SOLAR POWER MFKERS
- Thread starter Jesseliu13
- Start date
The kit (panels, pump, and back-up battery) was $161 delivered from eBay. I opted to incorporate the pump with a Fish-Mate 1000G Bio-filter instead of using the included fountain adapters.
i see... i was thinking of solar but its extremely expensive! and even if you do a plan where the panels generate payment for itself it would still cost a fortune!
I love this idea. Now I actually have a chance at putting a pond in and not jacking up my electricity bill anymore
There won't be competition because one company is putting all of the others out of business. They can't compete. The biggest company which operates in 18 states in the US uses over 50% of all of the solar panels manufactured in the entire world. I used to work for them until some personal issues popped up in my life and I had to move across country. If the opportunity presents itself, I'm going back.
Doesn't matter. East/west mounting planes are fine. The only ones that can't be worked with are north facing. You'll need more panels, but it will work.I would go solar in a heartbeat, but unfortunately, my roof faces east/west
Not true! South is ideal yes, but the company I worked for would stick panels even on the north face if need be. The again, our panels made power (all be it very little) from street lights shining on them lol.
Southern California and Arizona have the highest solar intensity anywhere in the country, but New England has a pretty booming solar industry too. Don't own, though. Lease. Leasing will get you a system that offsets 99% of your electric bill, reducing it to $5 or so a month, while giving you a monthly lease rate that is normally about 20% of what your peak electric bills were.
Again... LEASE! My company would do free installs with no up front cost. We operated as a utility. An auditor comes out, evaluates your energy usage and the ability of your house to support solar, takes their findings back and reports then, a designer takes these data and designs your system, then a crew comes out and installs in. Our systems were designed to offset 99% of what you pulled off of the grid, reducing your utility bill to a couple of bucks a month. On average, the lease bill was about 20% of the utility bill during peak usage. When you're not in peak usage, you normally stack up credits with the utility that end up paying your lease.
Not only did I work for this industry, but I firmly believe in it. I had to quit because of both personal issues with my family, as well as the simply fact that my hurt back doesn't really allow me to do that kind of intense physical labor anymore.
When I build my next house however, you better believe that it WILL have solar. I've designed it from the ground up to be optimized for it!
Well, the solar leasing companies around me won't even come out to my house for an audit when they find out I don't have a south facing roof. My In-Laws, have a south facing roof, were turned down for a lease after an a audit found their efficiency was about 79%.....not enough for them to invest in. Trust me, if I can lease solar, I'd be all over it years ago
Man, thats a bum deal. Like I said, we were sticking panels on north facing roofs if we had to. We didn't turn customers down lol
Hopefully this will change as competition, from new businesses, starts to build.
Last year, our electricity rate was increased by around 40%
Here in SoCal I am anticipating the same with our water....I hate that the utility companies have us by the short hairs.Hopefully this will change as competition, from new businesses, starts to build.
Last year, our electricity rate was increased by around 40%
I live in Southern California and bought a house that came with a 20 year prepaid lease about 1.5 years ago. It has a standard 10 panel setup, but it does not generate sufficient electricity to power the whole house. We pay like $2 per month for utility fees, but they track utilization and bill you annually for your utilization net of any "net generation" which is the additional power generated that you are not using. Net generation gets a poor reimbursement rate though. I estimate value of savings to be about $100 per month over what I would pay if I didn't have it. I like the system, but I wish they would have installed enough panels to power the whole house. If you're going to install solar, might as well generate enough juice to power your entire house.
