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Honestly they only made economic sense in my case because of government incentives. Although if the price continues to fall, they may eventually even make sense

Honestly they only made economic sense in my case because of government incentives. Although if the price continues to fall, they may eventually even make sense in my area without incentives. Electricity generation in the event of a power outage was another consideration for me. But yeah as a techy I also just enjoy having them.

angry_octet 5mo ago
You're regurgitating another anti-PV talking point. Even without incentives PVs save you money.
- freetime2 5mo ago
  I'm not regurgitating anything. I'm looking at how much electricity my panels generate, and what percentage of it I use, and I can say definitively that it would not make financial sense for me if not for the feed-in tariff program that pays me a guaranteed rate for electricity I sell back to the grid. You can't just blindly say "PVs save you money". It matters very much how much sunlight you get, the orientation of your roof, how much electricity costs, how much labor and installation costs, etc. My location is far from ideal for solar. But with incentives - which are funded in my country via a per-kWh surcharge on everyone's electricity bills - it just barely makes financial sense to have solar panels on my roof.
  - angry_octet 5mo ago
    Unless you have very cheap grid power / terrible sun / needlessly high installation costs, PV will be a winner. So Quebec is bad because electricity is absurdly cheap, and the only benefit is redundancy. California should be absurdly cheap but regulations are out of control. Germany also has insane regulatory burden and expensive labour but grid energy is even more expensive, double the US average. In very sunny places with expensive grid power a battery is sensible, but again politics often favours flat rate tariffs that discount peak power, which again favours grid incumbents. So it might not be economic for your region but that is entirely due to regional politics, a default choice to make PV power expensive.
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
    - freetime2 5mo ago
      Ok so you've backpedaled from "PVs always save you money" to "if it doesn't, it's because of politics". The reality is not that simple. PVs are definitely the cheapest source of energy in a lot of places, which is why it is the fastest growing energy source in the world. But "cheapest in a lot of places" is not the same thing as "universally a winner in every scenario". Politics can be a complicating factor, but in other cases the math just doesn't work out due to plain old physics and economics. I'm extremely optimistic about the future of solar. But I don't think it helps the argument to pretend that it's already a guaranteed win everywhere if not for foolish politicians. That's just swapping one oversimplification for another.

angry_octet 5mo ago

You're regurgitating another anti-PV talking point. Even without incentives PVs save you money.

freetime2 5mo ago
I'm not regurgitating anything. I'm looking at how much electricity my panels generate, and what percentage of it I use, and I can say definitively that it would not make financial sense for me if not for the feed-in tariff program that pays me a guaranteed rate for electricity I sell back to the grid. You can't just blindly say "PVs save you money". It matters very much how much sunlight you get, the orientation of your roof, how much electricity costs, how much labor and installation costs, etc. My location is far from ideal for solar. But with incentives - which are funded in my country via a per-kWh surcharge on everyone's electricity bills - it just barely makes financial sense to have solar panels on my roof.
- angry_octet 5mo ago
  Unless you have very cheap grid power / terrible sun / needlessly high installation costs, PV will be a winner. So Quebec is bad because electricity is absurdly cheap, and the only benefit is redundancy. California should be absurdly cheap but regulations are out of control. Germany also has insane regulatory burden and expensive labour but grid energy is even more expensive, double the US average. In very sunny places with expensive grid power a battery is sensible, but again politics often favours flat rate tariffs that discount peak power, which again favours grid incumbents. So it might not be economic for your region but that is entirely due to regional politics, a default choice to make PV power expensive.
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - freetime2 5mo ago
    Ok so you've backpedaled from "PVs always save you money" to "if it doesn't, it's because of politics". The reality is not that simple. PVs are definitely the cheapest source of energy in a lot of places, which is why it is the fastest growing energy source in the world. But "cheapest in a lot of places" is not the same thing as "universally a winner in every scenario". Politics can be a complicating factor, but in other cases the math just doesn't work out due to plain old physics and economics. I'm extremely optimistic about the future of solar. But I don't think it helps the argument to pretend that it's already a guaranteed win everywhere if not for foolish politicians. That's just swapping one oversimplification for another.