Rooftop Systems Drive Germany’s Record Solar Installations

Again, you're mixing up solar energy types. That's like comparing nuclear to coal. No solar PVs don't catch fire. We have them all over Colorado - never!

 

oh really? They never catch on fire? You do know that never means not once, right ?
I'm not saying it has to be extremely common but to deny that it occurs is to act like it's all roses.


https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/01/ama...offline-last-year-after-fires-explosions.html

KEY POINTS
Between April 2020 and June 2021, solar panels atop Amazon fulfillment centers caught fire or experienced electrical explosions at least six different times.
"The rate of dangerous incidents is unacceptable, and above industry averages," an Amazon employee wrote in an internal report viewed by CNBC.
Rooftop solar is part of Amazon's broad plan to zero out emissions by 2040.

 

Although it's hard to see, that looks like a wood roofing shingle roof. It's the roof that caught fire. Wood shake roofs have always been a fire hazard.

Gas cars catch on fire when there's an accident. Do you drive one?

 

Here if the “customer” has credit it carries forward each month to the end of the year. If the customer is owed at end of the year, the utility pays the customer off for that year in a cash payment.

I may by installing solar for a house we are planning to build. If I do solar, it will be for redundancy and independence, not as an investment or with any hope of the system ever paying for itself with net metering.

 

That's a lot nicer Net-metering policy. I hope you're not too stubborn, and take the Federal Tax Credit. If it's a large system, it will probably pay for itself in 7 or 8 years. Here's my renewables. Total is only 5.2KW. CO will only allow up to 10KW. I put down half-payment for another 5KW, but the company never scheduled me, and I finally asked for my money back.

 

In the last year I have used an average of 950KW per month at 15.36 cents per KW for a total of $1751.09 in electric. Why would I want to prepay 15 years worth of electricity by having a system that may or may not make it 15 years assuming that it covered all my consumption? With a production ratio in my region at 1.1-1.3, I am guessing I could maybe fit half the 34 solar panels on my roof I would need at best since the back side of the roof would be largely useless and a third of the front would be spanning a gabled roof on a third of the frontage.

As for asking friends, a friend of mine who paid $40K for a system still has an electric bill, can only say that it has reduced what they pay "some", and says "some of the lights that are supposed to be green are flashing red" and can't get anybody to come work on the system because surprise surprise the company she bought it through six years ago went bankrupt and the people she called trying to get it fixed say it is not the brand system they sell so they can't work on it. Meanwhile, her only hope is that an out of state bankruptcy court is suddenly going to care about her problem because she filed an online claim based on her inability to get the warranty work done.

Long and short is that it may be great for you and exceed your expectations, but that doesn't mean it is realistic for everybody everywhere.

 

I will answer your question with my situation. My solar panels and my wind turbine were installed in 2011. My estimate is that they paid for themselves by 2018 or 2019. From here on, I have free electricity for life!

$40K sounds extremely high nowadays. I had a recent quote to add another 5KW of rooftop solar, and it came in at about $24K.

Let's say you pay $30K for a larger system. Your federal tax credit makes that about $22K. Sometimes the state and/or the utility has incentives too (I had a state incentive too) Electricity costs may go up, so for simplicity, let's say $2K per month. That's an 11-year payback. But here's the kicker - free electricity for life after that!

Plus, if your system is big enough, you can also offset your vehicle gasoline purchases, with either an EV or a Plug-in hybrid. I have a Volt PHEV, and I only pay $5-$10 per month on gasoline. This can bring your payback down to a much smaller timeframe.

 

The roof didn't spontaneously catch on fire by itself.

 

What started the fire?

 

No but it could have been the isolator

 

Or was it the isolators next to the panels??

 

Nothng but an attempt to change the topic of the thread. They don't want to talk about the fact that Germany, with a much smaller population, installed more than twice as much rooftop solar as the US.

 

As Forrest Gump's mother said: "Stupid is as stupid does."
Global glut in solar panels so bad, people are using them for garden fences, just as Australia looks to jump in
By Jo Nova

There is such a glut in solar panels, the Financial Times reported that people in Germany and the Netherlands are using them as cheap garden fencing, even though the angle is not good for catching the sun. Though given that there is also a glut of solar power at lunchtime this is probably a “good” thing.


Solar Panels

Great time for the Australian Government to spend a billion dollars setting up a giant solar panel production industry, eh?
With exquisite timing the Australian Labor government has just announced a Solar Sunshot for Our Regions. It our Prime Ministers ambition for us to be a “Renewable Energy Superpower” twenty years too late. One third of homes in Australia already have solar panels, but only 1% were made here. The NSW State government will also lob $275 million to support the embryonic industry and workers, most of whom will presumably be doorknocking to give away the panels with lamingtons. After we finish building garden fences, we might be using them to build sheds and cubby houses. . . .

 

Are you making a point?

 

". . . people in Germany and the Netherlands are using them as cheap garden fencing . . . "

 

Are they wired up?

 

"The panels capture less sunlight when used as fencing than they do on roofs, .."

 

So they are wired up?

 

It's not clear whether statement was serious or facetious. Doesn't matter.

 

That's not an answer. If they are wired, they are being used. No different than rooftop solar. Rooftop solar are less efficient than tracking solar. Most residential customers don't pay for trackers, because of the expense. That's their choice, and it's the choice of these homeowners to use their panels in a vertical installation, even if it is less efficient. Do you want to control their lives?

 

I'm indifferent to their lives.
"There is such a glut in solar panels, the Financial Times reported that people in Germany and the Netherlands are using them as cheap garden fencing, even though the angle is not good for catching the sun."

 

The world will need a good supply of solar panels to answer the incredible worldwide demand.

Rooftop solar is less efficient than tracking solar. Most residential customers don't pay for trackers, because of the expense. That's their choice, and it's the choice of these homeowners to use their panels in a vertical installation, even if it is less efficient. Do you want to control their lives?

 

I suppose deliberate obtuseness can be a form of denial.

 

Actually, some high rise buildings (i.e. the Solaire in NYC), install solar panels on their facade, mounted vertically.

 

Virtue signaling.