the most exciting solar development yet

mswlogo · 07-11-2021, 09:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlyingScot

I own a Tesla S and 18kWp of solar on my Mass house. Returns on my home solar are better than 15% IRR.

When we think about the return on solar compared to the stock market, it is important to keep in mind that the past ten years or so have been extraordinary for the stock market, and the stock market is much more risky than solar, which is similar to a bond in terms of risk. On a risk-adjusted basis, solar is much better than stocks. If your retirement portfolio is 60/40 stocks/bonds, you'd do really well to sell some bonds and put the money into solar on your roof.

Nobody has asserted the Lightning should be your only backup if your power is unreliable or that battery backup is a driver for either solar or EVs. But it would be a great feature for those (like me) who do not own a generator. So it's kind of weird that a Tesla driver would throw so much shade Ford's way

Oh, I forgot to mention, the only reason my Solar has as good an ROI as it does is because of the SREC incentives. If I purchased today it would take 10 years or more to break even. You’d really have to be a poor investor to not double your money in 10 years in the stock market. I’m not saying Solar is not worth doing. I’m arguing your misleading comment that you’ll do 2x stock market by investing in solar. I did it primarily for the environment. Just as I have by investing in EV. Financially, long term you’d do better in the stock market on either.

I’ve not had much in Bonds for nearly a decade since around the 2008 melt down.

You keep saying he was not suggesting this or that. He was !!! He’s proposed the lighting truck be the solution to long term power outages. Not only does he already have a generator he proposed charging his truck with it, after he depleted the truck battery.

He is proposing it as primary long term back up solution. And a terrible idea. I think Tesla backup batteries are stupid too (for backup). But making them portable is an even worse idea.

If you have the truck, it’s charged and convenient and you don’t feel like firing up the generator because it’s only gonna be a day. Fine. Or camping. But for anything else, good luck.

His post was an Ad !!! Come see me when you get your lightning truck and I’ll set you up for power security.

FlyingScot · 07-11-2021, 10:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mswlogo

Oh, I forgot to mention, the only reason my Solar has as good an ROI as it does is because of the SREC incentives. If I purchased today it would take 10 years or more to break even. You’d really have to be a poor investor to not double your money in 10 years in the stock market. I’m not saying Solar is not worth doing. I’m arguing your misleading comment that you’ll do 2x stock market by investing in solar. I did it primarily for the environment. Just as I have by investing in EV. Financially, long term you’d do better in the stock market on either.

You do not seem to understand either the stock market or solar.

The average return on the stock market is 7-8% per year. (You need to look over several decades.) As I noted before, the return on solar is often over >15%. This is 2X. But as I noted before, bonds are more similar in risk.

It is true that solar returns depend on various government incentives such as SREC, and SREC no longer exists. SREC has been replaced by SMART. In both of these programs, your local utility is paying you to generate power, at least in Mass.

Also as I posted before--people interested in solar should phone or email a local installer and ask what the numbers would be for their own home. The installer should be able to show you how your roof and various tax incentives work for your exact situation.

NH.Solar · 07-11-2021, 12:25 PM

I try to never post anything unless I feel the it might have merit as information, or add something positive to someone else's topic. If one of the postings should generate a contact, great! but I don't need the use this forum as advertising as I have more the business I can handle from direct referrals. My intent is to share my knowledge and hopefully help someone out in some way, that's all
The main point intended with this post was that the coming bi-directional EVs do seem to have great promise ,and especially when looked at as a long time outage backup solution. Both Ford's charging station and the EnergyHub will allow some daily power levelling by storing energy during the day and giving it back at night, but that use has to be considered carefully for any time a battery is cycled it gives up a bit of life. From what I understand from the limited info on the Ford station it will only pull from the truck when the grid is down, thus the truck battery life will be minimally effected. The EnergyHub system was designed for the daily storage and direct home consumption of solar power first, as a long outage home backup system second, and as an EV charging station third. The bi-directional capabilities were not in the forefront when the Solaredge engineers designed the EH. An EnergyHub system must have its own dedicated battery(s) and currently uses either a 10 kWh or 16kWh LG Li-ion battery. These are LGs answer to the Tesla Powerwall battery and they are required both to activate the systems battery management systems and to provide daily self consumption and/or backup power for the home. The EH system with the LG battery is autonomous and totally independent of the EV batteries, During normal day to day use the sun and the stored power of a 10 kWh power is all it takes to power and backup my small home, but a larger home with higher power needs might need a pair of 16 kWh batteries. Right now if the power has been out for any prolonged length of time I will need to fire up my 7 kW roll-around generator and use that to power my home and recharge the LG. It should only take about 3 hours to do this and then the generator can again be shutoff until it may again needed the next day. Just guessing on this scenario though as my longest outage to date was only a day. With the new Lightning however I shouldn't need to fire up the generator for at least 5-6 days, and then only during one of the catastrophic events listed. Hopefully I'll never need to tap into the Lightning's battery, but I find it really reassuring to know that if I ever need to, it is easily possible.
When new clients are considering solar for their homes the initial conversations are naturally mostly financially biased. The payback period to justify the net cost of a solar array generally runs somewhere between 8 to 11 years depending on the installation details and the utility rate. It's not a bad ROI but not overly impressive either, but remember that the solar array is going to be producing power far beyond the payback period. It might be more accurate to figure the ROI on the 30+ years that the array will be producing strongly rather than on the 8-11 year utility savings justification.
There is a secondary financial reasoning however that I personally value more the the ROI, the moving of an expense (your monthly utility bill) over to the purchase of an asset (the net cost of the solar array) that adds equity value to the home.

Biggd · 07-11-2021, 01:36 PM

I have nothing against solar, I think it's great! But the part about adding value to your home is what I question.
Me personally, I'd would shy away from buying a home with solar panels on the roof. I don't think they add anything visually appealing to a home.
I think of it like buying a house with a swimming pool, JMO.

John Mercier · 07-11-2021, 05:50 PM

If you went 30 years, and then zeroed out the capital value of the system through depreciation, at a 7.2% S&P 500 index return, you would need to save 8 times the original cost of the system. And that would be without any further input in system maintenance, increase costs of property taxes or insurance, etc.

By comparing to a 2% return, you get that down to 1.82 times the initial investment without any extraneous costs.

Net metering lowers the cost of a residential system, so it becomes easier to get a better return on the investment.

The groups that could do well with this... retail/office businesses.
Our buildings move from a ''sleep mode'' into active starting at 6AM and go back to ''sleep'' at 8PM six days a week and half a day on Sunday. They need electricity exactly when solar would be producing.

An added benefit, EVs parked under an open carport-style structure with PV on the roof, would keep the vehicles cooler (we use a lot of AC to get the heat out of the vehicle after sitting in the sun all day), and could charge the vehicles for the 8 plus hours that they are just sitting there.

The Chinese have battery powered scooters that simply pull up to a solar charge station, and trade the ''empty'' batteries for fully charged ones... just paying for the charge much the same as trading out an empty Blue Rhino propane tank for a full one.

07-11-2021, 12:25 PM	#3
NH.Solar Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2017 Location: Jackson Pond, New Hampton Posts: 244 Thanks: 48 Thanked 142 Times in 79 Posts	I try to never post anything unless I feel the it might have merit as information, or add something positive to someone else's topic. If one of the postings should generate a contact, great! but I don't need the use this forum as advertising as I have more the business I can handle from direct referrals. My intent is to share my knowledge and hopefully help someone out in some way, that's all The main point intended with this post was that the coming bi-directional EVs do seem to have great promise ,and especially when looked at as a long time outage backup solution. Both Ford's charging station and the EnergyHub will allow some daily power levelling by storing energy during the day and giving it back at night, but that use has to be considered carefully for any time a battery is cycled it gives up a bit of life. From what I understand from the limited info on the Ford station it will only pull from the truck when the grid is down, thus the truck battery life will be minimally effected. The EnergyHub system was designed for the daily storage and direct home consumption of solar power first, as a long outage home backup system second, and as an EV charging station third. The bi-directional capabilities were not in the forefront when the Solaredge engineers designed the EH. An EnergyHub system must have its own dedicated battery(s) and currently uses either a 10 kWh or 16kWh LG Li-ion battery. These are LGs answer to the Tesla Powerwall battery and they are required both to activate the systems battery management systems and to provide daily self consumption and/or backup power for the home. The EH system with the LG battery is autonomous and totally independent of the EV batteries, During normal day to day use the sun and the stored power of a 10 kWh power is all it takes to power and backup my small home, but a larger home with higher power needs might need a pair of 16 kWh batteries. Right now if the power has been out for any prolonged length of time I will need to fire up my 7 kW roll-around generator and use that to power my home and recharge the LG. It should only take about 3 hours to do this and then the generator can again be shutoff until it may again needed the next day. Just guessing on this scenario though as my longest outage to date was only a day. With the new Lightning however I shouldn't need to fire up the generator for at least 5-6 days, and then only during one of the catastrophic events listed. Hopefully I'll never need to tap into the Lightning's battery, but I find it really reassuring to know that if I ever need to, it is easily possible. When new clients are considering solar for their homes the initial conversations are naturally mostly financially biased. The payback period to justify the net cost of a solar array generally runs somewhere between 8 to 11 years depending on the installation details and the utility rate. It's not a bad ROI but not overly impressive either, but remember that the solar array is going to be producing power far beyond the payback period. It might be more accurate to figure the ROI on the 30+ years that the array will be producing strongly rather than on the 8-11 year utility savings justification. There is a secondary financial reasoning however that I personally value more the the ROI, the moving of an expense (your monthly utility bill) over to the purchase of an asset (the net cost of the solar array) that adds equity value to the home. __________________ Peter NH Solar Last edited by NH.Solar; 07-14-2021 at 08:12 AM.

The Following User Says Thank You to NH.Solar For This Useful Post:
FlyingScot (07-11-2021)

07-11-2021, 01:36 PM	#4
Biggd Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2016 Location: Waltham Ma./Meredith NH Posts: 4,230 Thanks: 2,290 Thanked 1,224 Times in 782 Posts	I have nothing against solar, I think it's great! But the part about adding value to your home is what I question. Me personally, I'd would shy away from buying a home with solar panels on the roof. I don't think they add anything visually appealing to a home. I think of it like buying a house with a swimming pool, JMO.

07-11-2021, 05:50 PM	#5
John Mercier Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2021 Posts: 3,521 Thanks: 3 Thanked 622 Times in 513 Posts	If you went 30 years, and then zeroed out the capital value of the system through depreciation, at a 7.2% S&P 500 index return, you would need to save 8 times the original cost of the system. And that would be without any further input in system maintenance, increase costs of property taxes or insurance, etc. By comparing to a 2% return, you get that down to 1.82 times the initial investment without any extraneous costs. Net metering lowers the cost of a residential system, so it becomes easier to get a better return on the investment. The groups that could do well with this... retail/office businesses. Our buildings move from a ''sleep mode'' into active starting at 6AM and go back to ''sleep'' at 8PM six days a week and half a day on Sunday. They need electricity exactly when solar would be producing. An added benefit, EVs parked under an open carport-style structure with PV on the roof, would keep the vehicles cooler (we use a lot of AC to get the heat out of the vehicle after sitting in the sun all day), and could charge the vehicles for the 8 plus hours that they are just sitting there. The Chinese have battery powered scooters that simply pull up to a solar charge station, and trade the ''empty'' batteries for fully charged ones... just paying for the charge much the same as trading out an empty Blue Rhino propane tank for a full one.