For owners of solar panels, is their own roof the best location for those panels?

Not to mention the environmentalism impact and expense of buying and maintaining the batteries.:rockon:

Batteries make sense if you are in the boonies off the grid, otherwise they usually don't make sense.

 

Simple battery chemistry dictates that you can only get out ~80% of the energy from a battery reactive to what you out in. In other words, it takes ~120 amp hours of charge energy to replace 100 amp hours of draw, plus wiring and charge controller loses.

A typical grid tie solar system mint harvest (net/net) ~75% of available energy, while a typical battery based system is lucky to harvest 52%. (that harvest percentage is a percentage of name plate rating, not total solar energy in watts per square meter, of which PV typically an harvest about 15%)

Icarus

 

Yep. But since people tend to buy as much as their wallet can endure, apartment dwellers are often folks who'd be a minority. solar is a minority . . . . so now you're talking about the minority within the minority.

 

I can't imagine a single reason why a utility would want to have you own the solar panels. If they own them it is just business as usual. Mine hates the idea of anyone else being able to produce power. The only thing you are contributing is money, and they get that from you anyway, and if they need more, they go to a government (which also has your money).

 

I'll give you the case with my utility. It is mandated to have 100 MW solar by 2020. The first step is to build a 30MW solar PV farm which is delayed for an epa impact study. When built they will add a surcharge of $3.50 to everyone's bill, as it is much more expensive than any other power source. I'm not sure if I have to pay for it since I'm already paying for wind. When a customer puts in solar they take care of the land and risk. The utility gets them a low interest loan and helps them size and get the subsidies. The more solar customers put in the less the utility will have to ask for more surcharges. Every MW of wind has been paid for voluntarily by green choice, and this has sold more wind than any other utility although some smaller ones have sold more per capita. The majority of wind purchasers are businesses.

Economics, regulation, and forward looking utilities are quite different depending on the region of the country you are in.

 

Electric utilities use the stock market (or governments) for that. Why should they deal with actual grubby people?

Make no mistake, I think the idea is great, but you are better off thinking of collaborative ventures with your neighbors, or community efforts, than trying to sell this to an electrical utility.

 

What is the state of deregulation of solar in California. You may be able to do it there if the feed through tariff is high enough. Do you know what the rate is?

 

There's a company that supplies wind power here, that 100% of my usage going back to them is cheaper than paying the main electric supplier. We have choice for generation here, because the local utility dropped out of the generation business. If I hadn't signed on for a 2 yr locked in price of 9.9cents/kwh I would have switched to the full wind powered place. I have solar on my roof for roughly 50% of my usage, and to get the other half from wind, I would be content.

For those in the mid-atlantic region and might be interested, the website is: Clean Currents Home – A leading wind and solar power supplier and installer for maryland, virginia and washington dc - Home

 

If you think PV is good now on "good" roof space, within a couple years it should be cheap enough to put even on non-optimal roof space.

East/West facing roof is typically only about 20% less productive year-round than South facing roof. Heck - even a North facing roof is only about 30% less productive than a South facing roof (assuming 20* angle pretty much anywhere in California).

In other words - right now PV for residential installs is about $4/watt after incentives. To install PV on East/West facing roofs it needs to get down to $3.20/watt. To install PV on North facing roofs it needs to get down to $2.80/watt.

It's a good thing they are aiming for $1/watt installed! (see SunShot Initiative)

 

I thought Nukes had that honor ... then there's the safety thing ... I posted in some other thread the rough numbers of deaths relating to differing power sources. Can't find it right now.

 

Hill, as always you have a couple of things confused. The question was why a utility would want individuals to put up solar instead of doing it themselves. I answered with what is going on and costs to my utility. The one in san antonio also has a solar mandate and solar as its highest cost. They are implementing a 27 cent feed through tariff.

These municipal utilities spend money trying to get individuals and businesses to add renewables..

 

So a home owner would basically be doing this for pure investment purposes. If that made money sense it would be simpler and more to the point for an investor with lots of money to implement all these smaller groups of arrays in one big go, hence a solar power station.

 

but the permitting is much easier on medium sized installations and they still benefit from scale. they're sort of an optimized solution that balances a variety of tchnical and non-technical considerations.

 

The san antonio feed through tariff are for medium sized installations. Austin is promoting PV on homes. It is a good micro climate to see what works better. Austin is trying to get 100 MW of solar by 2020, but 700 MW of conservation. THe politicians at least figure if people get involved with putting solar on their homes it will be easier to get them to conserve energy.

 

We're 1/4 the way through the next year. You're right ... as usual ... I am confused. Thanks for reminding me

 

Thanks, I edited for my typo and it now says 2020.

Must be the heat, we had a heat index of 100 today. Just kidding, not about the heat, my fingers often type things my mind does not think of

 

Interesting, last week I was at the Monterrey Bay Aquarium and learned that Octopuses have distributed processing too.

 

That sounds like a good combination to me. Far cheaper that way too.