Is Solar really cost-effective for home use?

You can probably find an investment with a much quicker pay-back. What is the payback without the subsidy? Are you morally concerned at all about people paying taxes involuntarily to subsidize spending on a project that is not economical? I am.

If you live in a hot climate you might save more energy/money if you plant trees that provide afternoon shade. Sure it takes a while to grow tall, but in 13-15 years you will have something that is appreciating in value and can add substantially to the value of your home?

In many climates a ground-source heat pump (GSHP) can return it's investment in 5 years. If you can get that kind of return in 5 years you can bank the money while waiting for solar to become more affordable.

Look at the opportunty costs of going solar. It's money you could have spent on something else which pays back sooner.

One more tip. The diesel getta is probably a better overall value than the prius.

Although Phoenix gets a lot of sun, that also means it gets hot. That electric bill is nearly triple what our house uses per year.

The 13-15 years sounds about right for a payback period. If there are tiered electric rates, and the system only displaced, say, the most expensive 25% of energy, the payback might be much faster, maybe 5 years.

As a comparison, the kind of system we have on our house in California would cost about $6000 out-of-pocket, and pay back in 10 years, with only the Federal tax credit, disregarding an insignificant utility company credit in our area. The warranty on our inverter is 10 years, which seems to be more the standard nowadays. The warranty on the panels is 25 years, which is also the contemporary standard, and that's a performance warranty, guaranteeing no less than 80% of the nameplate rating after that time. Our house is closer to 1800 square feet, and has no air conditioning.

You have a point, but there are other considerations. To generate commercial electricity requires an incredible amount of subsidies, tax breaks and government expenditures that don't show up on your electric bill, but yet you pay for them. Public health is one of these items. Burning coal involves a long trail of environmental and health insults from mine to power plant to the disposal of toxic fly ash, all of which are paid for on the public nickle one way or another. Understandably the coal industry wants to hang onto its cash cow for as long as possible, but coal is a 19th century technology and this is the 21st century. Clean, non centralized energy is something we should be shooting for. Just as 'government' declared in the early 1900's that every home must have indoor plumbing and electricity I suspect that solar access will also be mandated at some point. In that our electrical power grid is aging rapidly and there's been no real effort to upgrade it the idea of individual power generation certainly has a bit of 'republican' shine to it. By changing the government's emphasis from supporting the coal industry and giving all of that help to the solar industry we could have a giant domestic solar industry up and running in short order. Nn industry that would demand a huge work force to maintain production and installation. The more units produced the lower cost. Oddly, most 3rd world countries are moving toward solar and wind..going directly to 21st century technology and bypassing 19th century technology entirely. If coal was a better deal it seems like they would use that. The reason they don't is that they can start from scratch while we would have to start over. Still, the benefits outweigh the downside...unless you own a coal mine or a coal burning power plant. I can see why they don't think much of solar!

I think you answered your own question, and I pretty much came to the same conclusion about 2 years ago. By the time you saved enough money to pay for the cost of the unit, you will have had to replace most all if not all of the components twice.

So, let's say your an avid Greeny and feel that you have to do this. OK, if you have the money, GREAT!!! But, keep in mind that these solar panels use batteries to store the energy they produce. The batteries are the part that has to be replaced more than anything. So how many batteries (the size of car batteries) will you have to toss in a landfill that will pollute the same earth your attempting to safe.

I would love to use solar power, But it would not be cost effective nor good for the planet.

The same can be said for the multiple car batteries it takes to run an Electrical car or Hybrid car. It is better for the environment to use the current resources we are using than it would be to pollute the planet with umpteen million batteries.

I am a solar installer in Massachusetts. All of the inverters that I use have a 10 or 15 year warranty... are you sure that it is only 5 years? Most panels have a power warranty of 20 to 25 years.

Solar panels will lost some efficiency, but it's usually equal to .25 to .5 percent efficiency loss a year.. I believe closer to a .25 percent. That's not much.

It is a large upfront investment, but you have to visualize your savings over the lifetime of the system.

So how do you feel about all the tax dollars that subsidize the oil industry?

How about this, we completely stop subsidizing anything and everything that is related to the oil industry and let users pay the full amount / full cost of their own usage..... that work for you?

We spend about $30 billion a YEAR subsidizing oil and gas companies..... and they need to be replenished every time you burn the fuel... and they're non-renewable.

With solar panels, you pay for them once and they then keep generating energy for YEARS... with no additional subsidies needed.

Which comes out on top over the long haul? For my money, it's solar.

Solar panels lose efficiency? You burn oil ONCE...... 100% efficiency loss.

1

of course the solar is cost-effective.now the solar charger is very popular with the market.there are many posting online introduce this solar charger.you can have a read.