Quote from Burtakus:
I checked into this for my house since I was putting on a new roof and was thinking about using one of these. You can "sell" your excess to the power companies when you have it and get a credit against the times you need to draw form the power companies. The only problem is that my house is roughly 1400 sq/ft and the cost would have been roughly 45K. My house is only worth about 75K so you do the math. I would never get my money back. Now if I could have done it for roughly 6-8K, sign me up.
Neither you or dividend have correct info about PhotoVoltaics for a home or business. You do not "sell" electricity to the grid, it's net metering. End of the year, if you overproduced, they cut you a check but they pay you a below wholesale electricity rate so it does not make much economic sense.
To actually sell electricity, you have to put at least 50kw or 100KW and then get utility status or work under a power company and just sell to the power company. You also get paid smth per kwh by the government. These projects pretty much require government support, which US Energy Department is very happy to give. Mostly dirt cheap loans but also grants.
As for your math, it's completely off. The value of the house has nothing to do with the value of the solar or wind power. It's directly tied to the cost of electricity and judging from the value of your house I can tell your electric rate must be way low. You are not living in any bustling area where the electric companies will not be able to keep up with demand, such as CA, NY and NJ. In NY and NJ, solar panels pay themselves off within 8-12 years for residential and within 5-6 years for business. Those who can get real aggressive with their taxes will see full payback within 3 years. This is all assuming very conservative electric inflation of 5%, reality is that some areas are experiencing 15-30% rate hikes.
And no, alternative energy does not require government subisidies, not all of it. Energy cost, or to be more exact, electricity cost is what drives it with some significant portion of environmental gov regulations. I'm not gonna get into much detail cause I would have to charge a consulting fee.
Also, electric vehicles are very logical and cost efficient. I can tell that none of you commenting have done the math behind it. Since I have to run out, I'll just say that do not be fooled by the electric vehicles you actually see publicized cause those are crap. The real ones are kept down by "mysterious" forces aka scumbag corporations and their lobbyists. When you do the research and actually see the real technology, then you'll see the light.
