Comment on Solar power and storage prices have dropped almost 90%
cyberpunk007@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I was still quoted 40K CAD. 20 year ROI. Not feasible for me.
Is that paying cash for the solar system or financing? Financing can devastate the ROI with interest rates today. I’m looking at as long as 12 year ROI with possibly as short as 7 year ROI if I consider the USA’s federal tax incentives. My slightly southern latitude (a border state with Canada) also likely contributes to slightly higher generation results using the same equipment.
How are the government incentives in Canada?
Bruh I got quoted 50k in St. Louis last year, would take decades for roi
That can’t be for a home. If it was it was predatory nonsense. It should be a 7 or 8 year ROI with a 20-30 year service life.
Maybe not all areas have much competition driving prices down? I’m in sunny hippie California where every other house has solar.
1800sq ft home, my power bill is a few hundred in the summer, I feel there just isn’t any competition here there only 2-3 companies doing it and they’re all small
$50k is a pretty large installation, 18kw-22kw I’d guess for solar only (no battery storage). I’m hoping thats only a max of 100% replacement of electricity sourcing (meaning essentially no net grid consumption after you’re installed). What’s the price per KWh for electricity delivered to your door in St Louis? Its gotta be pretty crazy cheap if you’re that large a consumer of electricity and you’re paying in cash with no battery, and still looking at multiple decades of ROI with the US federal tax credit.
I don’t remember the kWh specs and price off hand but a decent portion of the cost was that I’m in a 1.5 story that faces S and have a lot of small roofs rather than one large roof so it’d be a bunch of panels that didn’t have full sun most of the day. Which is true of all hundred houses in my subdivision as well. Basically build of the house made this difficult or impossible
In Canada you can get a 40k loan from the federal govt that is 0% interest on a 10 year term for doing green upgrades to your home. My solar generates more in credits than than the cost of the loan over the year. The Greener Homes Program is a bit of a pain to jump through all the hoops but getting thousands off in grants and a 0% loan is worth it.
for doing green upgrades to your home.
Who is owning a home in Canada lol. You’ll pay your landlord $3000 for 1000sqft or fuck off.
Not all of us live in big cities where we would need to cry over high rent and house prices.
Well it’s the company/ies not the product
Was that recently or last year? Prices were out of control last year. Here prices have dropped almost 30% just since May.
July last year.
OK, you might be able to get offers at about half the price now then. If things are like they are here.
I calculated our ROI to about 9 years, the company however promises about 6, but I think that’s overly optimistic.
Wow. 3000 square foot home here so we had a sizable system. It was $15k USD.
Ha, mines like 1200
How much of that is installation costs?
how much solar generation capacity and battery storage are u seeking ? where i live, a 2kw solar installation without battery (grid-tied system ?) costs about 3k$. system pays itself in 4 years and rest of human existence is powered by free energy. want batteries ? a 1kwh costs about 300$. where i live 4kwh/day is more than enough, sometimes 10kwh/day in extreme heat/cold. but i guess american needs could differ: u guys feel like averaging 30kwh/day and its kinda extravagent. just to recharge those batteries, u would need extra solar capacity (maybe 7kwc ?), and that would run at 9k$, add 30kwh batteries ? another 9k$… idk what the 50k CAD are for
15.75kW and an inverter, installation in there too. 41k - 5k gov rebate. Too rich for my blood.
16kw/0.4=38 * 100$= 3800$(usd). 1700$ for a 16kw Growatt inverter. Extra 5k$ for copper and all (total=10500$). Still, idk what the rest of 20k usd are for (40k cad= 30k usd). Yea, seems kinda too much. Is solar having a lobby now ?
It was July last year so maybe the prices were just that much more insane then
We ran for almost 16 months on 4kwh of storage and 4 350w panels. We don’t use it for heat since we live in a forest and burn our own wood in a woodstove, but for everything else we needed it was grand. Total cost was about $4500CAD
Having said that - When the power company offered to extend the grid out here, we took them up on it. So now the 4kwh is more than enough to run the garage and a few outbuildings, while the main tinyhouse is tied to the grid.
Not saying any of this to bolster any argument. I just like talking about it :p
I just like talking about it :p
totally understandable. i am aware that prices aren’t the same everywhere, thats why i decided to share prices of solar of where i am living. sharing quotes could help one another save on costs, and ur number of 4k CAD is really quite reasonable for 1.4Kw system and a 4Kwh battery (which is really a good bang for the buck, since batteries are the expensive part most of the time) but the user of the comment above me was quoted 40k CAD which is really absurd, but they didnt disclose the specifications of their system yet, so not much to judge. But solar has been really cheap for a while now. 25k CAD for a 260m² house ? maybe their house required too much climate control or they are charging an Ev, u could help assess how much solar they r installing on the roof: 5m² would correspond to 1kw of solar, if they r not installing alot of panels and yet have spent alot of money the rest of it probably went for batteries, among many possibilities…
I am not judging the neighbour at all. He is a great guy with a ton of smarts. My ‘house’ is 420sqft, and his is over 2800. And he doesn’t enjoy the roughing it parts of life as much as I do. I work in tech so to me things like bringing water up from the creek, or cutting my own firewood, are like therapy. But when he comes out here, he wants all the comforts of his city house. And he deserves that.
And as a bonus - I get to see him test different configs and products before I even have to think about them :)
Who did you contact for your solar install, or did you do it yourself?
I did it myself. But I cheated… The main storage unit is a bluetti unit. That runs about 80% of our needs. The other 20% comes from a DIY solution. I built in a couple of Rubbermaid tubs with six volt golf cart, batteries in series and an inverter.
Zero battery. Who did you contact? I only contacted one company. This was also about a year and a half ago
i dont live in Canada, but that quote was from a third party solar installation company, that gets a license from the utility company to install a bidirectional elcrticity meter that ties the solar panel system to the grid. and yea thoses prices have been the same for a year, if not dropped
LordKitsuna@lemmy.world 1 year ago
If you are willing to DIY you can cut that number dramatically. Out of curiosity what was the size of the array in that quote and did it include battery storage if so how much chances are that you can cut it by anywhere from 50% to 75% if you’re willing to Simply purchase directly and install yourself. The amount that installers charge is absolutely asinine usually 50% or more of that quote is just the installation which is in the same because it’s not difficult at all. People like to act scared like oh that’ll be difficult or hard or dangerous, it’s extremely simple you’re dealing with DC which is very straightforward everything is very clearly labeled on that equipment and it’s quite simple to do yourself
zoe@infosec.pub 1 year ago
yea diy is the way: check Will Prowse on Youtube. He is the go to for diy solar and battery storage
evranch@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
You can’t get any of the stuff Will uses in Canada unfortunately, nobody will ship it here. We have overly strict regulations on importing bare lithium cells.
zoe@infosec.pub 1 year ago
i would kinda get that. since buying batteries from unknown sources could imply a risk hazard. but what about panels and inverters ? those should easily be shipped from ebay or aliexpress. Phone/electronic parts are usually shipped from asia, idk what the exception of solar for.