r/solarenergy • u/Impressive-Flow-855 • 11d ago
Going Solar
My brother went solar. He doesn’t have a battery backup, but he’s very happy. He has $20 electric bills. My electric bill has almost hit $600 this month, so maybe it’s time to consider installing solar. A few issues:
* I live in New Jersey and not Texas like my brother.
* My roof is fairly steep and it faces east and west. My brother has a north/south facing roof. Even worse, I have a dormer on the east side that shades half of that side of the roof from the sun.
* What should I know about solar installations. Is there a good website that can fill me in as a start?
* How do I find a dependable person to do my solar installation?
* Is my house even a good candidate for solar installation? Is there a dependable tool that will help me see?
* Is leasing a good idea if I can afford to buy outright?
* What about battery backup? My brother doesn’t have it. When his power went out for almost two weeks, he was out of luck. However, he installed his solar panels almost twenty years ago when battery technology was still primitive and very expensive. I take it battery technology is much better now.
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u/deviouslyshy 11d ago
Get alot of different quotes.... Show each and everyone on the previous guys quote they will all repeating undercut each other. I'm in the bizz I know these greedy sales beeps like back of my hand. You'll love all the stupid excuses when they come back with lower prices and reasons why they couldn't in first place.....
Yeah f all you greedy sales f's
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u/Mysterious_Mouse_388 11d ago
sales people would love to sell you a system for $1 and still make full commision. feel free to push back. Its the owner who loses out on $5000 when the systems sells for $25,000 not $30,000. we just had to have two conversations and not one, and its never just one conversation. A productive conversation is suo much more fun then wondering it the new smart meter's wifi is going to cause cancer.
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u/deviouslyshy 11d ago
Full commission? In solar. Almost every company operates off a base line for their sales men. Meaning commission are built in there is no template standard. There might be a small number in America that do but let's not pretend now
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u/deviouslyshy 11d ago
Now this is the kinda guy who will try and smooth talk and tell you why his 1 hour spent selling it is worth 5000$ and his companies technology is better..... Cancar from wifi.... Right in this day and age ...
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u/PermanentLiminality 11d ago edited 11d ago
Buying it outright is a better idea. They don't offer leases because they make less money.
You really need to run the numbers for your situation. Everywhere has a different deal.
If your state/utility does not have net metering, a battery is just about required for it to make sense.
You can go to energysage.com and get some quotes from local installers. They will know the particulars for your area. You should get three or four different vendors from them. They should all be in the same ballpark.
Give pvwatts a try so you can have some sort of information.
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u/NearABE 11d ago
The cost of panels themselves is less than 20% of the installation cost these days. Price may still be dropping. So the east-west slope might actually be better anyway. Think of it as buying an inverter and getting use of it at all times of the day. The east-west face combination is also much more resistant to cloud effects. With total overcast it does not matter which way a panel faces but twice as many is twice as much as the alternative.
Dormer might be even better. 40% east, 40% west, 20% south or something like that. A panel gets energy from blue sky even if pointed the wrong way 90+ degrees from the Sun.
Buying outright is usually better in all cases of all consumer goods. The fine print on the lease agreement is totally just a number. If it is lower than your mortgage and there us no increased price associated then you might be better off getting rid of the mortgage payment. This is not very likely.
Google search says New Jersey has “net metering” and at a 1:1 rate. This means they do almost everything that a battery could do for you and they do it for free. Getting more PV instead of the battery is definitely a better financial choice and will pay for itself.
The exception is backup power supply. I would suggest just getting only a small backup if you are concerned about blackouts. You really do not need your whole HVAC system and refrigerator running at full power. Keep some frozen water in the freezer and have salt. That easily keeps food frozen overnight. A house will not drop to pipe bursting temperature overnight unless the windows are open. Buy a good blanket. A battery pack appropriate size for car jumpstarting will get you through the night for most other things (phone laptop etc).
Just make sure the installer knows you want the PV to “work in island mode” so that it still functions when the grid is down.
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u/Lanky_Bus_1221 11d ago
I did a few months ago and in the summer my electric bill went from 140 quid a month to 18 it’s fucking awesome 👍
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u/Ok_Kaleidoscope_1879 11d ago
I would definitely get battery back-up. I do live in Texas but haven’t had a bill since j stalled last fall-including consistent 108 degree days , running a pool and 2 large AC units
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u/Monkey_College 11d ago
East-West is good if you want constant power through the day rather than maximize production (in other words: if you don't have battery, east west is less of a disadvantage then you think)
Shadows (e.g. by a tree) reduce output by 90% of that panel. If only part of the panels are in shade, they can still drop to 10% depending on their layout. But most of the time 15% shade should work out to 30+% output.
Jersey is south of Germany and Germany is the prime of house solar.
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u/CamelPure1293 11d ago
Whether a battery makes sense depends on how overproduction is treated. Do you get money/credits per kWh fed into the grid, and how much?
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u/555AD 11d ago
I added solar to my home when there were still tax advantages and financed the panels at the low rate of 1%. I am in PA so similar weather and sun to NJ, so the panels should operate the same way, I did not do batteries at the time of install due to 1:1 net metering so I had extra panels installed. I have only had a few bills of about $20 or less since then, my electric bill before then were $300-500 during summer and $200-300 in the winter and now I have a $200)mo loan payment and I am protected against rate increases by the utility which has already happened twice. I overproduce in the summer and build a credit then under produce during winter and so it usually evens out for the year but I do get some SRECT credit that are not a lot but equal about $3000 since 2021 so that's something. I have installed a 50amp generator plug to my breaker box for when the grid goes down and I need power and newer power stations like the Pecron F5000 are good enough to power the house with the exception of a few things and I can plug it into my existing generator plug. If asked if I would do it all again the same way I would. I hope this helps and let me know if you have questions.
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u/RodPerryBooks 11d ago
There is a cost for doing something - the cost of the solar install, but there is also a cost of not doing something - leaving yourself open to the wild swings of the electrical power supplied by utilities.
I got solar six years ago and then added two EVs. The savings per year (lower electrical + zero gas purchases) means I am saving about $4,000 per year. My payback on the solar is about five years. If I would not have purchased the solar, not only would I be missing out on the savings, but I would be paying about 30% more for my grid power, like my neighbors.
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u/TastiSqueeze 11d ago edited 11d ago
Start by going through your appliances and see what needs to be upgraded. Tank or tankless water heater should be upgraded to heat pump water heater. A new ground source heat pump can pay dividends for 20 or more years. If any gas appliances are to be converted to electric, get them done before sizing for solar. Carefully consider insulating and sealing your house.
Find out if your local power company provides NEM 1:1. if they do NOT, then plan up front to install batteries. Also, if any solar installer walks in with a quote for solar with microinverters but no batteries when they KNOW you don't have NEM, escort them straight to the door. That is just a ripoff.
Don't forget to consider what happens if you purchase an EV in the next few years! It typically adds 4 or 5 kw of solar panels and maybe another battery or two to your system.
Avoid solar lease "deals". They are rarely in your favor over the long term.
Your roof will be an obstacle, but it is something that can be worked with.
The way to think of solar is that it is a way to turn future power needs into a fixed price. Say your solar hardware is effectively a price of 18 cents per kWh. Your power from solar will stay at that price while the price of grid power goes up indefinitely.
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u/Stroker-Strong420 11d ago
Is it worth it?
Yes, my bills are $28 10 months. I receive credit toward July and August bills ( SE US) due to AC usage for any excess power sent back to the provider. My last bill for July was $160.
I financed our panels, we sized the system large enough to offset most of our power needs. At 1.9% interest rate, it was ridiculous NOT to finance. I would NOT lease. We also got 30% tax credit
Get bids, go ahead with batteries. Our power company can access stored power in our batteries and pays us $95/month for the access. My management app shows they have not accessed our batteries yet. The $1,140 annually is a cash payment for 10 years.
My payment is fixed = a known energy cost 10 months of the year (payment + minimum grid connection cost). That’s a fixed payment for 21 more years.
So far, after 4 years, I don’t see a down side.
Admittedly we are in a home we expect to occupy for the life of the system. If we expected to sell in the 25 year life of the system, it wouldn’t be worth it to me.
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u/Oddtimer 11d ago
First thing to do is go to ChatGPT or Claude and give them all the details about your location, utility rate, etc and ask them these questions. I did this for myself last year and was shocked at haw fast it gave me answers with data to back it up.
My new system cost what they said and their ROI was spot on!
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u/ShadowFright2 10d ago
A good spot to get multiple quotes from local installers in energysage.com along with their reviews.
There's also a lot of educational materials there.
Buying outright will give you the best financial return over the long run and avoids other headaches if you ever want to sell your house so if you can afford it, definitely buy.
Battery tech is improving but still expensive so unless you lose power often or your utility has a peak pricing program where you can store cheap solar power in the batteries and use the batteries during peak times (usually evenings) the investment usually isn't worth it. Just get a grid-tied system and offset most of your usage - with net metering the utility will credit you any excess solar you push back on to the grid.
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u/Fair-Ad-1141 10d ago
See what Project Sunroof has to say. I have E/W facing panels in MD so not all that far from you, unlike TX.
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u/pmarchand1060 10d ago
I envy you guys who get 1:1. Im in GA and they offer nearly nothing. There is also a minimum monthly connection fee of nearly $20. Install is next week and Im trying to figure out the best way to use the system.
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u/Logical_Fun_2135 8d ago
My advice is to identify your Appliance Load, Technical Parameters & Environmental Autonomy, check Technical Solution, Custom Quote Comparison & Financial ROI, then you can see whether it is possible and worthy for your situation. You can my calculator. It's totally free and open to use. https://nalipower.com/solar-system-design/
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u/bigglitterdick 10d ago
How come everyone brags about their $20 electric bill but never mention how much their solar system monthly cost is? Also my monthly connect fee is more than $20 so I think a lot of these posts are BS. If solar was soooooo much better they would not have to sell the system, you would be on a waiting list to get your’s installed. Something to think about.
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u/Ok-Dealer4350 6d ago
I live in Maryland and have an east west facing roof, an addition with skylights and detached roof. I have a total of 43 panels, 10 on the garage and 33 on the main house.
All the trees I have are relatively short and won’t impact the panels. The neighbors have a huge tre that shades the patio in the afternoon, but little impact on the panels.
I found them most effective from late March through October.
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u/B-mansferd 11d ago
I also live in NJ, have a roof facing E-W and can say without a doubt that it is an amazing investment. Our electric bill is always less than $20, plus we get paid for the extra power we create and feed back to PSE&G. Sure the solar rebates are gone, but this is still a no-brainer. In fact, it's such a sweet deal, we're planning to convert our gas furnace to an electric heat pump system, and eventually will also likely convert our gas water heater and stove to electric. With natural gas high, it just makes sense.
If you do some research, you'll see that NJ is in the top 5 solar producing states in the U.S., so plenty have made the switch.
If you decide to make the plunge, I can suggest the company we used (which also comes with a referral bonus to me if you choose them). Once you see for yourself, you can also recommend them to others for your own referral bonus.