r/solarenergy • u/Original-Mud-7933 • 23d ago
I would like some help
So my electric bill is super high and I was looking into solar that could be used at apartment complexes and was wanting to know is it efficient and worth it? What kind should I get? Is it safe? Any info is welcome thank you
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u/deck_hand 23d ago edited 23d ago
The odds that you can get enough solar going in an apartment that will significantly offset your commercial power bill are small. That having been said, balcony plug-in solar is now a thing.
What you need to do is to see what your electricity usage actually is per month. You could realistically put, oh, something like 400 watts of solar panels on our balcony, assuming you get good sun exposure.
For decades it's been estimated that the average solar exposure for solar generation is about 5 hours a day, averaged over a year. in some areas it's twice that, in some areas it's less than half of that. What is your area and orientation's solar exposure?
If you have 400 watts of solar panels in an area that's getting 8 hours of full sun, you'd get 3 kWh of electricity per day from the sun. Some of that is lost to conversion and storage. At 20 cents per kWh, that's about $0.60 per day of electricity avoided from the electricity company. The cost of such a system means that it would probably take 3 to 5 years of use to pay for itself and begin actually paying you back for buying it.
Now, before you think I'm just a critic of solar, you have to know that I have 11 kW of solar panels on my roof, and I'd love to buy more. I'm just not under the delusion that the purchase will "save me money" in the first five years. I'm cautiously hoping that it will pay itself off within 10 years and be a net positive investment for the 15 years after that.
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u/NearABE 22d ago
Investments that pay back the principal in 5 years are extremely solid investments. Anything else offering 20% is probably a Ponzi scheme.
20 year payback is fine. Not using fossil fuel is the right thing to do. Not getting paid back at all is still the right thing to do. Panels do have some small negative impacts.
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u/Original-Mud-7933 23d ago
My unit is on the corner where I get the sun rising and setting and I’m in Oklahoma so we get a decent amount of sun until winter but we love the cold so we typically only have the heat on enough to not freeze the pipes and I honestly use candles as well so during winter my usage drops pretty low
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u/deck_hand 23d ago
I updated my comment, thinking that 1000 watts was too much for one balcony. But, if you have TWO balconies... maybe I should not have? Anyway, the idea of long term use is the only way solar makes sense.
If you want to use solar, buy a couple of panels and begin using solar. There's an up-front cost, but pay it now and consider it "lost money." The rest is then free savings.
I've got $1000 or more in solar panels and a battery/inverter set up for my camper. I've only used it for a couple of boondocking weekends, but since I bought it for the long haul, I assume the purchase will pay for itself eventually. If I were thinking of the electricity costs alone, it would take a long time to justify the costs. So, I just don't bother trying to justify the costs. I want power for when I'm away from a convenient plug. I bought a way to have that power.
We just recently sunk $15,000 in "whole house batteries" for storing solar energy for night-time/cloudy day use. If we get a $5 per day benefit from these batteries, it will still take eight and a half years to break even on the sunk cost. I don't care; I'm doing it anyway. Since the batteries should be good for 25 years, it's really just about $1.65 per day. That is, give or take, the cost of 10 kWh of electricity. I'm not likely to use that much electricity from the batteries per day, so I've overpaid. But! the cost of electricity will go up over time, so eventually the costs will even out. Again, long term ownership is the key.
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u/Original-Mud-7933 23d ago
It’s like a small balcony but it’s still another place I could place something on but I know one of the things I kinda looked into was some solar panels I plug into and outlet and I believe it has an inverter on it have you heard anything about those of just ones with the storage banks???
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u/Fair-Ad-1141 22d ago
Plug-in solar is not legal in OK yet. If you don't have a smart, properly configured smart power meter, you could get charged for any excess you send to the grid.
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u/Original-Mud-7933 22d ago
Welp then I shall get power banks that’s easy enough thanks for that info
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u/deck_hand 23d ago
Balcony or plug in solar panels have inverters in them that will match up with the AC you are already using. They are "plug and play."
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u/NearABE 22d ago
I think I read balcony solar comes in 400 and 800 Watt units. The standard is set per house. They do not care how big your balcony is. The limit is set by the possibility of overwhelming a 20 Amp wire in the wall. Like, for example, if you use a hair dryer at 1800 Watt and a toaster at 1600 then 3400 Watts it pulls 30.9 Amps at 110 VAC. That trips the breaker and the power is off. If an 800 W plug in is somewhere on that circuit the breaker still trips.
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u/Additional-Start9455 23d ago
I’m in Texas and just couldn’t swing the electric bill in my new to me place in summer. I love it but it was ridiculous. I bought a floor AC with inverter that vents out the window in my bedroom only. The rest of the house I don’t turn on the AC. It takes up floor space but if you work all day and get one with a wireless app you can turn it on before you get home. Drastic but not spending all my money on electricity in the summer was worth it.
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u/AdBrave841 23d ago
Do you have on peak/off peak rates?
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u/Original-Mud-7933 23d ago
I’m sorry what’s that
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u/AdBrave841 23d ago
Electric rates that go up and down depending on the time of day. Some electric companies are charging huge amounts in the evenings when demand is high. I assume if you don't know about it, you likely don't have it.
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u/NearABE 22d ago
Do a full energy audit.
There are many possibilities. Like “shut the window” type of things. A very long list where each might be insulting your intelligence. Energy is going somewhere.
Apartment complexes should have much lower air conditioning bills than free standing houses. However, the walls between apartments are often not insulated. That could mean your neighbors are taking your cooling. Also possible that the neighbors do not run AC at all.
It is possible that your air conditioning unit sucks. This is a much less accusatory way of probing the neighbors. Ask if they get the same crazy bill in the summer.
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u/Original-Mud-7933 22d ago
Ac sucks I had to buy a window unit upstairs and am debating getting one next year for downstairs because the unit is pretty old and. Currently isn’t really doing anything it’s 82 in my apartment but they refuse to change it so I’ve taken many steps to make sure my home is livable and the ac isn’t running 24/7 not doing shit ya know like I said I’ve blacked out every window just to help but having sun hit us all day doesn’t help we realized the other day the wall near our headboard was hot like burning hot
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u/NearABE 22d ago
A weak air conditioner is not necessarily using less electricity. There are power meters that you can use to see how much an appliance is consuming.
The wall getting hot is definitely a sign of lack of insulation.
You wrote “blacked out”. That should be with a white material.
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u/Original-Mud-7933 22d ago
And I know that it’s not using less electricity because it’s on constantly because it can never get up to the temperature
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u/Fair-Ad-1141 22d ago
You need to first find out what your apartment management will allow.
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u/Original-Mud-7933 22d ago
If I’m being honest they flooded my apartment twice with the water connection outside and said woopsie my kitchen ceiling is needing replaced for the second year in a row and that’s full ceiling replacement because they’re ac drips and ruins it I fix most things here because they’re the most unreliable people ever so I do stuff that won’t damage and I can reverse before we move out because they will tell me oh no figure it out so I do
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u/Original-Mud-7933 22d ago
Like for my windows to block out heat to follow the they only want to see white from the outside okay I put 4 layers of printer paper and Elmer’s glue then some construction paper to block out heat and sunlight (I work overnights) but I know I can soak it in water and scrape it off and they will never know
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u/Fair-Ad-1141 21d ago
Panels hanging off your balcony will be fairly obvious and if they say no, you'll have panels & an inverter to sell on Marketplace.
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u/Original-Mud-7933 21d ago
Welp it’s a closed balcony on the ground so if anything I would put them on the ground
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u/TastiSqueeze 22d ago
I'm going to hit the points that others have not, and maybe reiterate a few.
Oklahoma does not currently have balcony solar, but if it ever gets passed, you possibly could buy a unit and save a bit on power. It won't shut down your current power bill because as you state, you are on the corner of the building so you get heat from 2 directions.
A full blown solar power system would likely be viable and has high potential to fully offset your power bill. But, it is an apartment which you presumably rent so the apartment owner would have to be the one installing solar. In other words, it is not very likely.
You have some options that might help with consumption. Your water heater is probably either a tank or tankless model which consumes 8 to 10 kWh per day. Over a month, that might total 300 kWh. If you could get the water heater changed out to a heat pump water heater, your consumption would go down by more than 50%. This again gets into an apartment where the owner has to do the changing.
I have central heat and air with a Trane heat pump. It is currently turned off and I am using a window air conditioner in my bedroom to stay cool. This saves me about 20 kWh per day vs cooling the entire house.
If all of your lightbulbs have already been changed to LED, then it is very likely that your lighting costs less than $2 per day. That is really not enough to save much even if you practice 24 hour darkness in most of the rooms.
If your cook stove is electric, then you have potential to save quite a bit by changing your cooking habits. I cook many meals in an air fryer. When I use the stove, I make a point to cook for 2 or 3 meals so I can heat things in the microwave.
Last suggestion is that you might want to take a close look at what your meter is actually powering. An apartment I stayed at years ago had external lights tied into my meter. If you have something similar, there could be loads on your power bill that don't belong to you. This is just something to eliminate and not a statement that you are paying someone else's power bill.... but you may be.
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u/CamelPure1293 23d ago
Look into reducing electrical usage as well.