Solar PV - Save Money & Shrink Carbon Footprint

[Fat Charlie]

Hawaii has huge supply difficulties by being a series of islands, and nearness to China can't solve that. Is it really all that much more expensive for a container ship to get to LA than it is to get to Honolulu? Any added expenses will be more than made up for by the fact that they'll unload the entire ship in LA.

Stopping in Hawaii means all the usual port crap and then having to continue elsewhere to unload the rest of the ship- while Hawaii cargo needs to be loaded onto at least one more ship to get to its final island.

[freebeard]

I was thinking exactly that, more as a joke. But you make a compelling case.

[matt36415]

Just a heads up to another country... in Australia, I pay 31c / KWh and $1.50 per day supply charge. This means solar is pretty worthwhile. I have 6.6kw of panels with a 5kw inverter. There are rules about how much we can feed back to the grid as about half the houses near me have them so a 5kw inverter is the maximum allowed. On a sunny day it will make a bit over 40KW/h and I get 22c for each KW fed back to the grid.

[freebeard]

Do you do solar hot water? Or use photovoltaic power to heat water and/or space?

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Do you do solar hot water? Or use photovoltaic power to heat water and/or space?

What would be cool is a coolant loop attached to the backside of the solar panels that transfer heat from the array to hot water storage. PV efficiency goes up as temperature goes down. Kills 2 stones with 1 bird.

[oil pan 4]

The panels need to be air cooled there is way too much heat coming off them to try and save any of it.

[freebeard]

Air-cooled rules, water-cooled drools.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

We have been driving EV's for 3 1/2 years, and we are now using a heat pump for most of heating our house, as well. We got a solar PV system installed yesterday, and it should soon be generating a large amount electricity, to offset our use. The system is Sunpower 327 watt panels (about 20% efficient), and it is warranted for 25 years. The system will pay for itself in just over 5 years, with all the incentives, and in less than 10 years without them..

Thank you for paying a small amount more for more efficient and US sourced solar panels. Your panels were likely made about 2 miles from my house here in Hillsboro, OR. Unfortunately, SunPower shut down the Hillsboro production facility last month and the building is being converted into a a 1 million sq ft server farm.

BTW, SunPower is a subsidiary of the French oil company Total

[redpoint5]

I almost went SunPower, but if I recall correctly, they were about 20% more expensive. The installer I was working with made increasingly competitive bids with the other guys, but I don't get the sense that the company will be around in 10 years to service warranty issues.

I've got SolarEdge equipment, and expect them to be in the game long term. I preferred having an option of what equipment to go with rather than being shoehorned into a single product line.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

I almost went SunPower, but if I recall correctly, they were about 20% more expensive. The installer I was working with made increasingly competitive bids with the other guys, but I don't get the sense that the company will be around in 10 years to service warranty issues.

I've got SolarEdge equipment, and expect them to be in the game long term. I preferred having an option of what equipment to go with rather than being shoehorned into a single product line.

When I got my last quote in 2017 SunPower panels were about $600 more than Chinese panels (Out of a total installed cost of $17,882)

SunPower is a multi-billion dollar company with about 9,000 employees. I don't think they are going anywhere but they shut down US manufacturing.