop negative. This is partially fueled by flat subsidies per unit produced (has been fixed for a while for new installations), so producing when there's oversupply can still be profitable. Also most households have a flat energy rate and can amortize their energy usage over the year, so they will always keep their solar panels on even if the energy is less than worthless.
US pricing works very differently, especially in Texas.
Purchasers want to make margin on anything. So they charge this on the seller and then on buyer. Also with how markets work it is not like there isn't risks or need to at least some level forecast how much you will be buying and then selling. So their cut also covers this work.
And finally electricity is a spot market. So there is agreed price for certain period and in some cases market can be distorted and that price can be negative. It could be idiotic subsidies or production that can't be ramped as effectively. Or someone does massive mistakes with their bids, think of trading bots going wrong.
Isn't there a way to sell the unused solar power to the grid in summers and during winters the grid sends back the power needed to you at a discounted price?
Well, until '27, I'm allowed to use the grid as a free battery, basically, this is a kind of government subsidy. But that will end, and the contracts available will be fixed price with a feed in tariff or dynamic (realtime) market price, but then prices can and have been negative during peak solar hours. A battery can solve this only for a bit, and maybe with smart algorithms it can be trading on the electricity market full time, I'm not sure if that makes enough money for the grid power in winter.. it's nice to think about though.
or you get a battery. Is just great. I have 3.5kw solar power witha 9kwh battery. Very very seldom it switches to power line. And this is in south Germany, maybe a bit sunnier than north but still - it rains a lot/cloudy, sun is sparse.
If every household did this we would have massive problems. We would still need a base load amount in the winter, and in the summer there would be an over abundance. The price of electricity would swing between essentially free in the summer to higher than normal in the winter, because the cost of operating base grid power would be about same but they would need to cover all operating costs during the winter.
Assuming an average of 4 solar hours per day, you would need a solar system capacity of approximately 7.5 kW to 12.5 kW.
Individual solar panels produce 250-400 watts. So, conservatively, 50 panels. Installed, that's currently about $25,000, including inverter but not battery backup. Battery backup will cost maybe $15,000 more. So, the whole installation is about $40,000. This is with no grid connection, power sales, or incentives. Not too bad. Costs about the same as a car.
We are in the process of installing a 13 kwH system which is 31 panels at 430 watts with two Tesla power walls. Total cost (with snow guards) is just shy of 60k. The backup batteries are where this really shines. Our power provider had a blackout of 25 hours in April and if we were 6 blocks south, it was an entire week. The true cost of the system will be approximately half this after rebates and is more like 32k. The rebates are so good between Fed, State and the power company that we almost got the backup batteries for free.
In my state electricity costs about $0.089/kWh. We spend about $100/mo on electricity total which comes out almost exactly to your 30kWh/day figure (with a $23.15 connection charge included).
Invested that 40k would conservatively cover over 2x our electricity bill without touching the principal (inflation adjusted).
That's a pretty hard sell for solar. Obviously incentives will improve things but it just seems less financially risky to use grid power.
~500$ for a 250/400W panel seems absurd, here in Italy you can buy a 500W solar panel for 100€ without effort or less. Given that you can buy a pallet of them, you can probably pay less than 100€ per 500W, I have found deals down to 77€ per 550W panel with pallets of 31 (31x550=+17k at 2405€), shipment included, and I'm talking about new half cell panels, not old stuff.
This is cool, and I wish I had a setup like that, but the premise seems a bit hollow. Do they grow all the food they consume? What about the energy needed to produce the electric car, host the Substack? What about when they get sick? Do they stay off-grid, or do they go to a modern hospital, which can only exist because of urban industrial buildup.
It’s cool to live off grid, but solarpunk-libertarianism is a vibe, not a meaningful policy direction for modern society
I wish regulations where more lax in France. It was a battle with the town council to install 3.2kw of solar panels on the ground, I want to install 10 more but it looks like the ground option which is cheap will not be approved, I would have to out them on my roof which is costly and is not true south (and arguably, more visible).
Basically it's zoning laws, to not add permanent structures onto agricultural lands, but yeah it's stupid because this is for solar panels without foundations so I don't see the harm. I need to get an appointment with them, see if I can change their minds.
Solar allows one to prepay for power. Would be nice to see more efficient financing for it.
Using solar to heat and cool, heat water and run your dryer is quite a bit more. And generally doing the HVAC efficiently requires a large investment in insulation. Those non solar costs may dominate.
$88 amortized over 15 years is only $16k. It’s really impressive they can get it done for that much, although I suspect labor has to be free at that cost.
I’d be curious what batteries they went with and how it’s organized (aka the more technical side)
A $16k investment at 4% annual yield with quarterly payout re-invested turns into $29k at the 15 year mark. So maybe batteries and panels today feels like a good investment, but is it the best?
Readit News
So, last year, I spent $7k on 8.4 KW of panels (400W * 21), an inverter, and 20KWh of batteries.
It's been life-changing. I've been able to go completely off-grid. Like, I disconnected from the grid (i.e., my meter) completely. And my usage has gone up to around 50KWh daily (air conditioners, fridges, etc.) but it hums along day-after-day. That assurance that the power won't trip off while I'm on a meeting with a client has done wonders for my mental health among others. Just reliable, stable power.
And, given that I used to pay $0.12 per KWh, the whole setup will pay for itself in 2.7 years. Just under two years to go.
I live in a place with cheap and stable hydropower. There's winter time price spikes but average solar earnings compared to grid cost from solar during sunny months would be pocket change. In winter solar would give virtually nothing.
The overwhelming conclusion was that instead of buying a pile of hardware to install, configure and maintain I will earn more by clicking a button that puts it as a financial investment into anything with more than 2-3% annual yield and just paying the electricity bill and reinvesting whatever is left over.
I wanted to find an edge case that would make me feel smart for buying a multi kWh home battery but with the exception of a market apocalypse or the likes every outcome suggests that I just put it in dividend stock, high interest savings accounts or whatever else until either power prices increase tenfold or $/kWh for batteries drop tenfold.
churchill’s comment provides a similar example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41965228 (2.7 year payback in Nigeria, cheaper per kWh than utility rate of 12 cents/kWh)
The engineering of energy abundance and democratization of energy globally continues. That’s the story.
https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/solar-panel-prices-...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices
https://www.pv-tech.org/solar-lcoe-continues-to-decrease-glo...
While there's a bit about needing to replace it in 10-20 years coming out to a $83/month, this is essentially burying the $15,000 bill coming.
Also, unless their battery system is wildly over provisioned at the moment, you can't just add a bunch of new panels. Are they selling back to the grid? I don't think so, they mention grid independence wrt natural disaster. Do they have some sort of system to heat the water in the day only? Did they just take the name plate capacity of the system and multiply it by 40 years? who knows?
These "details" will make anyone buying into their big idea quite frustrated.
I also don't understand the part about chopping wood. Yes it's probably a idilic bit for the story, but that's almost one of the worst fuel sources. Dangerous, carcinogenic, and polluting.
edit: yes in the footnotes, burning wood. Getting rid of that would be the number one way to improve their impact on the earth and their community.
(In the United States, the majority of housing units are single-family houses – about 82 million out of the total 129 million occupied units in 2021)
And doesn’t mounting panels on top of a roof increase possibilities for leaks?
I really would like solar to work. But have seen too many crazy storms and even a minor tornado in the past 5 years to make me wonder about 20+ year longevity.
Unless you just mean they’re privileged in the sense that most Americans and Europeans are relatively well-off and secure by global standards, in which case sure, but what’s your point?
The shit shows unfolding elsewhere fall into hypocritical territory - concerned about climate change yet are regularly flying. For these folks here, I’m willing to be more charitable. Looking forward to seeing more photos of, hopefully, simpler life.
Dead Comment
You're allowed to just disconnect solar panels. It's free and does not damage them.
Why not have the panels disconnect themselves in this case? Is this too small an expense to justify the cost of additional hardware to manage switching on and off?
This is literally what local and state government is for; talk to others and get policy moving on excess energy being used to generate bulk stored energy at scale for winter months, be that gas, deep thermal storage, tradable goods to offset winter costs, etc.
* (< 1 millisecond for electricity but hey for the milk analogy say 10 minutes).
US pricing works very differently, especially in Texas.
And finally electricity is a spot market. So there is agreed price for certain period and in some cases market can be distorted and that price can be negative. It could be idiotic subsidies or production that can't be ramped as effectively. Or someone does massive mistakes with their bids, think of trading bots going wrong.
Assuming an average of 4 solar hours per day, you would need a solar system capacity of approximately 7.5 kW to 12.5 kW.
Individual solar panels produce 250-400 watts. So, conservatively, 50 panels. Installed, that's currently about $25,000, including inverter but not battery backup. Battery backup will cost maybe $15,000 more. So, the whole installation is about $40,000. This is with no grid connection, power sales, or incentives. Not too bad. Costs about the same as a car.
Median US house price is $412,300.
Invested that 40k would conservatively cover over 2x our electricity bill without touching the principal (inflation adjusted).
That's a pretty hard sell for solar. Obviously incentives will improve things but it just seems less financially risky to use grid power.
Offgrid added up if you are already offgrid so that ongrid becomes a big expense when comparing.
https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/homeowners-guide-federal-t...
Clearly to meet demand we need solar farms and grids for most people.
If the "solar roof" people ever get their act together, that might change.
It’s cool to live off grid, but solarpunk-libertarianism is a vibe, not a meaningful policy direction for modern society
Sounds stupid on many levels to forbid it.
Using solar to heat and cool, heat water and run your dryer is quite a bit more. And generally doing the HVAC efficiently requires a large investment in insulation. Those non solar costs may dominate.