Solar Power Still Sucks in a Big Way

I spent $100,000 to save $20!My numerous (and very vocal fans) will remember that I already wrote a post on how much solar panels suck. But someone who “works in the industry” told me how totally wrong I was. That post was from 2008 so technology should be totally different now right? Almost everyday there’s a story about solar panels reaching new and incredible limits in efficiency.

Please Solar, PLEASE!

I want it to work so bad. I would love to get rid of my electricity bill. Understand, I have a vested interest in solar power being awesome, if it were awesome then I could just throw some panels up and free myself of the utility company. Maybe one day that will be possible, please I wish it were. Even if I could cut it in half I would be thrilled.

So, let’s figure out what that would take. Because if it’s cost efficient, I will do it right now. Luckily for me there’s an organization that has done all the work for me and created a calculator using the latest in technology and current industry costs. Great.

Right now I use an average of 37 kwh per day. That’s slightly above average in the US (don’t ask me how my 1800 sq/ft home does that). Now to get half of that, now remember I’m using this calculator, I need about a 4.1 kW array. So how much does that cost? Luckily they have a calculator for that too.

It’s Totally Cost-Effective

think about how much money they'll save on storage!

So you're an investment banker huh?

So, the grand total is $32,800 to get rid of half my electric bill. But don’t worry, there are tax breaks for this, the federal government will give me almost 10,000 dollars so it ends up being 22,960.00 (I said almost 10,000).

Great, so now if I spend $22,960 to save $35 dollars a month I will recoupe my investment in about 60 years. That doesn’t include stuff breaking, or what happens if we get less than the optimal amount of sun. In reality it’s probably twice as much.

Sorry solar, until the cost is low enough that the investment can be recouped in a year, maybe two, you’re just not worth it.

Actually, I’ll go one step further and say that the government should stop paying people to throw their money away on a technology that isn’t ready. I’m all for more efficient panels and more research but right now it’s just burning money on a technology which probably is way worse for the environment to make than just burning the coal for the electricity.

Prove me wrong and I will love you. Until then, sorry solar, you suck.

Posted in Not So Awesome.View Comments
  • USAZippers
  • If people don't invest in solar, how will technology improve?

    I agree, I think that solar is the end-all in future power needs. I can't wait for the day when we purchase a car that has integrated solar paint - or something like that - and we never have to pay a dime for fuel.

    But without Mr. Moneybags forking out $22,960 to half his electricity bill, how on earth will the industry function?

    What we really need is a cold war. That will stem innovation :)
  • There is tons of energy being produced naturally. The Sun is one of those very obvious ones. When the Sun gets particularly active, it overloads power grids. Just imagine if there was a way to capture that energy? Wind is another. Electricity being produced up in the atmosphere... so much of it that collecting just a few hours of that energy could power a nation for months, even years.

    But alas, the mechanisms we have for collecting that energy are incredibly inefficient (like your solar panels), take up way too much space (like wind farms -- which have additional problems like animals flying through them and getting themselves killed), or are non-existent (like my magical Aurora energy collector, which looks amazingly like the Starship Enterprise).

    I'm with you Dan. Solar energy is awesome, solar cells suck. Let's get some more R&D on this stuff.
  • You're totally right. We should keep using oil, natural gas and coal as power sources because they're cheaper. We should wait until those resources run out or we can't breathe our air anymore before we even consider something like solar energy.

    Here the bottom line, man: none of us pay the actual cost of burning of fossil fuels. The externalities associated with fossil fuels are immense (climate change, acidity of the ocean, etc).
  • Dan
    Oh Rian, I didn't say we don't have an energy problem. We do, I think it should be our number one priority to get off of fossil fuels. But there are more options than just solar, which really is just too expensive to be practical (currently). Look at nuclear for instance http://www.world-nuclear.org/images/info/finlandpowercosts.jpg It make clean cheap power. France uses only nuclear power and sells it to their neighbors. They even recycle 99% of their nuclear waste so they don't have a waste problem. The only reason the US has nuclear waste problems is that it's illegal for the US to recycle our waste.
  • Enter Cold War.
  • Dan, I totally agree with you. I'm so excited about taking my house off the grid (except the cable that feeds back into it to make me monay!), but it just doesn't make sense yet. I wish that R&D would push solar panels the same way it does engines or hybrid cars right now. How efficient would panels need to be to make sense? If we could even get to 80% efficiency, I bet it would make sense now.
  • For one, you're forgetting that Utah gives you $2/W. So, you can take another $8,200 off your total bill, cutting your return on investment down to a (still unreasonable) 35 years.

    So, you're right. Solar makes no sense for you, right now. Part of that is because living in Utah, you're paying one of the lowest electricity costs in the country, at about $0.08/kWh. Some places in the Northeast pay double that amount. Hawaii pays more than triple. Hawaii, by way, gives you back 35% of whatever you spend to install solar.

    So, let's take the same house, same system, and move it to a place where the finances make sense. Hawaii's discount takes your bill down to $21,320. Federal discount takes that down to $11,480 as your final cost.

    Remember that your utility bill is higher, so instead of saving $35/month, you'll be saving closer to $118. This investment pays for itself in a little over 8 years, if you don't count in the value that it adds to your house, just the same as any other improvement would.

    I call that reasonable. Solar already makes sense for some areas, it just doesn't make sense for you yet.
  • Dan
    That is a fantastic point. I didn't think about Hawaii. We didn't include the increased price in solar though. It's probably quite a bit more expensive to get in Hawaii. Plus it seems like they could do tidal power generation for quite a bit less in a place like Hawaii. Or even better they would probably save a ton of money by doing geo-thermal. They're in the best spot for it.
  • Tidal and geo-thermal are both large-scale projects, though. Completely different from installing a personal solar system on your own house.
    I agree though that projects like that would make a huge amount of sense for Hawaii, which has limited enough land as it is (community-scale solar projects can take up huge swaths of land).

    As far as ways to personally get involved in (and encourage) this sort of project, that's why Tirzah and I subscribe to Xcel Energy's "Windsource" program. It ends up costing us $5-20/month extra on our electricity bill, but guarantees us that 100% of our electricity is purchased from wind farms. I believe that the best way to get renewable projects to a point where they outpace traditional fossil fuel generation is by voting with my wallet. Free market FTW.
  • Dan
    Looking around http://news.discovery.com/tech/ultra-micro-urban-architectural-wind-coming-to-a-downtown-near-you.html this is pretty cool. Based on their numbers it would cost me around $6000 hardcost to get rid of half my electric bill which isn't too bad. If the government subsided it like they did solar then it would be like $1500 bucks. Not bad at all.
  • Robynn Garfield
    I agree. (Wait...if I don't prove you wrong...will you still love me? Crap)
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