Solar

[wallus]

Has anyone added solar to their homes? I'm considering it right now and looking for more opinions.

What did you go with? Who installed it? Are you happy with it? I'm in Wisconsin 

[NeedMoreFans]

Got panels in September and it's been awesome so far, with the exception of when we had a foot of snow on our roof (our roof is too tall to clear snow from the panels).  Unfortunately, you won't be able to get the tax credit anymore, but I would still get them even without it.  

We're in the Madison area and went with Drews.  They are a local company and were great to deal with.  We have a Solar Edge inverter, which is inside our house.  There are other inverter systems that are outside- you should do your research as to which is better for your needs.  I can't recall the size of system we got, but solar companies will work with you to size one based on your energy use.  We provided over a year's worth of energy use data and had a system built for when we decide to get an EV.  We paid cash instead of financing, which is recommended if you can afford it. 

No matter what, avoid Everlight.  We didn't even contact them, but I read enough to know they are high pressure, expensive, and not a great company to work with.  

[GreatNWwi]

DIY Solar Forum is a very active forum where you can get all the information overload you may need.  While geared toward DIY, there are sections that talk about installers.  It is a great resource for research to understand how deep you might want to go but you may find a lot of information that is overwhelming.  It is also very international so you will get advice from across the globe.

I seriously considered starting my own solar business many years ago.  Sometimes I wish I had because it has grown pretty much as I expected.  Sometimes I am very happy I did not for all the same reasons.

I do solar DIY on my RV, that is enough for me.

[wallus]

Put a deposit down today on a system. This will be a good long term investment.

[CheezWizHed]

1 hour ago, wallus said:

Put a deposit down today on a system. This will be a good long term investment.

I've not done this yet - need to replace my roof first - but it is on the list.  Did you do a ROI calculation?  When do you get a return on the investment (i.e. produce enough electricity to payback initial investment)?  What sort of warrantee or life expectancy are they giving you?

[wallus]

4 hours ago, CheezWizHed said:

I've not done this yet - need to replace my roof first - but it is on the list.  Did you do a ROI calculation?  When do you get a return on the investment (i.e. produce enough electricity to payback initial investment)?  What sort of warrantee or life expectancy are they giving you?

They did an ROI calculation on the presentation. It looks like it will be paid for itself within 6-7 years. The warranty is 25 years and the life expectancy is 30 but that just means it won't be as efficient but will still produce energy.

[Fear The Chorizo]

14 hours ago, wallus said:

They did an ROI calculation on the presentation. It looks like it will be paid for itself within 6-7 years. The warranty is 25 years and the life expectancy is 30 but that just means it won't be as efficient but will still produce energy.

Curious, does the company you work with cover removal/disposal costs for the panels, any racking, or inverter/battery systems when things need to either be replaced or removed?  

You are correct that as panels/system ages, they generate less energy - while the technology has improved somewhat, you're likely to start seeing diminishing returns start to happen right around the time your system "pays for itself".  It won't get really significant until between years 20-30, at which point you've hopefully sold and gotten some sort of bump on the home price - without having to worry about the disposal/removal costs.

[wallus]

3 hours ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

Curious, does the company you work with cover removal/disposal costs for the panels, any racking, or inverter/battery systems when things need to either be replaced or removed?  

You are correct that as panels/system ages, they generate less energy - while the technology has improved somewhat, you're likely to start seeing diminishing returns start to happen right around the time your system "pays for itself".  It won't get really significant until between years 20-30, at which point you've hopefully sold and gotten some sort of bump on the home price - without having to worry about the disposal/removal costs.

What company in the world would ever cover the costs for something that will be replaced in at least 30 years?  The cost to remove and dispose is pretty minimal anyways.

Even after 20 years, they should still be 90% as efficient according to the presentation I was given and what search tells me.

Feel free to show me some specific math where this doesn't make sense which I think you are trying to imply here.

 

[CheezWizHed]

18 hours ago, wallus said:

They did an ROI calculation on the presentation. It looks like it will be paid for itself within 6-7 years. The warranty is 25 years and the life expectancy is 30 but that just means it won't be as efficient but will still produce energy.

Interesting.  I knew a few engineer co-workers that were calculating a 10 year ROI, which was right in line with the warrantee.  I tend to ignore the sales-pitch ROI because they like to use ideal situations. 

Obviously, tech gets better with time, but this was only 2-3 years ago. Hopefully they fulfill the promise!

[wallus]

12 minutes ago, CheezWizHed said:

Interesting.  I knew a few engineer co-workers that were calculating a 10 year ROI, which was right in line with the warrantee.  I tend to ignore the sales-pitch ROI because they like to use ideal situations. 

Obviously, tech gets better with time, but this was only 2-3 years ago. Hopefully they fulfill the promise!

Yeah, it still makes sense at 10 years. With all of the electric demand coming online soon, I think it's a prudent decision 

[Fear The Chorizo]

22 hours ago, wallus said:

What company in the world would ever cover the costs for something that will be replaced in at least 30 years?  The cost to remove and dispose is pretty minimal anyways.

Even after 20 years, they should still be 90% as efficient according to the presentation I was given and what search tells me.

Feel free to show me some specific math where this doesn't make sense which I think you are trying to imply here.

 

I'm just wondering if these companies have removal/disposal included in the life cycle cost of the panels - which apparently they don't.  

I do know the commercial solar industry has concerns on disposal costs, but that's probably more to do with the scale and poor reception of landfilling all the spent panels while claiming a solid portion of the overall mass is recycled....which is basically just the aluminum framing/racking.  Guess the cost of individual residential panel disposal isn't that high to just have sent to the dump whenever it's spent.

Hopefully that ROI perfectly mirrors the model the company who sold the system to you presented.  Maybe those residential models are much more accurate than what I'm seeing with clients I work with for community and generation-capacity solar developments that are less than a decade old - several of which are currently undergoing panel replacements.

[CheezWizHed]

So I got my first solar quote - a company that did both roofing (which I need to do first) and solar.  

$25k for a 10kWh (annual production) system - a very simple ROI puts it at a 22 year break-even point (with a 30-year warrantee).  I've didn't factor in the increased cost of electricity (yet), but I also didn't figure in opportunity cost or efficiency losses either. 

I really doubt I'm going to get it under a 10 year ROI (which was my goal). 

[owbc]

I have a system that does about 10-11 MWh of annual production. 

It came with the house that I bought so I don't know how much it cost but I valued it at about $50K given that it's costing me $0 and saving maybe $2K of annual utility costs (with that number likely to go up in the future). 

So much of the install cost is associated with getting the permits, metering, electricians, labor, etc. Panels are cheap. They put a new roof on the house when they installed these panels in 2022, I assume in 15-20 years I'll need a new roof and when that happens it will just make sense to throw the panel replacement in with the roof replacement since they will need to be taken down anyway. 

[CheezWizHed]

On 2/5/2026 at 2:57 PM, owbc said:

I have a system that does about 10-11 MWh of annual production. 

It came with the house that I bought so I don't know how much it cost but I valued it at about $50K given that it's costing me $0 and saving maybe $2K of annual utility costs (with that number likely to go up in the future). 

So much of the install cost is associated with getting the permits, metering, electricians, labor, etc. Panels are cheap. They put a new roof on the house when they installed these panels in 2022, I assume in 15-20 years I'll need a new roof and when that happens it will just make sense to throw the panel replacement in with the roof replacement since they will need to be taken down anyway. 

Probably hard to know exactly, but did you pay more in buying the house because of the panels?  Did you pay $50k more? 

[owbc]

50 minutes ago, CheezWizHed said:

Probably hard to know exactly, but did you pay more in buying the house because of the panels?  Did you pay $50k more? 

Personally I don’t think other buyers valued it at $50K which is part of the reason we got the house in the first place. The sellers did a pretty big set of upgrades (roof, solar, HVAC) which I found attractive. 

[NeedMoreFans]

We're just past the halfway point in February, and we have produced more energy than we have consumed for the month so far.  Looking at the forecast, I expect that to change, but I cannot wait to see what our electric bills moving forward are.