14 ms·

Why is solar more expensive in the U.S. than in other countries?

126 points by jseliger 4y ago

sparker72678 4y ago
Kinda burying the lede: > To a large degree, it appears the lack of regulatory oversight has allowed for the cheap installation of sub-standard solar panel systems, from the solar equipment and components used in the installation to the actual installation of the solar panels. Interestingly, the same policy and market forces that have helped deliver inexpensive solar to Australian residents are also responsible for the issues observed with Australian solar installations. Though these policies have reduced the time to installation, they’ve also reduced the opportunity to catch errors in installation or issues with equipment. So, TCO for 20-25 years of service might be a better metric to be using here.
- zbrozek 4y ago
  Inspectors don't have infinite expertise, and I've found that they're not really any better at catching or avoiding trades errors than the practitioner. Given the high level of maturity that quality products have achieved and the significant degree of self-protection and fault-isolation that have been built in, I'm inclined to let any random person install with zero oversight and let them deal with any problems that arise. Probably the only thing really worth doing is ensuring that products available in a marketplace actually implement requisite user-safety, grid-safety, and self-protection mechanisms. It's too easy in most places to get shady garbage equipment.
  - idiotsecant 4y ago
    >Inspectors don't have infinite expertise, and I've found that they're not really any better at catching or avoiding trades errors than the practitioner. I think you're missing the whole point of inspectors. They aren't primarily there to be experts for the well-intentioned contractors to use to catch honest oversights they made (although they can do that too sometimes). They're there to catch the less scrupulous people who take advantage of an ignorant homeowner by making the job seem to be done well but in fact actually doing it dangerously and/or poorly. There is a massive incentive to do this kind of work poorly, because it leads to being able to do it quickly and fitting in more jobs means making more money.
    - Jensson 4y ago
      How do you know those mandatory inspections doesn't come from oil lobbyists trying to make solar more expensive than it has to be? You can always frame bad regulations to look reasonable.
      - kube-system 4y ago
        Because the same exact inspector shows up to inspect the electrical installation powered by oil?
        sokoloff 4y ago
        My house was already inspected for the electrical installation currently powered by [mostly natural gas]. It would need additional inspections if I wanted to add grid-tie solar.
        kube-system 4y ago
        My house’s electrical was already inspected too. It still needed inspected again when I had maintenance done on the system. The inspection is because electrical systems can burn houses down if they’re not installed correctly. It has nothing to do with the source of the energy at the other end of the wire.
        toast0 4y ago
        Sure, but if your house already had grid-tie solar and you wanted to add a natural gas generator, you'd need the same kind of inspections.
        sokoloff 4y ago
        Which happens to be substantially the reason I don't have a natural gas standby generator (in this case, the gatekeeping/protectionism of electricians by my state, as enforced at the end by the permitting process).
        4y ago
- _ea1k 4y ago
  TBH, I find that doubtful. If my installer chooses cheap inverters or microinverters, my local inspector won't know or care. The issues with inspections in the US are more around timing and difficulty. Utilities are not required to respond in a timely manner, so solar companies spend inordinate amounts of time managing the inspection process.
  - dymk 4y ago
    Your inspector may not care, but the licensed and bonded contractor that did the install does care if their work falls through your roof in 10 years time.
    - hedora 4y ago
      You mean the one that was founded a few years ago, and will be "out of business" (operating as a different company) before that happens? I think our installer is likely to be in business in 10 years, but we have friends whose installers will certainly be out of business by then. (Guess whose installation appears to be riddled with substandard parts.)
      - novaleaf 4y ago
        I learned this lesson the hard way with a roof install :(
    - _ea1k 4y ago
      I've only had one install done. The issue was a failed power optimizing after only a couple of years. My guess is that the issues in Australia are similar, with substandard equipment and maybe even questionable wiring. I've seen enough of that with US systems to doubt that our systems are more effective at stopping it.
dr-detroit 4y ago
malfist 4y ago
TL;DR: Less regulations in Australia lead to solar systems being 1/3 the price of US solar systems. However, US solar systems tend to perform for 20+ years, whereas a significant number of Australian systems have "sharply" degraded performance after 5 years. Checking the articles sources, apparently lots of installed panels in Australia stop working after ~5 years and the remaining functional panels decline in performance 12%. This is an interesting trade off. Would I prefer a solar system that is 1/3 the cost but 1/4 the life in the US? I don't know. I think the average time spend in one home is around 7 years (don't quote me, I could be very wrong here), so it seems like each homeowner could install their own system and be fine. Cheaper systems also mean that more people could install them. Not a policy expert, don't trust my thoughts.
- dragontamer 4y ago
  > Would I prefer a solar system that is 1/3 the cost but 1/4 the life in the US? I don't know. Hmmm. If we assume that solar panels are rapidly advancing, then probably? The reason 'move fast and break things' works for computers, is that computers are gonna be upgraded in 2 years anyway and we are going to rewrite everything in 5 to 10 years with whatever new programming language becomes popular then. -------- If solar panels are going such a revolution, then yeah, shorter lifespan and short term decisions dominate.
  - krupan 4y ago
    Isn't the whole point of solar that it's "clean" and "renewable"? If we are wasting panels every 5 years that doesn't sound clean or renewable to me.
    - hedora 4y ago
      It depends on the embodied carbon of the panels and the time for it to be less than the local power plant. (There's also the actual wasted panels, and raw materials, but let's face it, that's rounding error vs five years of household waste. Also, the replacement will probably be better on those fronts.)
- 4y ago
Syonyk 4y ago
I've been working on how to bring the cost of solar down, at least for "homeowner installed DIY" systems in my area (legal, grid tie, permitted, inspected, etc), and I'm fairly certain the latest iteration of this will come in around the $1/W range, pre-incentives. That's without labor costs, just raw material and wire costs, but it's for a 21kW ground mount A-frame system with three string inverters, and a couple hundred foot of wire run through the ground between the panels and inverters. I'm not sure how Australia does rapid shutdown (if they do), but Enphase and the requirement for per-panel shutdown devices on arrays in the US is responsible for a decent chunk of cost - somewhere on the order of $0.30/kWh. If you have lots of shading, microinverters are fine, but by NEC 2017, they're basically required (or you have to have per-panel optimizers and shutdown boxes, which add about the same cost as just going to microinverters). I don't know the exact details of it, but everyone I've talked to in the solar industry seems to feel Enphase "lobbied hard" for this particular shutdown requirement, because it's very much to their market advantage, even if it has no meaningful safety benefits in actual array failure conditions. I hate to say "Because installers think they can get people to pay," but I've also seen a lot of "around the edges" evidence that the sales commissions for solar are fairly obscene (couple grand, if not more), just "tacked on" to the price. Hey, they're interested in solar, dial the commission up, and make it look like they'll save money! Even if the assumptions embedded are simply wrong. And then, of course, there's the "solar loan" price inflation, in which your "0.99% APR" loan has a couple grand in fees up front, tacked onto the price. You can often save quite a bit by asking for the "cash price," but nobody does that out of the gate, because of course you want an expensive up front and low interest loan, right? Who wouldn't? Oh, and those loan origination fees count as install cost for the purposes of the tax credit... ;) There are a lot of things that go into it, but from my point of view, it really feels like it's a lot of "Because we can, and because we convince people to pay it" going on with the installed costs. When I can get, as a random low volume homeowner, the equipment to do solar for $1-$1.25/W, I have to wonder about the prices installers charge.
- martin_a 4y ago
  > $1/W range That is similar to what you'd have to pay in Germany, up to the beginning of this year. My landlord installed 30 kW of panels and a 10 kWh battery storage for around 40 k€ including all fasteners, cables etc. Installation can be done by yourself, although I think you'll have to use certified fasteners etc. for the insurance company. Connecting to the grid and checking everything once has to be done by a certified professional (electrician) once, which differs in price. Some only check systems they have installed (and therefore made money with) themselves, but that differs. Prices have obviously gone up like nothing after Russia decided to fuck everything up.
linsomniac 4y ago
I've been looking a bit at solar systems, and it seems common in the US for half the price of the install to be labor. So $20K of labor on a $40K system. That seems awfully excessive for the tasks of installing rails on the roof, clipping panels into it, and the electrical work (though copper is insanely expensive right now, a panel upgrade is around $4500, so the electrical work can add up). Am I way out of line here, or are the labor prices reasonable?
- wffurr 4y ago
  The rent is too damn high. It pushes up the cost of labor across the board.
- bowmessage 4y ago
  Have you tried any of these tasks yourself?
  - onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
    Edit: IIUC, it's usually a 2-5 person job. And it rarely takes more than a day. IIUC, the actual laborers aren't making anywhere near ~$20k per day (even for 5 people). Overhead on labor should not be 2000%+. If laborers were capturing all of the "labor" cost - they'd be making $1M per year working 5 days per week. Obviously, they wouldn't be 100% booked. But they're probably not even averaging $100k - since electricians make less than that in most parts of the country, and most of the workers are making a lot less than the electrician. The actual "labor" cost here - even counting for vacation and other benefits - is probably less than $5k. What's the other $15k? It's certainly NOT profit. These companies don't have high margins. It's also not materials - that's broken out into the materials costs which includes the more expensive regulated grid-tie inverters and whatnot. Whatever it is - it appears to be unique to the US.
    - Syonyk 4y ago
      Eh... installing panels solo can be done, but especially on a roof, shouldn't be done. It's far, far easier with two people, even for ground mount systems. Three is some benefit over two, beyond that people are just standing around unless you're able to install multiple strings at once.
TheRealPomax 4y ago
tl;dr: "Two of the largest ways that Australia’s solar industry has reduced overall solar pricing is through easing both the permitting and inspection processes for new solar homeowners. These aspects of a solar installation require time and money. In fact, these “soft costs” of solar–or non-component costs–can add up to $1 per Watt to every installation, or $6,000 for an average 6 kW system."
a_square_peg 4y ago
I've been told that Australia also doesn't have domestic solar panel industry, which meant that solar panels made in China can be imported without tariff. Installation cost for HVAC systems in US/Canada is also silly. In Asia, you walk into a department store and pick a system, and then pay 10~15% of the equipment price for installation. In the US, the cost of hardware is only 30% of the total quoted price and you will not get a price breakdown like you do at auto repair shops.
- adolph 4y ago
  Asia::NA HVAC is kind of apples::oranges, right? Labor costs are different, home-use devices are different, etc. On the other hand, how much of the purchase experience is driven by the consumer rather than the producer? HVAC is high capital and labor, low distribution volume. Why would a department store (if people still go to such things) devote space to it? Unlike various appliances (see discussion yesterday about decreases in quality driving increased purchase volume [0]), an HVAC is like roofing. Except for the thermostat and port covers everything is hidden and not part of a consumer aesthetic/emotional experience. 0. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32462954 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32462954
  - a_square_peg 4y ago
    It's not very different from Home Depot or Costco having sections for HVAC installation. Mini-splits are very common in Asia and is in fact easier to install (e.g. no ducting). However in the US, mini-splits being new have sort of taken on the legacy HVAC installation pricing plus some premium. You're correct that labour cost is higher in the US but it doesn't explain the 10x cost in installation - I've seen too many people overpay by $10~20k for a system they don't need. In terms of distribution, HVAC has similar volume to other major home appliances so it's not necessarily low I think. For customer experience... yeah, it's something that most people don't think about until it breaks I suppose.
    - pixl97 4y ago
      What are US insurance costs. I'm talking 'oops we burned your house down insurance', 'oops we fell off a ladder insurance', and 'oh, I want to go get a checkup insurance'. These things are frighteningly expensive in the US. Also in the US, how many laborers can they get to install these things. We've been running at 3-4% unemployment for some time now. When people can go get a job in an office they tend to do that long before doing physical labor these days, so a lot of premium is going towards that labor cost.
powera 4y ago
Cost disease is real, and residential solar is an ideal place for it to fester. > Salesmen are over-paid, and the more they inflate the price the more they are paid. > The companies that over-charge the most have the most ability to grow and advertise. > Google Search will put whoever pays the most for the ad (which will probably be who is over-charging the most) at the top of the search results. > Approximately no homeowners understand the cost structure of solar, once again making it easier to over-charge.
rr888 4y ago
Its nice to have your own panels, but at a high level its more efficient for a utility to have a solar farm connected to the grid and you just buy spot rates.
- asdff 4y ago
  What about the efficiency of using the power where its collected?
avelis 4y ago
I spoke to a Freedom Solar rep in the US and they shared solar install costs were going down and now they can be as expensive as your current bill (bill swap). Bummer, what should be a continued downtrend cost curve is going up due to install costs increasing because the alternative is increasing regardless.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
The Sunshot to reduce 'soft costs' in US solar identifies these things: > SETO’s soft costs portfolio addresses a wide array of costs and barriers to solar energy deployment. Projects are working to improve market transparency of solar system costs, prices, and adoption trends; enable equitable access to solar through innovative financing and community solar; reduce costs for permitting, inspection, and interconnection; improve bulk power system and distribution system planning for larger amounts of grid-connected solar; reduce land use competition for siting solar projects; enable solar installations in new construction and with roof replacements; and improve planning for the retirement of solar panels. > Additionally, projects develop training materials and programs to help supply a skilled workforce to meet the solar industry’s growing human resource needs, prepare those in the utility industry to manage a modern grid, and help relevant professions keep up with these rapidly emerging and advancing technologies. https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/soft-costs https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/soft-costs So, just lots of little things really.
bick_nyers 4y ago
Anyone know of any workarounds/suggestions for an HoA (Homeowner's Association)? They require insured & licensed solar installers, but if I did DIY it would be 1/4 or 1/3 of the price in my area (FL).
- nsxwolf 4y ago
  A lawyer to challenge that bylaw is all I can think of. HOAs have incredible power with their ability to attach liens. I wonder what their concerns are specifically, besides making sure the end result looks good. Do they also have an approved list of installers? That's a red flag for corruption. I once lived in a condo where you had to install a certain replacement window type (fine, sure, it should match) but you had to get it from one of 3 approved installers. My neighbors and I realized that 2 of them would give the same quote, and the 3rd would give a slightly lower quote. The installer that would give the lower quote would be round-robined, and it was always exactly the same "discount".
  - bick_nyers 4y ago
    I don't believe they have a list of approved installers but we regularly get sales people at our door from the same companies so I'm thinking there's some kind of deal there. All external work (not just solar) requires licensed & insured from my HoA. Well, technically in the bylaws it requires the board to vote to approve the modification, but for the board to decide to vote yes requires licensed & insured. As I understand the only thing I am "allowed" to do myself is basic landscaping... as long as I provide a written plan to the HoA for them to vote on of course. My next house won't be in an HoA-neighborhood, definitely sucks the joy out of being a first-time home buyer.
- hedora 4y ago
  A common technique is to tell them you're spending the money on the solar, or on the most onerous thing possible that's still allowed by HOA rules. (Don't tell them you are intentionally being onerous, just present the alternative.) For instance, thanks to court rulings that allow the FCC or overrule HOAs, you could put a giant hot pink DIY installed satellite dish on your roof. Give them an olive branch, so they can pretend they won. For instance, make it clear you will exceed installation guidelines for the mounts, get the work inspected, and that your homeowners insurance covers the install.
photochemsyn 4y ago
One neglected issue in this article is US tariffs on high-efficiency, long-lasting monocrystalline silicon PV panels (only manufactured in China at present, with some subsidiary assemblers in other Asian countries). China developed a low-cost route to single-crystal production technology and that hit the global market around 2015. The USA has no comparable manufacturing technology or capacity, not even close. For example, see this article from 2018: https://www.pv-magazine.com/magazine-archive/chinas-monocrystalline-boom/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/magazine-archive/chinas-monocrys... See also: > "The new tariff, which went into effect on February 7, 2018, will likely increase home installation prices of solar panels by $500-$1000 for the typical household. Due to the increased costs of obtaining both solar panels and the technology necessary to create solar panels, the amount of solar installations in the US is expected to decrease by 11% by 2022; some experts in the industry predict that installations will decrease by more than 25%. This major hit to a growing industry could result in a decrease in American jobs; layoffs at solar panel manufacturing plants are expected." https://compareelectricity.com/research/impact-solar-panel-tariff-on-us/ https://compareelectricity.com/research/impact-solar-panel-t...
CoffeeCollector 4y ago
Why is almost anything more expensive in the US than in other countries?
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  Is it? Land is relatively cheap in much of the US. Electronics and other “stuff” in general is cheap too. Energy too, in my experience.
  - pixl97 4y ago
    Land is cheap because it wasn't all given away to nobles before history books were written (we'll ignore the fact we killed everyone that there when 'we' showed up). Energy is cheap because we tend to have a massive amount of that also, specifically coal and hydro resources.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
a1pulley 4y ago
I got a couple of quotes for an installation in late 2019, balked, and tried to install and permit the panels myself. I'd never tried a "physical side project" or home-improvement project, but I found it surprisingly straight-forward. I got a copy of my friend's permit application from a professional installation, learned a bit about the equipment and tools needed, started a spreadsheet of parts, and modified my "permit template" with details about my installation and house. My permit application was stamped on my first try (Manhattan Beach in LA County), so I placed my order. It was a little tricky to get all my supplies on the roof of my two-story house. I settled on carrying things up the stairs, putting them on a balcony, and pulling them up a ramp I built out of some cheap wood. See pics here [1]. I probably went overboard on quality of parts to compensate for inexperience and not knowing which corners it's OK to cut, but my final cost ended up at $1.64/watt, including about $1000 for my electrician to pull some copper, ground everything, and connect to my panel. [1] https://github.com/hamikm/solar-report#pictures-from-my-first-physical-side-project https://github.com/hamikm/solar-report#pictures-from-my-firs...
- TheBlight 4y ago
  How much are you offsetting your electric bill per month?
  - a1pulley 4y ago
    Our electricity usage increased significantly when we realized that predictable temperatures result in better infant/toddler naps, so the "post-installation" numbers below are for more kWh than the "pre-installation" ones. We were also forced to switch from a "tiered" rate plan to a time-of-use (TOU) one when we applied for net energy metering, which also makes it a little harder to calculate the benefit. But the offset roughly averages out to ~$200/month. I'm unable to access my old bills because I moved to a new house, thus the imprecise numbers. Your personal benefit is a function of your weather and latitude. High temps reduce efficiency, as do, more obviously, cloud cover and shading. With TOU plans, your benefit will also depend on your usage habits and schedule. In my case, the benefit was mainly psychological. I never wanted to use AC before, but I started to use it liberally after I turned on my solar system. My wife and child were grateful! Pre-installation * June 2019: $160.92 * January 2020: $252.59 Post-installation * June 2020: $-4.11 * January 2021: $115.27
caseysoftware 4y ago
I got a 20kW (+18kW storage) system installed last year. It was NOT cheap but during the months of installation, all the components went up at least 10%, some as much as 20%. It got so bad that the installer tried to renegotiate the contract midway through. Regardless, I'm glad I did it then. When I talked to my rep this March, she said they were months behind on even getting components now.
opo 4y ago
Solar energy comes up often on HN, but it is misleading to talk about solar without differentiating between utility grid solar and consumer rooftop solar. Simply put, utility grid solar provides low cost power and consumer rooftop solar does not. The rooftop solar price is hidden because no power source has been as subsidized as rooftop solar. Besides direct subsidies, wealthier home owners are often paid the retail rate for the electricity they sell to the grid which causes higher electricity bills for those who can't afford to put panels on their roof - sort of a reverse Robinhood scheme. You can see the cost differences here: https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-levelized-cost-of-storage-and-levelized-cost-of-hydrogen/ https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-... Rooftops are unused space, but the land use is generally a small part of the cost. Utility scale solar will always have economies of scale compared to one-off small installations on someone's roof. A dollar spent on roof-top solar would be MUCH better spent on solar panels installed on the ground by the utility. I am really not sure what to make of anyone who supports the huge subsidies to make rooftop solar viable and then talks about the low cost of solar.
- r00fus 4y ago
  A proverb "The best is the enemy of the good (enough)". I have control over my ability to deploy rooftop solar. I have little to zero influence with my utility company to promote deployment of utility grid solar. Utility solar just means the utility company can soak up more profits. Every single person with whom I've discussed rooftop solar has not regretted getting it, and complete ROI is measured in years, not decades. Rooftop solar = energy independence. That means a lot to me.
  - opo 4y ago
    >Utility solar just means the utility company can soak up more profits. Utilities are generally considered natural monopolies and their rates are regulated. If there are higher costs because they have to literally buy power at the retail rate from a consumer with rooftop solar, they will have to raise the rates for those who can't afford to put in solar. >...Every single person with whom I've discussed rooftop solar has not regretted getting it, and complete ROI is measured in years, not decades. Yes, they haven't regretted it because the costs are being subsidized by tax payers and the less well off rate payers. It isn't very surprising that those who receive money are happy to receive it. In CA, the PUC was going to lower the credit paid to solar owners for sending electricity to the grid to 5 cents a KW and the uproar from wealthy people was large enough that the plan was put on hold. The 5 cents is still more than the 3 cents it costs PG&E for nuclear power, but if the change was implemented, "...The manufacturers of solar systems predicted the death of solar in California,". While I can understand that those who benefit from these huge subsidies would prefer they remain, this is not good public policy. https://www.ocregister.com/2022/04/29/ghosted-by-the-puc-folks-await-new-plan-for-rooftop-solar-but-get-silence/ https://www.ocregister.com/2022/04/29/ghosted-by-the-puc-fol...
coding123 4y ago
It's the solar installers sucking money away. It's so freaking simple to set up. Here's my price for my "initial" system. I plan on making it about 4 or 5 times larger and the prices below just gets multiplied by 5 $2,268.00 4.8kw Panels $1,577.00 6kw Inverter $4000 (22khw batteries) Roughly paying $2 per watt but that includes 22kwh of freaking batteries otherwise it's less than a dollar per watt y'all. Right now this system is freezing my ass, distilling water and running my fridge (I'm in an rv building my property). I'm a huge fan of string all-in-one inverters because they do much more for the price than stupid panel inverters that cost too much. That and I'm off grid so it makes much more sense because why pay PG&E at these prices.
colordrops 4y ago
On a tangential note, California electrical utilities are trying to destroy residential solar through excessive taxation. It's pretty sick considering the state of the climate. https://solarrights.org/ https://solarrights.org/
- GloriousKoji 4y ago
  My friend in San Diego county was looking into getting solar panels and he was telling me it's a long term gamble for possibly saving money. Solar panels forces him onto the local utilities solar plan, which raises the cost of each kwh from the grid by 10%. If he produced surplus energy the credit only offsets 1/15th the cost of each kwh. The result is the upfront cost is quite big, he would need enough solar panels to power everything and batteries to power his house through the night. Now it's a gamble between his system breaking or degrading, local utility rate increases, being required to sell and move, or if he just invested that large chunk into a relatively safe investment like a S&P index over the next 12 years.
  - xsmasher 4y ago
    I thought California law (for now) forced utilities to provide "net metering" - where your credits during the day offset your usage at night 1:1. No batteries needed. I don't know why that wouldn't apply to your friend.
- missedthecue 4y ago
  $57 a month to maintain the connection? I think that's fair to be honest. Solar panel owners shouldn't be able to use the grid as a battery for free. That costs real hard cash to maintain. And a lot of it. At present, solar panels users expect to be able to generate all the electricity they want on sunny days, sell the excess back to the utility for bill credits (at retail prices), and then spend the bill credits on cloudy days, or days with high energy demand. Well this doesn't make sense for the utility. They have to maintain the grid and the more people that put up solar panels, the fewer people that are left paying for upkeep on hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure. You can argue that it should be $37 instead of $57, but clearly it needs to be >$0
r00fus 4y ago
Not a single comment here on the macrodynamics of corruption - petroleum industry does NOT want a major shift to solar, as that would imply cheaper (or free) gas for your (now electric) vehicle. Cheap/free fuel is an existential threat to their business model. The fact that fossil fuel is a major contributor to climate change is glossed over as long as the $$ roll in. Their end game is to make it impossible for us to transition to another energy source until they have wrung every possible last cent from this one. Thus, tariffs on solar, attacks on EV adoption, and demonization of nuclear are clearly things that have worked wonders for their bottom line.
- DoneWithAllThat 4y ago
  So aside from just a bog-standard complaint about big oil we can find anywhere (but that I’m sure felt very cathartic to type), do you have any sources that link high solar energy costs to the petroleum industry?
- steve76 4y ago
candiodari 4y ago
The fun thing is, governments survive partially on taxing energy. This means that solar adoption will cause governments ... to tax solar (funny detail: taxing the sun has historically caused the French government to topple). And it will be expensive or recurring because it will have to replace income the government would have collected from you using 1W for the lifespan of the solar installation. And this is ignoring that from a certain point the electricity grid will only be necessary in cities and for large amounts of power. Either governments let city electricity go up in price by A LOT or they start doing things like mandating a connection to the grid (even when you don't need or want it)
- rightbyte 4y ago
  You can shift energy tax to property tax or sales tax or whatever. I e.g. smell an incoming BEV travel distance tax.
  - candiodari 4y ago
    You can, but I bet that there are groups that wouldn't consider that fair. Taxing energy production would be much easier than taxing energy use. Also: what is "BEV travel" ?
    - rightbyte 4y ago
      Battery electric vehicle travel distance tax. I.e. tax on the odometer reading.
didgetmaster 4y ago
Solar feels a lot like computer equipment. You know that advances are going to continue so it can be a waste to buy a big expensive system right now when you know that a much better and cheaper system might be available in just a year or two. You can't wait forever, but it is hard to time when to bite the bullet when you want to install solar. Personally, I am waiting until I can install a system that will produce an average of 1000kWh per month (about $100 worth of power in my state) but only costs $6000 installed (5 year payback time). Any guesses when that will be possible?
turtlebits 4y ago
IMO, permitting, electrical work, installation is expensive for grid-tie solar, which makes inexpensive solar solutions not possible. (Also, requiring a microinverter for every panel) I have a off-grid lot with a ~1.5kw of solar, which cost me around 2k USD (with ~5kw battery), self-installed. I'm planning to install something similar on my home. The electrical permitting should be easy as I won't be hooking up to grid (I plan on running my mini split/heat pump off of it).
- kiliantics 4y ago
  How long ago was this? I just bought batteries for solar and you can't get cheaper than around $800 per kWh without building your own battery. And panels are rarely much less than $1/Watt new so I can't see how you'd build such a system for much less than $4-5k and that's before mounting costs.
  - turtlebits 4y ago
    I built my own battery pack last year for $900 - 32x 55ah Lifepo and BMS, but you get prebuilt w/ warranty for ~$280/kWH (current price). See EG4 or SOK 48v batteries. When I last looked in 2020, you could buy a pallet of new solar for ~ $0.37/watt. Looks like prices now are around $0.50-$0.65 /watt
st3ve445678 4y ago
I really wish there was a "lite" solar installation offered. Something like 6-8 panels (~200w each?), installed on roof and wired into the grid for 5k or less. For a small home that could really put a big dent in the electric bill and help reduce strain on the grid at the same time. Because most people hear about the massive upfront costs and feel solar is just not that practical. Is this just not realistic or maybe not worth their time (installers)?
- markus92 4y ago
  I see this a lot in The Netherlands, quite a few of my old neighbors have around 8 panels on the roof. Cost is indeed around the order of €5k and consequently makes it very accessible. And the savings are usually a very large part of the electricity bill (heating is still mostly gas).
- lovemenot 4y ago
  I live in a house with a fixed awning at the front, as it was formerly a shop. I bought a dozen flexible panels at around $1 / watt. These are very lightweight and I was able to install them on top of the awning without going on to the roof. Not a high powered system, nor particularly efficient in terms of space. But low material cost and self-installed.
- glial 4y ago
  Me too, I'd buy this.
mrdoops 4y ago
(Worked in the residential solar industry on and off almost 10 years) Financing providers, sales commissions, and profit + operating margins of the typical end-to-end residential solar sales and installation company make up a large portion of the price. What you're really paying for is convenience and expertise to understand the equipment, hire/train personnel, and jump through local - often arcane municipal requirements. However if you measure your roof and can can find a freelance designer to draft up some CAD drawings that can get approved through your local municipality, buy the equipment yourself, and hire a crew + electrician to install it direct - you'll save quite a bit - at least 5-20k depending system size. Its more leg work, but you save enough its probably worth it. The install crew, electrician and CAD designer are the only real experts you might want to hire in for. The rest is paperwork, sales, and financing. A pretty common $/watt is about $3.5-5/watt. Expect < $2.5/watt if you're cutting out sales and financing - doing more of the process yourself. The other metric to look at is your estimated and actual production/panel ratio. You have flat costs on equipment but depending on where that panel is on your roof (based on shading, exposure, azimuth, etc) you might get less or more for your buck. The math is costs/month based on your financing taking into account expected production (plug numbers into a tool like https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/ https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/). A good production/panel ratio can significantly affect your ability to collect savings. I emphasize production/panel because most of these Solar Sales companies pay their sales guy on a per/watt rate where bigger is better, not necessarily efficiency and financial benefit for the customer. This can incentivize them to push for panels in places on your roof where they'll hardly produce - adding to the overall cost of the system something that is good for them and not necessarily for you. If you have the documents and can put good numbers together you can likely get financing through your local bank directly - or imo just pay cash if you can. Avoid PPAs, stick to loans with good rates or cash. A really common bottleneck at these solar installation companies is either 1. permitting, or later on: inspections and interconnection approval (City/Municipality + Power Co.). The shadier solar companies can technically get paid by the financing provider prior to a customer's system being fully inspected and interconnected with the grid. This doesn't always give them in incentive to bring the project to a closure as they've already gotten paid and any additional work is a truck roll, technician hours, and troubleshooting - even if it leaves the customer without a producing system and monthly payments.
CyanLite2 4y ago
In the U.S., the National Electric Code requires UL-listed components. The inverters, the panels, wires, even the racking must be UL-listed and not simply "UL tested". The manufacturer has to pay UL a few million dollars to list their products on their database in order to pass inspection. An inverter that costs $500 on Amazon costs about $5000 and available only through certain distributors. Australia has no such requirement, and so they can use the cheapest inverters from China/Amazon.
neap24 4y ago
I really don't understand the obsession with homeowner solar. The financing schemes are crazy (companies owning part of your roof, renting the equipment, etc.). The only way to do it properly is to either pay someone else cash or to do it yourself. But then, even then, when I did my ROI calculation a few months ago (I live in a small house that is very efficient as-is), I was looking at 10-15 years before I'd see any savings. Then, I learned that the lifespan on some of the equipment and panels may only be 20 years. Granted, replacing them beats the cost of the original install and permitting process, but now I have something else in addition to shingles on my roof that needs replaced after a couple of decades. It just doesn't make sense to me to mess with it now. As others have mentioned, pushing for grid solar/nuclear/other clean energy is really the only way to do this efficiently. Then I won't have a mass of ugly panels stuck on my roof.
- solardev 4y ago
  The ROI can change a lot depending on your particular circumstances, though. If you live in a not-so-sunny place with minimal electricity use, a 10-15 year ROI isn't unreasonable. But if you live in a sunny place and pay a lot for HVAC or an electric car, the payback can be much shorter (sometimes 5 to 7 years, especially if you self-install). Time-of-use billing can also dramatically change the numbers, depending on your state/electric utility and household usage habits -- sometimes even to the point where you can use a battery to play electricity arbitrage, buying/generating low and selling back high (if your area allows such a scheme). Electricity prices are expected to keep going up too. But there is also uncertainty in how utilities will renegotiate (or else grandfather in) existing solar ratepayers. California's solar pricing schemes have changed a lot just in the last decade as they went from minimal solar to solar oversaturation (the grid couldn't keep pace with the # of installs). At the end of the day, for some homeowners, solar is a no-brainer. For others, it doesn't make sense. It totally depends... it isn't an automatic win, but also not something that should be categorically written off. It's worth investigating, especially for new constructions that are heavily electrified (i.e. use electricity for heating/cooling/cooking instead of gas or other fuels). But agreed that grid-scale makes more sense, combined with other power technologies. One minor nitpick: It's unlikely the PV modules (solar panels) themselves will fail in 20 years; you'll more likely have to replace your inverter before the cells themselves break. Sometimes those inverters are string inverters in your house (no roof work needed), other times they are microinverters/power optimizers attached to the modules themselves, which would make it more complicated to replace.
exabrial 4y ago
It's complex, literally: local regulations, a lot to do with homeowners associations, drive the cost through the roof.
londons_explore 4y ago
Permitting for solar has a primary objective of keeping solar expensive. Solar installations, even when done badly, have an excellent safety record post-install. And safety issues that they do have are typically related not to the installation but to the manufacturing of the equipment, which is something an inspector can't check anyway.

126 points by jseliger 4y ago

Kinda burying the lede: > To a large degree, it appears the lack of regulatory oversight has allowed for the cheap installation of sub-standard solar panel systems, from the solar equipment and components used in the installation to the actual installation of the solar panels. Interestingly, the same policy and market forces that have helped deliver inexpensive solar to Australian residents are also responsible for the issues observed with Australian solar installations. Though these policies have reduced the time to installation, they’ve also reduced the opportunity to catch errors in installation or issues with equipment. So, TCO for 20-25 years of service might be a better metric to be using here.

zbrozek 4y ago
Inspectors don't have infinite expertise, and I've found that they're not really any better at catching or avoiding trades errors than the practitioner. Given the high level of maturity that quality products have achieved and the significant degree of self-protection and fault-isolation that have been built in, I'm inclined to let any random person install with zero oversight and let them deal with any problems that arise. Probably the only thing really worth doing is ensuring that products available in a marketplace actually implement requisite user-safety, grid-safety, and self-protection mechanisms. It's too easy in most places to get shady garbage equipment.
- idiotsecant 4y ago
  >Inspectors don't have infinite expertise, and I've found that they're not really any better at catching or avoiding trades errors than the practitioner. I think you're missing the whole point of inspectors. They aren't primarily there to be experts for the well-intentioned contractors to use to catch honest oversights they made (although they can do that too sometimes). They're there to catch the less scrupulous people who take advantage of an ignorant homeowner by making the job seem to be done well but in fact actually doing it dangerously and/or poorly. There is a massive incentive to do this kind of work poorly, because it leads to being able to do it quickly and fitting in more jobs means making more money.
  - Jensson 4y ago
    How do you know those mandatory inspections doesn't come from oil lobbyists trying to make solar more expensive than it has to be? You can always frame bad regulations to look reasonable.
    - kube-system 4y ago
      Because the same exact inspector shows up to inspect the electrical installation powered by oil?
      - sokoloff 4y ago
        My house was already inspected for the electrical installation currently powered by [mostly natural gas]. It would need additional inspections if I wanted to add grid-tie solar.
        kube-system 4y ago
        My house’s electrical was already inspected too. It still needed inspected again when I had maintenance done on the system. The inspection is because electrical systems can burn houses down if they’re not installed correctly. It has nothing to do with the source of the energy at the other end of the wire.
        toast0 4y ago
        Sure, but if your house already had grid-tie solar and you wanted to add a natural gas generator, you'd need the same kind of inspections.
        sokoloff 4y ago
        Which happens to be substantially the reason I don't have a natural gas standby generator (in this case, the gatekeeping/protectionism of electricians by my state, as enforced at the end by the permitting process).
      - 4y ago
_ea1k 4y ago
TBH, I find that doubtful. If my installer chooses cheap inverters or microinverters, my local inspector won't know or care. The issues with inspections in the US are more around timing and difficulty. Utilities are not required to respond in a timely manner, so solar companies spend inordinate amounts of time managing the inspection process.
- dymk 4y ago
  Your inspector may not care, but the licensed and bonded contractor that did the install does care if their work falls through your roof in 10 years time.
  - hedora 4y ago
    You mean the one that was founded a few years ago, and will be "out of business" (operating as a different company) before that happens? I think our installer is likely to be in business in 10 years, but we have friends whose installers will certainly be out of business by then. (Guess whose installation appears to be riddled with substandard parts.)
    - novaleaf 4y ago
      I learned this lesson the hard way with a roof install :(
  - _ea1k 4y ago
    I've only had one install done. The issue was a failed power optimizing after only a couple of years. My guess is that the issues in Australia are similar, with substandard equipment and maybe even questionable wiring. I've seen enough of that with US systems to doubt that our systems are more effective at stopping it.

dr-detroit 4y ago

malfist 4y ago

TL;DR: Less regulations in Australia lead to solar systems being 1/3 the price of US solar systems. However, US solar systems tend to perform for 20+ years, whereas a significant number of Australian systems have "sharply" degraded performance after 5 years. Checking the articles sources, apparently lots of installed panels in Australia stop working after ~5 years and the remaining functional panels decline in performance 12%. This is an interesting trade off. Would I prefer a solar system that is 1/3 the cost but 1/4 the life in the US? I don't know. I think the average time spend in one home is around 7 years (don't quote me, I could be very wrong here), so it seems like each homeowner could install their own system and be fine. Cheaper systems also mean that more people could install them. Not a policy expert, don't trust my thoughts.

dragontamer 4y ago
> Would I prefer a solar system that is 1/3 the cost but 1/4 the life in the US? I don't know. Hmmm. If we assume that solar panels are rapidly advancing, then probably? The reason 'move fast and break things' works for computers, is that computers are gonna be upgraded in 2 years anyway and we are going to rewrite everything in 5 to 10 years with whatever new programming language becomes popular then. -------- If solar panels are going such a revolution, then yeah, shorter lifespan and short term decisions dominate.
- krupan 4y ago
  Isn't the whole point of solar that it's "clean" and "renewable"? If we are wasting panels every 5 years that doesn't sound clean or renewable to me.
  - hedora 4y ago
    It depends on the embodied carbon of the panels and the time for it to be less than the local power plant. (There's also the actual wasted panels, and raw materials, but let's face it, that's rounding error vs five years of household waste. Also, the replacement will probably be better on those fronts.)
4y ago

Syonyk 4y ago

I've been working on how to bring the cost of solar down, at least for "homeowner installed DIY" systems in my area (legal, grid tie, permitted, inspected, etc), and I'm fairly certain the latest iteration of this will come in around the $1/W range, pre-incentives. That's without labor costs, just raw material and wire costs, but it's for a 21kW ground mount A-frame system with three string inverters, and a couple hundred foot of wire run through the ground between the panels and inverters. I'm not sure how Australia does rapid shutdown (if they do), but Enphase and the requirement for per-panel shutdown devices on arrays in the US is responsible for a decent chunk of cost - somewhere on the order of $0.30/kWh. If you have lots of shading, microinverters are fine, but by NEC 2017, they're basically required (or you have to have per-panel optimizers and shutdown boxes, which add about the same cost as just going to microinverters). I don't know the exact details of it, but everyone I've talked to in the solar industry seems to feel Enphase "lobbied hard" for this particular shutdown requirement, because it's very much to their market advantage, even if it has no meaningful safety benefits in actual array failure conditions. I hate to say "Because installers think they can get people to pay," but I've also seen a lot of "around the edges" evidence that the sales commissions for solar are fairly obscene (couple grand, if not more), just "tacked on" to the price. Hey, they're interested in solar, dial the commission up, and make it look like they'll save money! Even if the assumptions embedded are simply wrong. And then, of course, there's the "solar loan" price inflation, in which your "0.99% APR" loan has a couple grand in fees up front, tacked onto the price. You can often save quite a bit by asking for the "cash price," but nobody does that out of the gate, because of course you want an expensive up front and low interest loan, right? Who wouldn't? Oh, and those loan origination fees count as install cost for the purposes of the tax credit... ;) There are a lot of things that go into it, but from my point of view, it really feels like it's a lot of "Because we can, and because we convince people to pay it" going on with the installed costs. When I can get, as a random low volume homeowner, the equipment to do solar for $1-$1.25/W, I have to wonder about the prices installers charge.

martin_a 4y ago
> $1/W range That is similar to what you'd have to pay in Germany, up to the beginning of this year. My landlord installed 30 kW of panels and a 10 kWh battery storage for around 40 k€ including all fasteners, cables etc. Installation can be done by yourself, although I think you'll have to use certified fasteners etc. for the insurance company. Connecting to the grid and checking everything once has to be done by a certified professional (electrician) once, which differs in price. Some only check systems they have installed (and therefore made money with) themselves, but that differs. Prices have obviously gone up like nothing after Russia decided to fuck everything up.

linsomniac 4y ago

I've been looking a bit at solar systems, and it seems common in the US for half the price of the install to be labor. So $20K of labor on a $40K system. That seems awfully excessive for the tasks of installing rails on the roof, clipping panels into it, and the electrical work (though copper is insanely expensive right now, a panel upgrade is around $4500, so the electrical work can add up). Am I way out of line here, or are the labor prices reasonable?

wffurr 4y ago
The rent is too damn high. It pushes up the cost of labor across the board.
bowmessage 4y ago
Have you tried any of these tasks yourself?
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
  Edit: IIUC, it's usually a 2-5 person job. And it rarely takes more than a day. IIUC, the actual laborers aren't making anywhere near ~$20k per day (even for 5 people). Overhead on labor should not be 2000%+. If laborers were capturing all of the "labor" cost - they'd be making $1M per year working 5 days per week. Obviously, they wouldn't be 100% booked. But they're probably not even averaging $100k - since electricians make less than that in most parts of the country, and most of the workers are making a lot less than the electrician. The actual "labor" cost here - even counting for vacation and other benefits - is probably less than $5k. What's the other $15k? It's certainly NOT profit. These companies don't have high margins. It's also not materials - that's broken out into the materials costs which includes the more expensive regulated grid-tie inverters and whatnot. Whatever it is - it appears to be unique to the US.
  - Syonyk 4y ago
    Eh... installing panels solo can be done, but especially on a roof, shouldn't be done. It's far, far easier with two people, even for ground mount systems. Three is some benefit over two, beyond that people are just standing around unless you're able to install multiple strings at once.

TheRealPomax 4y ago

tl;dr: "Two of the largest ways that Australia’s solar industry has reduced overall solar pricing is through easing both the permitting and inspection processes for new solar homeowners. These aspects of a solar installation require time and money. In fact, these “soft costs” of solar–or non-component costs–can add up to $1 per Watt to every installation, or $6,000 for an average 6 kW system."

a_square_peg 4y ago

I've been told that Australia also doesn't have domestic solar panel industry, which meant that solar panels made in China can be imported without tariff. Installation cost for HVAC systems in US/Canada is also silly. In Asia, you walk into a department store and pick a system, and then pay 10~15% of the equipment price for installation. In the US, the cost of hardware is only 30% of the total quoted price and you will not get a price breakdown like you do at auto repair shops.

adolph 4y ago
Asia::NA HVAC is kind of apples::oranges, right? Labor costs are different, home-use devices are different, etc. On the other hand, how much of the purchase experience is driven by the consumer rather than the producer? HVAC is high capital and labor, low distribution volume. Why would a department store (if people still go to such things) devote space to it? Unlike various appliances (see discussion yesterday about decreases in quality driving increased purchase volume [0]), an HVAC is like roofing. Except for the thermostat and port covers everything is hidden and not part of a consumer aesthetic/emotional experience. 0. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32462954 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32462954
- a_square_peg 4y ago
  It's not very different from Home Depot or Costco having sections for HVAC installation. Mini-splits are very common in Asia and is in fact easier to install (e.g. no ducting). However in the US, mini-splits being new have sort of taken on the legacy HVAC installation pricing plus some premium. You're correct that labour cost is higher in the US but it doesn't explain the 10x cost in installation - I've seen too many people overpay by $10~20k for a system they don't need. In terms of distribution, HVAC has similar volume to other major home appliances so it's not necessarily low I think. For customer experience... yeah, it's something that most people don't think about until it breaks I suppose.
  - pixl97 4y ago
    What are US insurance costs. I'm talking 'oops we burned your house down insurance', 'oops we fell off a ladder insurance', and 'oh, I want to go get a checkup insurance'. These things are frighteningly expensive in the US. Also in the US, how many laborers can they get to install these things. We've been running at 3-4% unemployment for some time now. When people can go get a job in an office they tend to do that long before doing physical labor these days, so a lot of premium is going towards that labor cost.

powera 4y ago

Cost disease is real, and residential solar is an ideal place for it to fester. > Salesmen are over-paid, and the more they inflate the price the more they are paid. > The companies that over-charge the most have the most ability to grow and advertise. > Google Search will put whoever pays the most for the ad (which will probably be who is over-charging the most) at the top of the search results. > Approximately no homeowners understand the cost structure of solar, once again making it easier to over-charge.

rr888 4y ago

Its nice to have your own panels, but at a high level its more efficient for a utility to have a solar farm connected to the grid and you just buy spot rates.

asdff 4y ago
What about the efficiency of using the power where its collected?

avelis 4y ago

I spoke to a Freedom Solar rep in the US and they shared solar install costs were going down and now they can be as expensive as your current bill (bill swap). Bummer, what should be a continued downtrend cost curve is going up due to install costs increasing because the alternative is increasing regardless.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

The Sunshot to reduce 'soft costs' in US solar identifies these things: > SETO’s soft costs portfolio addresses a wide array of costs and barriers to solar energy deployment. Projects are working to improve market transparency of solar system costs, prices, and adoption trends; enable equitable access to solar through innovative financing and community solar; reduce costs for permitting, inspection, and interconnection; improve bulk power system and distribution system planning for larger amounts of grid-connected solar; reduce land use competition for siting solar projects; enable solar installations in new construction and with roof replacements; and improve planning for the retirement of solar panels. > Additionally, projects develop training materials and programs to help supply a skilled workforce to meet the solar industry’s growing human resource needs, prepare those in the utility industry to manage a modern grid, and help relevant professions keep up with these rapidly emerging and advancing technologies. https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/soft-costs https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/soft-costs So, just lots of little things really.

bick_nyers 4y ago

Anyone know of any workarounds/suggestions for an HoA (Homeowner's Association)? They require insured & licensed solar installers, but if I did DIY it would be 1/4 or 1/3 of the price in my area (FL).

nsxwolf 4y ago
A lawyer to challenge that bylaw is all I can think of. HOAs have incredible power with their ability to attach liens. I wonder what their concerns are specifically, besides making sure the end result looks good. Do they also have an approved list of installers? That's a red flag for corruption. I once lived in a condo where you had to install a certain replacement window type (fine, sure, it should match) but you had to get it from one of 3 approved installers. My neighbors and I realized that 2 of them would give the same quote, and the 3rd would give a slightly lower quote. The installer that would give the lower quote would be round-robined, and it was always exactly the same "discount".
- bick_nyers 4y ago
  I don't believe they have a list of approved installers but we regularly get sales people at our door from the same companies so I'm thinking there's some kind of deal there. All external work (not just solar) requires licensed & insured from my HoA. Well, technically in the bylaws it requires the board to vote to approve the modification, but for the board to decide to vote yes requires licensed & insured. As I understand the only thing I am "allowed" to do myself is basic landscaping... as long as I provide a written plan to the HoA for them to vote on of course. My next house won't be in an HoA-neighborhood, definitely sucks the joy out of being a first-time home buyer.
hedora 4y ago
A common technique is to tell them you're spending the money on the solar, or on the most onerous thing possible that's still allowed by HOA rules. (Don't tell them you are intentionally being onerous, just present the alternative.) For instance, thanks to court rulings that allow the FCC or overrule HOAs, you could put a giant hot pink DIY installed satellite dish on your roof. Give them an olive branch, so they can pretend they won. For instance, make it clear you will exceed installation guidelines for the mounts, get the work inspected, and that your homeowners insurance covers the install.

photochemsyn 4y ago

One neglected issue in this article is US tariffs on high-efficiency, long-lasting monocrystalline silicon PV panels (only manufactured in China at present, with some subsidiary assemblers in other Asian countries). China developed a low-cost route to single-crystal production technology and that hit the global market around 2015. The USA has no comparable manufacturing technology or capacity, not even close. For example, see this article from 2018: https://www.pv-magazine.com/magazine-archive/chinas-monocrystalline-boom/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/magazine-archive/chinas-monocrys... See also: > "The new tariff, which went into effect on February 7, 2018, will likely increase home installation prices of solar panels by $500-$1000 for the typical household. Due to the increased costs of obtaining both solar panels and the technology necessary to create solar panels, the amount of solar installations in the US is expected to decrease by 11% by 2022; some experts in the industry predict that installations will decrease by more than 25%. This major hit to a growing industry could result in a decrease in American jobs; layoffs at solar panel manufacturing plants are expected." https://compareelectricity.com/research/impact-solar-panel-tariff-on-us/ https://compareelectricity.com/research/impact-solar-panel-t...

CoffeeCollector 4y ago

Why is almost anything more expensive in the US than in other countries?

lotsofpulp 4y ago
Is it? Land is relatively cheap in much of the US. Electronics and other “stuff” in general is cheap too. Energy too, in my experience.
- pixl97 4y ago
  Land is cheap because it wasn't all given away to nobles before history books were written (we'll ignore the fact we killed everyone that there when 'we' showed up). Energy is cheap because we tend to have a massive amount of that also, specifically coal and hydro resources.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

a1pulley 4y ago

I got a couple of quotes for an installation in late 2019, balked, and tried to install and permit the panels myself. I'd never tried a "physical side project" or home-improvement project, but I found it surprisingly straight-forward. I got a copy of my friend's permit application from a professional installation, learned a bit about the equipment and tools needed, started a spreadsheet of parts, and modified my "permit template" with details about my installation and house. My permit application was stamped on my first try (Manhattan Beach in LA County), so I placed my order. It was a little tricky to get all my supplies on the roof of my two-story house. I settled on carrying things up the stairs, putting them on a balcony, and pulling them up a ramp I built out of some cheap wood. See pics here [1]. I probably went overboard on quality of parts to compensate for inexperience and not knowing which corners it's OK to cut, but my final cost ended up at $1.64/watt, including about $1000 for my electrician to pull some copper, ground everything, and connect to my panel. [1] https://github.com/hamikm/solar-report#pictures-from-my-first-physical-side-project https://github.com/hamikm/solar-report#pictures-from-my-firs...

TheBlight 4y ago
How much are you offsetting your electric bill per month?
- a1pulley 4y ago
  Our electricity usage increased significantly when we realized that predictable temperatures result in better infant/toddler naps, so the "post-installation" numbers below are for more kWh than the "pre-installation" ones. We were also forced to switch from a "tiered" rate plan to a time-of-use (TOU) one when we applied for net energy metering, which also makes it a little harder to calculate the benefit. But the offset roughly averages out to ~$200/month. I'm unable to access my old bills because I moved to a new house, thus the imprecise numbers. Your personal benefit is a function of your weather and latitude. High temps reduce efficiency, as do, more obviously, cloud cover and shading. With TOU plans, your benefit will also depend on your usage habits and schedule. In my case, the benefit was mainly psychological. I never wanted to use AC before, but I started to use it liberally after I turned on my solar system. My wife and child were grateful! Pre-installation * June 2019: $160.92 * January 2020: $252.59 Post-installation * June 2020: $-4.11 * January 2021: $115.27

caseysoftware 4y ago

I got a 20kW (+18kW storage) system installed last year. It was NOT cheap but during the months of installation, all the components went up at least 10%, some as much as 20%. It got so bad that the installer tried to renegotiate the contract midway through. Regardless, I'm glad I did it then. When I talked to my rep this March, she said they were months behind on even getting components now.

opo 4y ago

Solar energy comes up often on HN, but it is misleading to talk about solar without differentiating between utility grid solar and consumer rooftop solar. Simply put, utility grid solar provides low cost power and consumer rooftop solar does not. The rooftop solar price is hidden because no power source has been as subsidized as rooftop solar. Besides direct subsidies, wealthier home owners are often paid the retail rate for the electricity they sell to the grid which causes higher electricity bills for those who can't afford to put panels on their roof - sort of a reverse Robinhood scheme. You can see the cost differences here: https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-levelized-cost-of-storage-and-levelized-cost-of-hydrogen/ https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-... Rooftops are unused space, but the land use is generally a small part of the cost. Utility scale solar will always have economies of scale compared to one-off small installations on someone's roof. A dollar spent on roof-top solar would be MUCH better spent on solar panels installed on the ground by the utility. I am really not sure what to make of anyone who supports the huge subsidies to make rooftop solar viable and then talks about the low cost of solar.

r00fus 4y ago
A proverb "The best is the enemy of the good (enough)". I have control over my ability to deploy rooftop solar. I have little to zero influence with my utility company to promote deployment of utility grid solar. Utility solar just means the utility company can soak up more profits. Every single person with whom I've discussed rooftop solar has not regretted getting it, and complete ROI is measured in years, not decades. Rooftop solar = energy independence. That means a lot to me.
- opo 4y ago
  >Utility solar just means the utility company can soak up more profits. Utilities are generally considered natural monopolies and their rates are regulated. If there are higher costs because they have to literally buy power at the retail rate from a consumer with rooftop solar, they will have to raise the rates for those who can't afford to put in solar. >...Every single person with whom I've discussed rooftop solar has not regretted getting it, and complete ROI is measured in years, not decades. Yes, they haven't regretted it because the costs are being subsidized by tax payers and the less well off rate payers. It isn't very surprising that those who receive money are happy to receive it. In CA, the PUC was going to lower the credit paid to solar owners for sending electricity to the grid to 5 cents a KW and the uproar from wealthy people was large enough that the plan was put on hold. The 5 cents is still more than the 3 cents it costs PG&E for nuclear power, but if the change was implemented, "...The manufacturers of solar systems predicted the death of solar in California,". While I can understand that those who benefit from these huge subsidies would prefer they remain, this is not good public policy. https://www.ocregister.com/2022/04/29/ghosted-by-the-puc-folks-await-new-plan-for-rooftop-solar-but-get-silence/ https://www.ocregister.com/2022/04/29/ghosted-by-the-puc-fol...

coding123 4y ago

It's the solar installers sucking money away. It's so freaking simple to set up. Here's my price for my "initial" system. I plan on making it about 4 or 5 times larger and the prices below just gets multiplied by 5 $2,268.00 4.8kw Panels $1,577.00 6kw Inverter $4000 (22khw batteries) Roughly paying $2 per watt but that includes 22kwh of freaking batteries otherwise it's less than a dollar per watt y'all. Right now this system is freezing my ass, distilling water and running my fridge (I'm in an rv building my property). I'm a huge fan of string all-in-one inverters because they do much more for the price than stupid panel inverters that cost too much. That and I'm off grid so it makes much more sense because why pay PG&E at these prices.

colordrops 4y ago

On a tangential note, California electrical utilities are trying to destroy residential solar through excessive taxation. It's pretty sick considering the state of the climate. https://solarrights.org/ https://solarrights.org/

GloriousKoji 4y ago
My friend in San Diego county was looking into getting solar panels and he was telling me it's a long term gamble for possibly saving money. Solar panels forces him onto the local utilities solar plan, which raises the cost of each kwh from the grid by 10%. If he produced surplus energy the credit only offsets 1/15th the cost of each kwh. The result is the upfront cost is quite big, he would need enough solar panels to power everything and batteries to power his house through the night. Now it's a gamble between his system breaking or degrading, local utility rate increases, being required to sell and move, or if he just invested that large chunk into a relatively safe investment like a S&P index over the next 12 years.
- xsmasher 4y ago
  I thought California law (for now) forced utilities to provide "net metering" - where your credits during the day offset your usage at night 1:1. No batteries needed. I don't know why that wouldn't apply to your friend.
missedthecue 4y ago
$57 a month to maintain the connection? I think that's fair to be honest. Solar panel owners shouldn't be able to use the grid as a battery for free. That costs real hard cash to maintain. And a lot of it. At present, solar panels users expect to be able to generate all the electricity they want on sunny days, sell the excess back to the utility for bill credits (at retail prices), and then spend the bill credits on cloudy days, or days with high energy demand. Well this doesn't make sense for the utility. They have to maintain the grid and the more people that put up solar panels, the fewer people that are left paying for upkeep on hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure. You can argue that it should be $37 instead of $57, but clearly it needs to be >$0

r00fus 4y ago

Not a single comment here on the macrodynamics of corruption - petroleum industry does NOT want a major shift to solar, as that would imply cheaper (or free) gas for your (now electric) vehicle. Cheap/free fuel is an existential threat to their business model. The fact that fossil fuel is a major contributor to climate change is glossed over as long as the $$ roll in. Their end game is to make it impossible for us to transition to another energy source until they have wrung every possible last cent from this one. Thus, tariffs on solar, attacks on EV adoption, and demonization of nuclear are clearly things that have worked wonders for their bottom line.

DoneWithAllThat 4y ago
So aside from just a bog-standard complaint about big oil we can find anywhere (but that I’m sure felt very cathartic to type), do you have any sources that link high solar energy costs to the petroleum industry?
steve76 4y ago

candiodari 4y ago

The fun thing is, governments survive partially on taxing energy. This means that solar adoption will cause governments ... to tax solar (funny detail: taxing the sun has historically caused the French government to topple). And it will be expensive or recurring because it will have to replace income the government would have collected from you using 1W for the lifespan of the solar installation. And this is ignoring that from a certain point the electricity grid will only be necessary in cities and for large amounts of power. Either governments let city electricity go up in price by A LOT or they start doing things like mandating a connection to the grid (even when you don't need or want it)

rightbyte 4y ago
You can shift energy tax to property tax or sales tax or whatever. I e.g. smell an incoming BEV travel distance tax.
- candiodari 4y ago
  You can, but I bet that there are groups that wouldn't consider that fair. Taxing energy production would be much easier than taxing energy use. Also: what is "BEV travel" ?
  - rightbyte 4y ago
    Battery electric vehicle travel distance tax. I.e. tax on the odometer reading.

didgetmaster 4y ago

Solar feels a lot like computer equipment. You know that advances are going to continue so it can be a waste to buy a big expensive system right now when you know that a much better and cheaper system might be available in just a year or two. You can't wait forever, but it is hard to time when to bite the bullet when you want to install solar. Personally, I am waiting until I can install a system that will produce an average of 1000kWh per month (about $100 worth of power in my state) but only costs $6000 installed (5 year payback time). Any guesses when that will be possible?

turtlebits 4y ago

IMO, permitting, electrical work, installation is expensive for grid-tie solar, which makes inexpensive solar solutions not possible. (Also, requiring a microinverter for every panel) I have a off-grid lot with a ~1.5kw of solar, which cost me around 2k USD (with ~5kw battery), self-installed. I'm planning to install something similar on my home. The electrical permitting should be easy as I won't be hooking up to grid (I plan on running my mini split/heat pump off of it).

kiliantics 4y ago
How long ago was this? I just bought batteries for solar and you can't get cheaper than around $800 per kWh without building your own battery. And panels are rarely much less than $1/Watt new so I can't see how you'd build such a system for much less than $4-5k and that's before mounting costs.
- turtlebits 4y ago
  I built my own battery pack last year for $900 - 32x 55ah Lifepo and BMS, but you get prebuilt w/ warranty for ~$280/kWH (current price). See EG4 or SOK 48v batteries. When I last looked in 2020, you could buy a pallet of new solar for ~ $0.37/watt. Looks like prices now are around $0.50-$0.65 /watt

st3ve445678 4y ago

I really wish there was a "lite" solar installation offered. Something like 6-8 panels (~200w each?), installed on roof and wired into the grid for 5k or less. For a small home that could really put a big dent in the electric bill and help reduce strain on the grid at the same time. Because most people hear about the massive upfront costs and feel solar is just not that practical. Is this just not realistic or maybe not worth their time (installers)?

markus92 4y ago
I see this a lot in The Netherlands, quite a few of my old neighbors have around 8 panels on the roof. Cost is indeed around the order of €5k and consequently makes it very accessible. And the savings are usually a very large part of the electricity bill (heating is still mostly gas).
lovemenot 4y ago
I live in a house with a fixed awning at the front, as it was formerly a shop. I bought a dozen flexible panels at around $1 / watt. These are very lightweight and I was able to install them on top of the awning without going on to the roof. Not a high powered system, nor particularly efficient in terms of space. But low material cost and self-installed.
glial 4y ago
Me too, I'd buy this.

mrdoops 4y ago

(Worked in the residential solar industry on and off almost 10 years) Financing providers, sales commissions, and profit + operating margins of the typical end-to-end residential solar sales and installation company make up a large portion of the price. What you're really paying for is convenience and expertise to understand the equipment, hire/train personnel, and jump through local - often arcane municipal requirements. However if you measure your roof and can can find a freelance designer to draft up some CAD drawings that can get approved through your local municipality, buy the equipment yourself, and hire a crew + electrician to install it direct - you'll save quite a bit - at least 5-20k depending system size. Its more leg work, but you save enough its probably worth it. The install crew, electrician and CAD designer are the only real experts you might want to hire in for. The rest is paperwork, sales, and financing. A pretty common $/watt is about $3.5-5/watt. Expect < $2.5/watt if you're cutting out sales and financing - doing more of the process yourself. The other metric to look at is your estimated and actual production/panel ratio. You have flat costs on equipment but depending on where that panel is on your roof (based on shading, exposure, azimuth, etc) you might get less or more for your buck. The math is costs/month based on your financing taking into account expected production (plug numbers into a tool like https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/ https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/). A good production/panel ratio can significantly affect your ability to collect savings. I emphasize production/panel because most of these Solar Sales companies pay their sales guy on a per/watt rate where bigger is better, not necessarily efficiency and financial benefit for the customer. This can incentivize them to push for panels in places on your roof where they'll hardly produce - adding to the overall cost of the system something that is good for them and not necessarily for you. If you have the documents and can put good numbers together you can likely get financing through your local bank directly - or imo just pay cash if you can. Avoid PPAs, stick to loans with good rates or cash. A really common bottleneck at these solar installation companies is either 1. permitting, or later on: inspections and interconnection approval (City/Municipality + Power Co.). The shadier solar companies can technically get paid by the financing provider prior to a customer's system being fully inspected and interconnected with the grid. This doesn't always give them in incentive to bring the project to a closure as they've already gotten paid and any additional work is a truck roll, technician hours, and troubleshooting - even if it leaves the customer without a producing system and monthly payments.

CyanLite2 4y ago

In the U.S., the National Electric Code requires UL-listed components. The inverters, the panels, wires, even the racking must be UL-listed and not simply "UL tested". The manufacturer has to pay UL a few million dollars to list their products on their database in order to pass inspection. An inverter that costs $500 on Amazon costs about $5000 and available only through certain distributors. Australia has no such requirement, and so they can use the cheapest inverters from China/Amazon.

neap24 4y ago

I really don't understand the obsession with homeowner solar. The financing schemes are crazy (companies owning part of your roof, renting the equipment, etc.). The only way to do it properly is to either pay someone else cash or to do it yourself. But then, even then, when I did my ROI calculation a few months ago (I live in a small house that is very efficient as-is), I was looking at 10-15 years before I'd see any savings. Then, I learned that the lifespan on some of the equipment and panels may only be 20 years. Granted, replacing them beats the cost of the original install and permitting process, but now I have something else in addition to shingles on my roof that needs replaced after a couple of decades. It just doesn't make sense to me to mess with it now. As others have mentioned, pushing for grid solar/nuclear/other clean energy is really the only way to do this efficiently. Then I won't have a mass of ugly panels stuck on my roof.

solardev 4y ago
The ROI can change a lot depending on your particular circumstances, though. If you live in a not-so-sunny place with minimal electricity use, a 10-15 year ROI isn't unreasonable. But if you live in a sunny place and pay a lot for HVAC or an electric car, the payback can be much shorter (sometimes 5 to 7 years, especially if you self-install). Time-of-use billing can also dramatically change the numbers, depending on your state/electric utility and household usage habits -- sometimes even to the point where you can use a battery to play electricity arbitrage, buying/generating low and selling back high (if your area allows such a scheme). Electricity prices are expected to keep going up too. But there is also uncertainty in how utilities will renegotiate (or else grandfather in) existing solar ratepayers. California's solar pricing schemes have changed a lot just in the last decade as they went from minimal solar to solar oversaturation (the grid couldn't keep pace with the # of installs). At the end of the day, for some homeowners, solar is a no-brainer. For others, it doesn't make sense. It totally depends... it isn't an automatic win, but also not something that should be categorically written off. It's worth investigating, especially for new constructions that are heavily electrified (i.e. use electricity for heating/cooling/cooking instead of gas or other fuels). But agreed that grid-scale makes more sense, combined with other power technologies. One minor nitpick: It's unlikely the PV modules (solar panels) themselves will fail in 20 years; you'll more likely have to replace your inverter before the cells themselves break. Sometimes those inverters are string inverters in your house (no roof work needed), other times they are microinverters/power optimizers attached to the modules themselves, which would make it more complicated to replace.

exabrial 4y ago

It's complex, literally: local regulations, a lot to do with homeowners associations, drive the cost through the roof.

londons_explore 4y ago

Permitting for solar has a primary objective of keeping solar expensive. Solar installations, even when done badly, have an excellent safety record post-install. And safety issues that they do have are typically related not to the installation but to the manufacturing of the equipment, which is something an inspector can't check anyway.