I looked into having solar panels installed. With over 35 years in the power industry, I kind of knew what is what. The last company I worked for had built a solar plant. If it wasn't for the tax credits to offset carbon output from other plants, they would of never invested a 100 million bucks.

When I had a guy come to the house for the BS of installing, I started asking all the right questions. He left with his tail in between his legs.

Do the systems work? Yes, they do. Do they really have the output as stated? Yes, but over time they start to break down. Then one has to have them clean often. That is one of the catches they hit you with on service calls. Battery back up systems, over time the batteries will have o be changed out. Big bucks for that. Kind of looking at replacing them about every 5-6 years. Read the fine print on the contracts. They are only covered X amount of time. Not 25 years.

Over all, yes, I'm all for solar power, but it still has a long way to go before I would install it on my house. And yes, I'm all for the tax breaks people get for installing them. Those tax breaks are good. They are NOT any monies going out of anybody's pocket. It's a credit, nothing more, nothing less.

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Posted by Sho Nuff

Oahu

Member since Feb 2009

11931 posts

Posted on 3/23/15 at 2:27 pm to fishfighter

quote:
I started asking all the right questions.

Would you mind sharing just a few of those questions?

quote:
Yes, but over time they start to break down.

Is that not abundantly clear that they degrade over time? The warranties on good panels (frick Chinese made) are 25 years and guarantee 25 years at 80%, usually as high as 90-95% over the first 10.

quote:
Then one has to have them clean often. That is one of the catches they hit you with on service calls.

Sounds like you talked to someone really shady.

quote:
Battery back up systems, over time the batteries will have o be changed out. Big bucks for that. Kind of looking at replacing them about every 5-6 years.

Many batteries are up to 10 years now. But yes, battery tech has some ways to go, but as Placebeaux writes above, there is unreal tech out there. If you care to look, look into liquid sulfur, look into liquid metal there's a TED talk about it. There's stuff out there now that is able to blow the doors off.

quote:
Read the fine print on the contracts.

I would hope you do. Leases can be a bad deal, some are good.

quote:
They are only covered X amount of time. Not 25 years.

Again, sounds like you talked to an asshat and took his "presentation" to mean all are the same. The warranties are 25 years on panels and most inverters. The labor will be 10 years. Companies will charge $50-75 to come out. Panels usually don't fail if you use good ones. Inverters can fail so let's say 10 inverters go out after the initial 10 year labor warranty, then you pay $750 in 25 years for some work. And most people don't have 10 inverters go out.

quote:
Over all, yes, I'm all for solar power, but it still has a long way to go before I would install it on my house. And yes, I'm all for the tax breaks people get for installing them. Those tax breaks are good. They are NOT any monies going out of anybody's pocket. It's a credit, nothing more, nothing less.

Only thing I don't agree with is the "long way to go" but the rest of your post gives me great hope for you