here is the public liink to my current solar system - you can see for yourself past and current production - careful review shows 22-48 kWh annual daily production range winter vs. summer - obviously cloudy days product less - full sunny days are the best…

https://enlighten.enphaseenergy.com/...17196/overview

enjoy.

I’m happy to take more questions or observations.

 

current lifetime production of my system - 44.54 MegaWatt hours or 44,540 kWh

at a value of $0.19 kWh - that’s $8,462 retail value of production (PG&E off peak retail rate)
at a value of $0.50 kWh - that’s $22,270 retail value of production (PG&E peak rate)

what’s the actual value? that’s really hard to calculate given different production rates and TOU rates from the grid and different demands from the home through out the day - but depending on how you value the kWh produced by the solar system there is a range of $8,500 to $22,000 worth of power production in the first 4 years - I’m fairly confident I’ll get my money back - I don’t recall the exact cost for my system (minus batteries) but it was more than $20k and less than $30k installed, and there were some tax benefits in there somewhere as well.

anyways I’m happy - and I’m alwasy super happy when I’m producing power during PG&E’s $0.50/kwh peak rate period

 

Really fantastic info. In my opinion, people who install battery storage should get a kick back from the energy providers as the storage systems can help stabilize the grid and prevent blackouts. The end user is basically investing capital that the energy providers should to improve grid reliability.

 

There is already a 20-something percent federal tax credit.

The utilities really hate net metering, and are doing everything in their power to neuter it. The answer for us consumers is increasingly to combine solar + storage, rather than solar-only. Owning your own storage lets you maintain power through grid outages, as Dave mentioned above. It can also let you participate in so-called "virtual power plants" - where you band with others to provide power to the grid on demand to make money on your excess. In fact, as of a couple months ago, Tesla Energy stopped selling solar-only systems. Expect them and others to start offering their customers opt-in VPP services.

There is a lot happening at the grid level too. A number of older, less efficient, natgas plants here in California are being replaced with grid-scale storage systems to take advantage of cheap solar power.

 

How much money did you spend on installing the solar panel? And how long did it take you to recoup your investment?

 

install was 30k prior to tax benefits - typical “break even” calculations for solar in california is 6-8 years - items are 25 year items - the break even calculations does _NOT_ include any rate increases…current system was installed in 2017 - and we’re into year 5 of production - to date the system has produced




that is 45,330 kWh - or enough power to drive the Taycan 145,000 miles

depending on how you value the electricity (either peak or off peak rates) that means the solar system has offset either $8,612 (off peak) or $22,665 (peak) when you consider PG&E retail rates for power - the true offset is probably more than $8,612 but less than $22,665 - so 30k install costs out of pocket - 10k tax savings consideration (fact) - means we have 20k to “recoup” for break even - so let’s take the average of 22k + 8K = 30k / 2 = $15k worth of power produced in 4.25 years (conservatively valued) - mean’s we have 5k of cost left to recover - I should be break even by about 2023 - after that all the power it produces for the next 19 years of it’s 25 year life is “free”…that is of course assuming PG&E rates do not go up - but I’m betting they are going up which simply increases the value of the power produced on my roof…so break even will be accelerated to some degree…

another way to look at it is:
30k out of pocket (capital invested)
10k in realized tax benefits
$3,750 annual return in retail value of power produced (again conservatively valued)
$3,750 / $30k up-front capital = 12.5% annual return on investment
total returns will be $3,750 annually for 25 years (life of the system) = $93,750 for $30k/$20k invested…(again assuming the value of a kWh remain’s “fixed” - if kWh value goes up break even accelerates in my favor and total value of the system increases over time)

also I have home batteries - which offer a degree of self sufficiency - to date since battery install in my particular area the system has bridged nearly 65 hours of grid outages in coming up on 3 years of “in service” - long outage has been 16 hours - in the past 2 weeks with the bomb cyclone hitting the west coast - it bridged 6 hours of power outages…in 3 separate 2 hour outages…

my spouse approval for the home battery backup system is off the charts positive approval rating - she simply loves having the lights on when the power goes out vs. the alternatives…the only thing in the recent 20 years with similarly high approval ratings has been: her EV (she hated gas station visits), and the TiVO (when it was a “thing” she loved it) - but yeah solar + batteries = whole home backup = very very high spouse approval…

I comfortable with the investment - but ROI depends greatly on production capacity (different for different regions) and local costs for utility rates…so break even will vary greatly depending on your local situation with primary being amount of sunlight annually and secondarily your prevailing local utility rates…I’ve noted when I visit my daughter in washington there isn’t a lot of residential & roof top solar - I take that a sign that washington isn’t a good place for solar given it’s prevailing weather conditions…and potentially local utility rates…

 

Frankly speaking… in CA coastal / valley areas solar is a near no-brainer. Battery is a different conversation on straight ROI just isn’t there, but, for energy independence its a good option for folks that get outages often. The cost of electricity here is near punitive. It’s increasing, a lot, and fuel here, is now over 5/gal. It makes the increased cost of electric car for a daily + solar a good hedge to the craziness.

But, solar will be getting ‘less good’ likely with NEM 3.0 scheme being worked on. So if you want it, get it NOW, it’s a 3-6mo process. So you can get in on NEM 2.0 which is pretty good and. You lock in a 20yr commitment.

We activated a 7kw system a couple months ago, which similar to above should produce ~11kwh per year, quite a bit more than our consumption but modeled to support charging a car 10k/yr.

Now which car goes in the garage… is the decision