Solar pictures

[billvon 3,121]

>What about ROI? How long before you zero out your costs compared
> to how much you would have spent on the utility bill? How much
> upkeep?

ROI depends on literally dozens of factors, but it's generally 10-25 years. No upkeep unless you have batteries; if you have batteries you have to replace them every 10-20 years. You can hose off the panels if you want to get another 10% efficiency, but you don't have to.

>Is this practical for an apartment or is it better to wait until you get
> your own place? (I rent the entire building I live in)

I put in my first system in an apartment; the second system was on a rental house. The systems are fairly modular, so they are (relatively) easy to move. But if you plan on doing a big system I'd wait.

[dbattman 0]

10-25 years is a heck of a payback time. Do you forsee the efficiency of panels increasing and the price dropping significantly in the future? I'm a bit of a techie and I'd love to have a system on my house, but I just couldn't see myself dropping thousands of bucks on panels just yet.

How about a wind turbine? I did see a 400W turbine advertised for under $600. Any idea how much wind you need to get these things up to speed? Granted, I don't have a big open area at my house where it would be practical, but I could see them being used some other places.

[PhreeZone 20]

All the wind turbines I've looked at need a 12-15 wind to generate their rated power. The major draw back is the tower. That alone can be thousands of dollars to buy and install.

I looked into just a Grid inversion system and my payback time for my apartment would be about 5 years. Adding the batteries in for a full solar system really jacks the cost up, but at this point I'm not overly worried about losing power, I'm more intersted in reducing my usage.

Granted right now my electricity useage is about $50 a month, I'm sure in a larger house It would go up as well my investment in panels would have to.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[Cajun 0]

Thanks I found the inverter that I need, it's going for about $100, now I just have to cough up the money.

[billvon 3,121]

> 10-25 years is a heck of a payback time. Do you forsee the efficiency of
>panels increasing and the price dropping significantly in the future?

Efficiency will go up slightly, but price per watt has been dropping steeply until this year, when demand (from all the state buyback programs) started leveling the prices out. Once this demand is met, prices will start dropping again.

>How about a wind turbine? I did see a 400W turbine advertised for under
> $600. Any idea how much wind you need to get these things up to speed?
>Granted, I don't have a big open area at my house where it would be
>practical, but I could see them being used some other places.

Wind is by far the cheapest renewable source of power IF you have the siting and space for it. You really need a 50 foot MINIMUM tower (30' above the tallest obstacles) and a 1kW+ turbine to make it worth it, and you need average wind speeds of around 10kts. But I know a few people who have put up wind turbines, switched to 100% electric houses (including heat) and still generate far more than they use.