We've got one, cost €350 including delivery and a balcony railing mounting kit, could've been €250 if we'd collected and not had the stands. Whole thing is trivial DIY, no skill or training needed: you literally just assemble the kit and plug it into a power socket, register it online as a small power station, and you're done.
Sure, the legal limit of 800 W output sure isn't a huge supply, but at that cost it's also a no-brainer — at €350, it will pay for itself in 1y8m.
In other words you have lawn flamingos because you have bad taste not because the government impoverished you.
I have balkonkraftwerk because they're a 60% return on investment, per year for 35 years, tax free and self-adjusting for inflation. By far the best (reliable) investment one can make.
That €350 is currently economically worth €7350 over their lifetime in reduced energy bills, tax free. The economics are so strong that it would be worth doing even if energy was 1/3rd the current price.
I'm not even talking about the fact that panels MAY act like a pool for resale. Some people DO want them--again depending on your locale--most, at this point, do NOT where I live.
I was looking primarily for cost reduction and a very small percentage of saving the environment or whatever you want to call it. But; depending on your locale, home structure, etc, solar may not at all be that. If you're leaning more on the side of energy independence and eco-friendliness, maybe it's a better fit for you.
A roof mounted solar array easily adds $20,000 - 25,000 to reroofing a house just in labor (assuming two electricians for one week on either side of the reroofing with labor priced at $150/hr)
If I was buying a house with a solar array on the roof I would consider it to be a liability that is going to add to the TCO of the home and ask for a discount to cover the future costs of removal. The labor to remove and replace the solar array when reroofing is never going to be paid for by the solar array, it’s just an added expense to the TCO of a home.
There are plenty of people who are not aware of the added costs of a roof mounted solar array, I just happen to be aware since I sell and run electrical work for a living.
Why do you need two electricians for a week? My rooftop solar array went up in an afternoon. They had three labourers. The (singular) electrician came in separately and worked for under and hour.
> "[solar] adds $20,000 - 25,000 to reroofing a house"
Since all of the scaffolding or whatever is already up for the roof work, if anything the solar ought to be cheaper, in that scenario.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/rooftop-solar-three-times-cheape...
The study from Compare the Market finds the average residential solar installation cost in the US is $A4/W, while Canada’s national average was $A3.65/W. By contrast, Australia’s national average was $A0.89/W, more than $A2/W cheaper.
It's also significantly higher than in Germany:
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/10/24/residential-pv-prices...
The cheapest offers for a PV system with 10 kW of power without storage are just over €1 per watt, the most expensive are around €2 euros per watt.
All these countries have access to the same solar panels. The national minimum wage is lower in America than in the other countries. So why do American rooftop systems cost so much more? Mostly because of high "soft costs" in America:
Soft costs are the non-hardware costs associated with going solar. These costs include permitting, financing, and installing solar, as well as the expenses solar companies incur to acquire new customers, pay suppliers, and cover their bottom line. These soft costs become a portion of the overall price a customer pays for a solar energy system. While solar hardware costs have fallen in recent years, soft costs represent a growing share of total solar system costs.
Arizona - 3,800 hours of sunlight hours per year
Minnesota - 2,500 hours of sunlight hours per year
Ergo, I can't generate as much energy as someone who lives in a state that gets significantly more sunlight.
I would also add that setup and installation of even a small solar array has an ROI of around 10 years because I can't generate as much energy, therefore it takes longer for me to break even.
Right now in Minnesota:
The average cost of installing a 5 kW solar panel system in Minnesota is approximately $14,900 before applying the 30% federal tax credit, which can significantly reduce the overall expense. After incentives, the out-of-pocket cost can be around $13,860
Sorry, I'm not going to lay out 15K and then have to wait ten years before I break even. If you want to know why people aren't adopting solar, this is the reason. Its cost prohibitive for many, many people.
Does it make sense for people in those Southern states? 100%. For everybody else? Not so much.
Every single year I talk to companies and the cost has gone down, barely. I've been told every year for the last 20 years that technology is getting so much better. The panels are so much more efficient, cost less, the state and federal govt have tax breaks, blah blah, blah. The Chinese have found a way to produce them this way and that way, "Oh you just wait, its really going to be affordable in the next few years!"
No, its still not affordable. If it were, like OP said you would see them on every house in your neighborhood.
I've wanted to put solar on my house for very long time and every year its the same thing. "Finance a $15,000 loan and in ten years you'll have free electricity!!"
I would say anybody who's rational, informed and interested looking at that would 100% of the time its not worth it.
Yeah and then you pay interest on the loan. Which then makes it EVEN MORE expensive AND lengthens your ROI just to break even.
FYI you're not "saving" anything until A) Your loan is paid off and B) Your array is generating enough energy to compensate for your existing energy use.
Your numbers just don't add up:
$15,000 for a 5Kw array.
$15,000 loan with a VERY generous 5% interest rate on an also very generous 6 year term.
Interest paid over six years: $4,500
Total paid after six years: $19,500
Monthly payments would be around $240.00
The average monthly cost of electricity for Minneapolis is about $190.00 which is about 1,097kWh
The monthly average your 5kWh array can generate in a month (assuming optimal conditions) is around 700kWh. Leaving you with a deficit of 397kWh you still need to pay for.
So no, I'm not seeing how the cost savings will exceed your finance payments. It will eventually pay for itself once you get outside of that ROI period. And then what? You get 15 years of free electricity which amounts to:
$190.00 * 12 = $2,280
$2,280 * 15 = $34,200
So then, over 25 years, your net gain is about: $14,000? Which is about $560/year?
Not worth it at all.
Having an alternative source for your house is a wise idea.
Then there is still the safety issues and environmental concerns regarding the waste. Some people say they are safe now and you can just bury the waste deep underground. Putting it deep underground seems a bit like just pumping the carbon into the air: someone else's problem further down the line in time.
Do you want to live next to a Nuclear Power Plant?
Yes! I think that would be great!
Will they actually get spent on something sensible, including but not limited to free school lunches? Probably not.
Think of it as a stopped-clock-right-twice-a-day kind of thing.
When discussing solar subsidies one should keep several things in mind:
- Federal solar subsidies are expiring at the end of this year thanks to Trumps tax law with a name so ridiculous I shall not repeat it.
- This news item is talking about money that has already been granted. This is especially screwed up because these are situation where the government has already promised to pay and people have been making investments and putting in work in expectation of payment.
- Solar is actually much less subsidized than nuclear. In many cases solar subsidies will help the taxpayer avoid costs as they avoid much more expensive nuclear subsidies.
My previous comment said:
> to reduce the fuel consumed running an existing plants
As in: no storage or new transmission needed, put it right by the existing gas plant and wire it together, *burn less while the sun is shining*.
Batteries… well, I hope they keep getting cheaper, but IIRC them+PV currently beat nuclear. Not sure about other stuff though.
Solar is so expensive and cost-inefficient per-household. Data centers need their own large, uninterrupted power supplies.