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Comment by Bhilai | Hacker News Reader

Was getting a new roof and seriously considered getting solar panels also. Spoke to several experts, read forums on ideal panels and inverters and so on. Got like 8 quotes, resized the system several times for optimal production vs consumption ratio. In every single calculation, the monthly loan repayment on solar panels was more than what I pay for electricity today. Even if I considered increasing energy costs, it was still going to cost more on a per month basis. The payoff period ranged from 12-20 years. I should note I live in an almost "anti-solar" state, my energy provider does not have net-metering and only pays back half for what we produce. I was told that a big portion of the cost was installation and DIY would be cheaper but heck I am not the guy who would climb on the roof.

I could have surely done it for the good of mother earth but financially it made no sense.

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Hey!

Obviously I don't know your specific needs, or what quotes you got. But I'm willing to venture a guess that you got quotes from the standard solar companies - the ones that serve as all in one stops, project managements, permitting, purchasing, installing, etc. Those services are nuts!

I got a bunch of quotes from many of those types of companies for my own home a few years ago, and they all quoted me around $45k (+/- a few grand depending on the company). Realizing that was way to expensive, I put in a little elbow work and was able to come up with a quote for $18k to do the project management myself - I found a solar reseller (solarwholesale, no idea if they are still around) that quoted me $12k for the panels and installation hardware, plus they'd provide the architecture documents I'd need for permitting, the company that most recently installed my new roof quoted be <$2k to install the solar panels (just the hardware, no electrical connections), I spoke to a local electrician who quoted me ~$2k to do the electrical connections on the panels, the fuse box connections, and connection to the grid, and the remaining $2k was for miscellaneous things like permitting and other things I don't recall exactly.

It was work, but it was work well worth saving $27k compared to what the one-stop-shop solar installers want.

How long did the install take from the time you placed the order to turning the system on?

This highlights the valid time vs money tradeoff - but once you get into the tens of thousands for an improvement/future investment, what's the rush?

I'd be concerned about individual contractors ghosting before or mid-project, throwing the whole plan into jeopardy. I doubt many contractors would be willing to continue someone else's work. Also, storing the materials can be a hassle -- the panels alone would take up half of my garage, for an unknowable amount of time (it takes months to find contractors willing to bid on projects around here).

At least having an experienced general contractor overseeing the project reduces the chance that an individuals' ghosting could cause large delays.

What were the system specs?

yes, the labor, permitting, and safety costs are insane. Raw panels are very cheap, and even cheaper in China (<$0.20 per Watt).

If everyone could have a 10KW system for $2,000, they would.

I would bet the cost of the solar panels was only a fraction of the total costs. The fact of the matter is that individually owned and operated power generation doesn’t make sense for a variety of reasons, which is why we invented the power grid. It would be prohibitively expensive to run your own natural gas turbine at home as well, even though you have a pipe going straight to your house. So instead we build natural gas power plants that turn a profit.

> I could have surely done it for the good of mother earth but financially it made no sense.

This seems like a recurring theme in todays world.

It depends. If you have an EV that number starts becoming favorable very quickly.

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