Reply to DH pushing for solar panels

Forum Index » Money and Finances

Reply to "DH pushing for solar panels"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]He says it is $49,000 upfront and a $28,000 tax credit, so $21,000.  We spend $150 average on electricity right now, so they will break even in 11-12 years.  This seems like a really long time.  We have a 5000 square foot home and the panels would be facing west, where a lot of large trees are.  Tesla promises they will offset 100% of our bill.  He also wants to get two batteries which are $5000 each, I think.  I feel like he's being a doomsday prepper more than anything since Houston lost power for a week.  What do you all think?[/quote]

I think it is great that your DH wants to get solar panels. The more of us who make an effort to switch to renewable energy resources, the better.

In regard to the batteries -- I would skip those. If you have excess electricity in a month, it can simply get sold back via the grid, so there is no need to store the power. With respect to black-outs, power outages usually last only a couple hours in this area. So I don't think there is a real need for the batteries. Lastly, battery technology is improving, and the next generation of batteries will be better than the present generation. So best to skip the batteries for now.

In regard to those posters who think there is some dissonance between having a 5000 square foot house (bad for the environment) and getting solar panels (better for the environment that burning fossil fuels), well, they do have a point, but the fact is that anything you do to reduce your CO2 footprint is helpful. So I hope you go forward with the solar panels.
 [/quote]

OP again. Thanks for taking the time to write this.  My husband is looking to get these in case we lose electricity.  For him, it's not about the environment.  The batteries are important to have if you want to have electricity (like your fridge and microwave working) when there is an outage.  We haven't lost power for more than 12 hours where we live in MD, so I think his reasoning doesn't make sense.  I do agree that batteries are improving and it may be worth it to wait, but it's like waiting for the next generation of iPhone to come out.  Will it be a noticeable improvement and how long will I have to wait?  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics