to answer the first question in the article

"Many consumers want to know how long it will take them to make back the upfront costs of solar"

my answer is that the payback is imediate, right from the first moment watching as energy is generated out of thin air, and the sudden relief from getting off the energy angst missery-go-round, and the sheer borring inertness of solar pv as it does the thing with zero detectable effort, is gratifying and relaxing in a way that money never gives.

I will add that solar pv is increadably robust, and damage tollerant as well, you can drive a claw hammer through a panel, and while it does not improve the performance, the degradation is actualy not that much, and it will continue to function for years

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mbgerring an hour ago | parent | next [-]

It’s already possible for consumers to know that, I worked on the software that powers the tools that tell US consumers this at Genability ca 2015.

As far as I know, they never cracked the European market, so if you’re interested in working on that, I’m currently available for hire! Info in profile :)

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jrmg 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We just got solar panels and a battery installed on our house. I try to be hard-headed about the economics when planning, but I have to say the _experience_ of having done it is exactly as you describe.

The other thing it made me is angry at the political morass that these things seem to be in.

At a technical level I understand the ‘base load’ arguments, but we are throwing away _so much energy_ that’s just there for the taking by not having these everywhere. On most days, our house (in Western North Carolina) gets enough energy from the sun that we net-export to the grid - and we have an EV! There’s just no need for the massive amounts of carbon we are spewing into the air - the energy is just falling onto us!

In the future, providing we’re still around, we’ll look back at a time when we could’ve been getting all our energy needs from just the sun (and wind etc.) and shake our heads in disbelief at those who fought against the idea that we should even think about efficiently using it so viscerally.

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zowie_howie 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Is it immediate? Sure, there is satisfaction that you are using 'free' electricity. But it does have an upfront cost. I calculated that it would take over 11 years to recoup the investment based on our current usage. Given we already get cheap night-time rates to charge the car and run appliances, it is hard to justify.

Like many UK houses, we have gas central heating too. I guess if we had a battery too (more investment) then we could switch to using electric oil-filled radiators, though they would not heat the whole house. And we could install a hot water tank.

I guess for new builds there is a real opportunity, but for an existing household I'm struggling to see how it works - and I want it to!

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skippyboxedhero 12 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

UK also has massive subsidies. I know someone who got a government subsidy, the company didn't complete the job, got paid for the government for the full job, and they calculated the payback was 50+ years.

At this point, I do not understand how anyone can possibly believe that the people advocating for this stuff are thinking in terms of economic (as opposed to political or social) returns. This stuff makes no economic sense and is already bankrupting the country.

Also, there is a legal requirement for new builds to have this now, this is with a massive shortage of housing, with a government that is a government of the "people" but has just put out the same housing targets as the last one and is running 75% behind annually. The scale of subsidies being given to these industries is probably tens of billions, green energy subsidies are now 5x larger than industry profits...this makes no sense, even with sky-high electricity prices (to be clear, it is consumers who are ultimately paying for this...we pay higher prices so that a lawyer somewhere can prattle on about leading a "green revolution" that is lining the pockets of donors).

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tencentshill 40 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Ideally, the problem will solve itself. People will get angry with increased energy prices, and elect politicians who promise to bring them down (The most effective and visible way being home solar subsidies, while reducing gas/coal).

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pjc50 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don't think it ever makes sense to switch to electric radiators. It might make sense to switch to a heatpump, but you need to avoid being hugely overcharged by the installers and there are flow issues if you have 8mm piping.

This ROI calculator looks reasonable: https://ukcalculator.com/solar-panel-roi-calculator.html - note that it subtracts the install cost for you, so any case where the final figure is positive is profitable. But of course that depends on whether grid prices go up or down in the next decade ...

	▲	mytailorisrich 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Well France did move to electric everything (cooking, hot water, heating) in the past thanks to ample nuclear electricity production (and possibly not too harsh winters). Unfortunately they let their nuclear programme decay and are struggling now (EU grid integration does not help)... I think a big part of the push to install heat pumps now is that it is understood that electricity production is in dire straights, taking into account that the transition to EV requires a lot of electricity.

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ZeroGravitas 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Are you talking about rooftop solar?

For an 800W balcony system your background house usage is likely to be enough to self consume most of it.

You'd wouldn't be able to run even a small oil heater except maybe in peak summer.

It's a good match for working from home as it's a small amount of power spread over daylight hours.

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9wzYQbTYsAIc 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The mindset shift towards “how many hours of computer usage did that one panel enable” is like the mindset shift from learning calculus, in some ways. Not quite a paradigm shift, but you gain a new appreciation for conservation of use when it’s a difference between choice of $/kW/hr and “wow, the panel powered that for most of the day”.

At the same time, many people will just use a solar calculator or watch or yard lights etc, oblivious to it all.

Show people a solar powered laptop, a solar powered phone, or a solar powered tablet, then they will be impressed.

Remember the craze about solar powered car competitions?

permacompute + solar would make for quite the $100 laptop competition.

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rdtsc 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>> "Many consumers want to know how long it will take them to make back the upfront costs of solar"

> my answer is that the payback is imediate,

So if I pay $35k for an install, I get a $35k check the first time I connect it to the grid? Pretty sure it doesn't work that way. But it would be a nice subsidy from the government if they were really motivated.

I guess you're saying you start to feel good and validated to have spent the money by seeing _some_ savings every billing period. It's hard to argue with feelings of course, but that's not not the original concern. People want to know how long is it going to take: 1, 5, 10 years or ... never (if panels degrade or break before it will never pay off) to pay off their investment.