Are solar panels a fucking scam?

Are solar panels a fucking scam?

>Door to door salesmen every single day trying to get me to finance or lease solar panels
>They're expensive as hell that if you don't buy outright with cash, you're not actually saving any money
>All the power you generate goes to power company and not to you
>Storage batteries are stupid expensive, a way to force consumers to make power companies money


Am I wrong to distrust the solarjew?

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If properly utilized they are fantastic. But probably you are being jewed.

Generally even with great sunlight you can't collect enough on your roof to power you over the end day spike. Your roof isn't large enough to collect enough power to charge a battery to take you to 10PM.
This is expressed as the 'duck curve' and it's chaos for the grid.
You will need extra panels in your yard to collect enough power to push you into night. It's not saving anything because if you drop off your system and switch to the grid at peak use you're just adding to the already expensive peak load.

What you are doing is taking advantage of subsidies and tax breaks, which is just a fancy way of saying you're taking from everyone else.

The proper use cases are:
Low power use.
Remote no grid access.
You have an inverted use grid so your peak comes mid day not at night.

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just look to china to find out if they are a scam

to be a properly exploited technology you need state support, something that wont happen in the us

>doesn't lower the peak
yikes

Actually, here in California they are subsidized, from what I gathered is that these companies that lease them receive the tax breaks, which explains why they're so aggressive.


I live in an area of SoCal that reaches 120°F+ weather, so I try to keep the inside around 75-80°F. So it's a lot to think about when it comes to solar but if what you say is true, it looks like solar panels are just a gimmick. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying.

Is buying some of that cheap acreage out in the western state deserts viable just to set up panels on them and sell it to a nearby power company? I'm aware there is an initial sunk cost on the panels and land, and property tax, but think it would still come out with enough profit to make it worth the time spent in a few years of ownership?

You think the power companies wouldn't be doing that already?

OP here, I've driven through the high and low desert and have seen land with only panels in there. Always wondered who owns them, I'm guessing there's some profit since the one's I've seen habe been there for 5+ years

When the sun goes down you don't turn your AC off. You likely run it until the outside air temperature is at least equal to what you want your max overnight inside temperature is. The problem is that you are going to hop back on the grid and start drawing down the most expensive power you can buy.

If you are worried about temperature, then AC is needed. However having northern Canada good insulation will help keep the hot out and your cool in.
Running your AC on solar only is a reasonable option but heating and cooling are the most energy intensive actions you can do. You are unlikely to be able to run your AC unit on a roof top solar only, even if you had all the batteries in the world to store it. The physics of building sizes and internal space against roof sizes just don't match to let you meet your power need.

Once you are on smart grid power meters you might want to just buy the battery system so you can fill up at night when power is cheap and distribution charges low. Then run your AC on that battery unit.

No such thing as a free lunch. Solar isn't going to save you very much, and most of the state money is drying up making them even less attractive to buy.
From the legal side if you 'buy' a solar system all you are doing is putting a lean on your property meaning you have to pay out the balance of the debt before you can sell your house. That is you can't sell your house until you pay them back.

The only reason you get salesmen is because the state offers subsidies. Once those go away so will the solar installs.
Also battery are fucking expensive and extremely dangerous. Seen those smart phones exploding in fire? Now thing of something that's 10,000 times the size doing the same thing that's strapped to your house.

The easy answer is that solar has drove the cost of mid day electricity to zero.
Here's a video on that topic. (it's about nuclear power but it talks about the grid).
youtube.com/watch?v=2zD0m_ci-oo

what if we start a.company that does water pump storage or molten salt heating or whatever during the low price hours and then generate power during peak hours?
seems like whoever comes up with reliable power storage can make a lot of monies

Costs more than making power on demand with gas turbines, nuclear reactors, hydro electric or coal. Even with a carbon tax at some crazy amount it's still cheaper. Make the carbon tax too high and it becomes economical to spend power to collect the CO2 lowering the emission tax.

Simply put to make storage of energy viable against gas you need to raise the price of gas 15 to 20 times it's current price (which isn't going to happen given fracking and sideways drilling) and have a carbon tax of $300 a ton.
Which does nothing to stop nuclear.

The only way to make solar viable or energy storage economic is by government intervention. Any magic energy storage tech would work vastly better with nuclear plants.

Use lead acid batteries then, dummy. They're safe. The worst thing that can happen is that they overheat and water evacuates, leaving behind sulphuric acid which eats away the lead plates rapidly, eventually reducing capacity to zero, and this damage is permanent. Nothing else happens, the casing is non soluble in the acid.

>Use lead acid batteries then, dummy. They're safe. The worst thing that can happen is that they overheat and water evacuates, leaving behind sulphuric acid which eats away the lead plates rapidly, eventually reducing capacity to zero, and this damage is permanent. Nothing else happens, the casing is non soluble in the acid.
Lead acid batteries cost between $100-300 /kwh it's safer than Li-Ion but it's still about 1000 times more expensive than generation.

Lead acid batteries are bulky and heavy for what they do. You would need a power shed filled with battery to match a Li-Ion unit.

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And even then it's only viable for particular individual, not for the country, because the same total amount of money is paid for those. Effectively, those who don't use solar panels pay for those who do. Not hard to imagine what happens when solar users stop being 0.5% minority.

Literally who gives a shit about size and weight for a stationary installation? Especially when the alternative is a literal powder keg waiting to explode, which also costs 5x as much?

They're a scam. Build a small scale nuclear reactor if you want cheaper energy.

If you don't live in an area with good sunlight year round and a utility company that will buy your excess generation they are probably a bad investment. Making your home more energy efficient in a variety of ways would be a better use of your money

>Literally who gives a shit about size and weight for a stationary installation? Especially when the alternative is a literal powder keg waiting to explode, which also costs 5x as much?
Many technical reasons make Li-Ion a superior option. They just don't win on cost, or safety.

yes.
Renewables are snake oils marketed towards naïve treehuggers.

Odd that for power grid energy storage your only concerns are safety and cost. What are the technical reasons, anyway? Requiring more complicated electrical systems to function, further increasing the cost and amount of money that could be embezzled?

Li-Ion has less self discharge, faster charging, a more steady output curve, longer lower maintenance life span.
You can type Li-Ion vs Lead Acid into a search engine as well as I can.

>Making your home more energy efficient in a variety of ways would be a better use of your money


OP here, how the fuck do I do that? I don't know shit about building/fixing houses. I've barely learned how to patch my walls, paint the walls, and change the screens in my windows. Everything else, from the YouTube how-to videos I've seen, make it look as if you already have to have some technical know-how and the right tools to do the work you want.


And I am aware that utility companies offer free work to make homes energy efficient but apparently I don't qualify because I'm not some illegal that makes 20k a year.

If electricity is free during peak PV output times, couldn't you buy home batteries and charge them in the day when electricity is super cheap (as well as running all your normal things) and then use them at night for free electricity all the time?

OP here, reason for this thread is also because I'm trying to see the benefits of solar panels, because my power bill 2 months ago was around $270 and today it was $515. So I really want to see which option jews me less.

If you have a newer house a lot of this stuff will already be done but common things are
>install good insulation
>dual pane windows
>good shutters on the windows
>modern appliances
>LED light bulbs everywhere
>whole house fan instead of running AC at night
>passive heating or some kind of heat pump (potentially expensive)

It's cheaper to buy power at high rates than to buy the storage.

What the fuck are you doing to rake in $500 power bill?! That's at least 3000 kw/h of energy you used, you had to run a 4kw unit 24/7 to consume that much power.

AC is a heat pump. So yeah it's expensive, power intensive too.

Is a hypothewtical law requiring every house and building to cover their roofs with solar panels autism?

You might as well require that every household most own a semi truck.

A fucking killowatt hour here is 10 cents and its always overcast.


You are fucking godamn right that any solar cell shit here is 100% bullshit.

I meant a ground source heat pump for heating instead of electric resistance heaters or natural gas. Functionally it is just AC in reverse but it's sold as a different appliance and not as common as AC

>by the time they pay for themselves if they dont break due to being made in china and hail they stop working

Unfortunately my house was built in 87

Power company has a tier system for when the hotter days come (it's been triple digit here) so currently in tier 3 (the highest) so shit's more expensive now.

California passed a law requiring new houses to have solar panels.

Large scale solar makes more sense.

Large solar installations can have on-prem storage to mediate output. They can supply a reliable, forecasted supply paired with a natural gas facility that works in tandem to modulate output.

Bulk solar is also has a significantly cheaper unit price compared to the shit people buy for their roofs. Utility scale solar installations have an LCOE of ~$40 which puts it on bar with gas combined cycle.

Okay, but what about skyscrapers?

>seems like whoever comes up with reliable power storage can make a lot of monies
you cracked it, user, you solved the case!

are solar panel windows a thing yet?

Solar panels are great, they're cheap, solid state devices that make money out of thin air.

Problem is that like with every other industry in US there is insane amount of parasitic "services" that want their cut from it, banks, retailers, installers, power companies and this adds up quickly.

Chink panels are ~$0.20/W, they pay out in like 150 days or so, in US it takes 10 years for those to pay out because they have to feed whole parasitic chain before making profit for it's owner.

Where can I buy these insanely cheap solar panels?

This is the answer.
Door-to-door salesmen are jews. They're after your money is all.
Generally, installing panels on an existing property (house) is not worth it, even with the subsidies.
If you're building a new house then it'll be cheaper to get them installed and the subsidies will benefit you greatly.
Power companies almost always reimburse you for the power you generate, but the rate varies greatly. Research this before deciding on panels.

>What the fuck are you doing to rake in $500 power bill?!
Crypo mining.

Growing weed

It's weird to think that if BTC becomes expensive enough and solar panels cheap enough, anyone could buy some plot of desert and build a solar/crypto farm that literally prints money from sunlight.

>>install good insulation
You cant insulate from the inside because it kills your walls and you walls won't store cold/hot in the night making it more efficient
>>dual pane windows
Make it triple or more
>>good shutters on the windows
Good advice
>>modern appliances
Breaks in 2 years
>>LED light bulbs everywhere
Fucks your eyes
>>whole house fan instead of running AC at night
Good, but too much effort
>>passive heating or some kind of heat pump (potentially expensive)
You need to dig 50m into the ground for that, option only for new houses

>Good, but too much effort
The companies that make those fans will install them for pretty cheap. The hard part is actually finding a good spot to mount a big one. It's definitely worth it though if you live any place where it gets hot.

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>Renewables are snake oils marketed towards naïve treehuggers.
enjoy paying high electricity bills, dumb cunt. I have 2kw panels on my roof and my bill every three months never goes over $50. If I had batteries, i wouldn't be connected to the grid at all. your life = a complete and utter fucking failure.

>DWP bill was $400 - $850 in the summer this includes water and gas
>get Solar
>Solar costs me $100 a month rental fee
>DWP bill is now $123 a month + $100 rental fee

but this is only because I'm in a hot dry climate, if you live in an area that isn't 90% sunshine then don't bother

>You cant insulate from the inside because it kills your walls and you walls won't store cold/hot in the night making it more efficient
If you have no insulation then ANY insulation you install, no matter how poorly, will improve your situation.
As for if you can install it from the inside, it depends completely on the type of building.
>Make it triple or more
Not worth it.
Dual pane is a huge difference on its own.
>Fucks your eyes
Lol, no. Maybe if you buy the cheapest ones and try to run them on a dimmer.

With today's cheap electricity solars don't make sense unless u live in a remote location. It's 0.13 USD per kWh, don't know how much electricity you need to use for the cost of it to be any problem.

Germany found a solution to that
Just destroy all the existing powerplants and dont build new ones, import energy from french nuclear plants = energy costs twice as much now.
Now the green energy companies can get all the tax payer money they'll ever need.