Why Solar Installations Cost More in the U.S. than in Germany

here in calif a $1000 before rebates system, if calif or the feds give $600 of rebates the system will then cost $3600.

they are hard to find but odd size panels are cheaper.

I can get 100 Watt panels for $189.95 for my RV that are Length = 47" (1194mm)
Width = 21.1" (536mm) (this size fits perfect for the spaces on my RV).

Harbor Freight sells 45 watt kits for $159.99 two kits making 90 watts would cost $318.00 and harbor freight sell cheap substandard junk that is not rated for hail impact and browns very quick.

In calif to get the government rebate you have to have the system installed by a licensed electrician and you will be paying union rates for the installation. so for a system you will pay top dollar
for my RV because it already has the 12 volt system plus has a battery bank all i need is the panels and charge controller.
I can put in a system on my RV for about 1/6 of what you would pay for a house. and since its a vehicle i don't need a licensed electrician (though i am a retired industrial construction electrician.)

I looked into it. $40k for my house.
what I decided to do is this: buy 2 solar panels at 125Watt each $750/panel, bought an invertor at $190 that converts 250watt to 120volt. Total cost = $1900 and I was generating electricity during the day. It did not have batteries for overnight but it was generating electricity for me every day. There is no weird installation, you just run an extension from the the inverter and plug it into any outlet, it reverses the electricity on that outlet to the rest of the house. very simple.

Steering clear of Harbor Freight to start with. How do spot a good solar cell from a poor quality one?

What is cutting edge ATM how much power should you get per square foot?

In Germany they can buy Australian T bone steak for approx 1/3 the price Australian T bone steak costs in Australia.
Its about bribes ,kickbacks, involving black ties and suits.

Sold out whether it be solar or meat for our kids physical growth.

Us Aussies were sold out, so much that many Aussies do not even know about the taste of T bone steak.

Sell out , to line the pockets of traitors, who own homes in Switzerland, Monaco, Isael, USA, Britain ect ect.

We had it all....now we are peasants in our own land.

the u.s. has been accused of suppressing so many free energy devices, patents and ideas that they know there are better alternatives out there.

but as long as hydro electric, coal and nuclear energy employee millions of people, is already firmly established with infrastructure and supply is stable and abundant, there is no need or rush to overhaul the entire grid.

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Crazy stuff. Here in Germany you could get subsidized by the state if you would install solar panels as well. So many people installed them on their roofs. There are also companies that will rent your roof so you won't have to pay nothing for it and have profit as well.

HOWEVER...
In case of a fire, you are in trouble. Firemen won't put the fire out because there is a large risk for them getting electrocuted, so what they do is let your house burn down to the ground.

A little more than a decade ago, Australia was in trouble.

For winter warmth we had no problems. Many consumers run Natural Gas heating and so electrical power requirements were not a problem. But come Summer, well, we were in strife.

Air conditioners are necessary when the outside temperature (in the shade) starts climbing up past 35C and keeps going up. The Electrical grid could not cope with demand and we ended up with rolling blackouts to share the load.

One solution was to build a number of new Power Stations. Expensive build when they would only run for at most, two months of the year. Another solution was found, Solar Power!

The Government offered incentives ($$$) for households to install solar systems. I have a 3KW system on my roof. There are no problems. Some of what has been said about ultra thick wires and such like is just wrong, the runs (lengths) are just not long enough to cause an issue.

DC/AC converters are also quite stable and not an issue. My system cost $7000.00 My last electrical bill for three months was $10.00. It rises to a little over $150.00 during winter.

There are no more blackouts. When the Sun is shinning and it is hot, the huge number of systems provide the extra power required. I am paid extra for electricity that I produce that is fed back into the grid. My system will pay for itself in about five years. (well, four more to go).

Solar power is viable right now. It works. It works damn well and Australia has a good system.

P

I do not believe anything that the powers that be say regarding solar power. The Germany thing is interesting. I just always hear about how expensive it will be in America and how it cannot support our high-energy lifestyle.

I think it is all BS and the corporations are "all in" on oil and will pump that well dry until it runs all the way out. Once the oil is all gone, then the solar technology will be unveiled. They already have it and are just not putting it out on a large scale.

Think about it- this entire solar system that we live in was born from the sun we see in our sky. The sun is a large nuclear reaction that is so freaking big, we really cannot comprehend its size, or the fact that the sun basically "gave birth" to our solar system. And considering these facts, I am to believe that we cannot implement solar power on a large scale? BS... I believe that companies such as ExxonMobil, BP, Shell (etc...) already have technology available that will harness and store energy on a massive scale simply by utilizing the power of our sun.

I simply do not believe that we cannot invent a technology to harness the power of the sun on a large scale FOR FREE since the sun is what gave birth to everything we see...

Nice take about why we have such a difficult time advancing to a truly greener system - corruption and greed.

Not surprised at all about the corruption in the U.S. Permits for anything added or changed in your home is less about safety and more about making big dollars selling you a permit. If you attempt to build off the grid in many locations they will drag out the permits and ding you so much with extra inspections that many become discouraged or go broke due to all the extra time and resulting costs.

Much of our utilities are government run and those that are not at least collect allot of tax revenue for the local governments. The top dogs are corrupt as hell, but even average public employees are pretty well off where I live with huge pensions, early retirement compared with private industry, unlimited overtime, lots of fat cats.

Utilities are governments bread and butter. I remember the early days of the Internet prior to affordable broadband and cell phone use where everyone was buying 2nd and third phone lines if available. The phone taxes tripled as every government agency slapped on more taxes on extra lines than the entire phone bills were a few years prior. We know it cost the phone companies to keep their networks running while still making a hundreds of millions, but wtf does the government do with a third of the money from your bill that they do nearly nothing for?

reply to post by BathtubGinSmuggler


Yes, good point. Think of how many solar arrays you could put in the western US? You can draw a line from the bottom tip of Texas up through the middle of North Dakota. Everything west of that line, excluding the high Rockies and Pacific Northwest, is prime territory for solar collection. We have relatively barren areas as big as some European countries where we could generate a ton of solar power with very little impact to humans or animals.

nanu nanu all

brought this post over from another thread

-there is so much information on YouTube people who talks about this subject how to connect solar panels what type of solar charger controller they use and batteries

more watt the solar panels has the faster it will generate charge to the batteries, more ah (Ampere-hour) you have on your batteries more usage you got. (capacity)

and you got power inverters that you connect to the batteries and it will generate AC power (110v-240v the same voltage you have in your sockets in your home) from DC power from your batteries, it will drain your batteries fast if you have a small battery bank (low AH on the batteries)

power inverter comes in pure sine wave and modified sine wave, (copy%past description

- The simple answer

This can get complicated but the easiest way to compare waveforms is like comparing them to petrol - a pure sine wave is like Optimax and a modified sinewave is like regular unleaded. Use a pure sine wave UPS on your expensive equipment (i.e. servers) and save the modified sinewave for cheap equipment (i.e. PC Workstations).

modified sine wave power inverter are cheaper than pure sine wave.

and a grid-tie inverter is something different again from ordinary power inverters

source wikipedia

A grid-tie inverter (GTI) or synchronous inverter is a special type of power inverter that converts direct current (DC) electricity into alternating current (AC) and feeds it into an existing electrical grid.

so if your GTI feeds more watt into the grid than you use in your home you will be your own "power plant"

I hope I have been of some help.

MorkandMindy

reply to post by Maxmars
As some know first hand if they hae looked into having solar installed on their homes to utterly replace their "On The Grid" electricity needs, it is not a cheap proposition,

I had to companies prepare detailed estimates based upon one of my homes in SoCal and both came back at $42K and $52K which made no sense whatsoever since the life expectancy of polar panels is around 20 years. $52K Cash Amortized without Interest over 20 Years (240 Months) comes to $216.67 a month, month in and month out. Yes, these are raw figures that do not include excess electricity produced and sold to the utility nor underages during peek periods when the solar system can not produce enough electrify to cover usage.

The has been an on going subject of interest to me, particularly for our organic farm where we have even gone to operating a full fledged Bio-Diesel operation to run our generators. In the end, the decision was made to continue to refine and stockpile fuel for use by the 3Kv generator during emergencies, while continuing to stay connected to the electrical grid.

However, in recent times we have been watching closely the development of Magnetic Generators and considering using several such devices mounted throughout the farm.

Meanwhile, I have continued with a combination On-The-Grid electricity and generators for emergencies. I figure I could be fine for 5 months off the grid but that does not make me particularly comfortable, which is one of the reasons I am happy I have our boat which is utterly independent.

reply to post by DarkSecret


You have many of your electricity facts wrong. DC is only more dangerous because it does not hit a zero point, so it is harder to let go if you get hung up on it. However it takes much more voltage for a dc system to kill you compared to a AC. a 120v AC system actually peaks at 170 volts, the average is 120. DC is just what it is, there is no sine wave. Wire insulation is purely based off the voltage and the environment, DC or AC isn't even a thought. Your car moves and bounces around, you can't have paper thin insulation or it will wear through, but it can handle the voltage. At least in michigan you need to be licensed journeyman to preform any electrical work (unless it's your own property), but no special licence is required for solar installations beyond that.

The reason we use AC is because all you need to do to change voltage is a transformer, I can go from high voltage power on a pole, to your 120 house voltage in one simple cheap efficient step.

As an electrician myself, obviously I don't care about any install cost, as I can do it myself. I just look at gov incentives for myself and the current price and 1.20 per watt isn't going to pay itself back in my household for many many years. Its not worth the investment for me yet, I don't know what numbers people are looking at that can have these things installed for 4 bucks a watt and think they are getting a return on investment in the next 15 years. By that time the batteries need replacing twice (more cost), parts are past warranty and you dump more money into the system.

One of the reasons is, as the article states, that US companies have to recover higher costs to acquire customers. But it doesn't say why. The reason is because grid power is more expensive in Germany: $0.30/kWh compared to $0.10/kWh on average in the US. Therefore potential customers are easier to convince to use solar in Germany.

Originally posted by jonnywhite
reply to post by Maxmars

 

USA is much more cautious how it does these things. It's not rushing. I think Germany needs to be more careful. I think overall quality and freedom in the german energy industry will suffer.

You see greed in the US, I see irresponsible behavior by the german industry. I also think they're taking a big kick in the ***** just to say that they have X amount of solar capacity.

You also have to consider that what works in Germany probably won't work in the US. This is a big country and our lifestyles are bigger and people have different expectations about living.

I'm always skeptical about people who think that what works elsewhere works anywhere. Like gun control for example. It's sure easy for dictatorships and communists to implement. But the US values its freedoms more than they do. So what works for them won't work for the US.

edit on 26-12-2012 by jonnywhite because: (no reason given)

Germany has the desire to become energy independent. The US has the desire to keep holding us hostage to for-profit energy companies. That is the real difference between solar power working and not working.

You could use a 12v LED low watt light system in your home with solar panel rather the modern one with high watt usage.

with solar panel, charging controller and a 12v battery with 150ah+ capacity (depends how good you are at turning the light off after leaving the room)

the math is simple i guess

(12v led 4w) | 12/4=0.333

0.3amp multiply by how many lights you need for you household maybe 30? I dunno.

30x0.3=9

9amp when all the 30 lights are on | 9/150=16.666 (but who would have all their 30lights on at the same time o0)

16hours roughly and when the solar panels charges the battery at daytime you don't need your lights on.

that's one of many things you could change out or modify hope for a second pair of eyes on my math rant.(it may be totally wrong)

if feeding power into the grid isn't a solution for you because of greedy politician, create you own grid start first with your house lights and go from there

-also taken from another thread

Originally posted by Sandcastler
reply to post by BathtubGinSmuggler

 

Yes, good point. Think of how many solar arrays you could put in the western US? You can draw a line from the bottom tip of Texas up through the middle of North Dakota. Everything west of that line, excluding the high Rockies and Pacific Northwest, is prime territory for solar collection. We have relatively barren areas as big as some European countries where we could generate a ton of solar power with very little impact to humans or animals.

Ditto that, if they were looking to farm solar power, or for such areas there are places all over the US that are prime spots. I drove a few times through and by some of them, a few times while visiting family in other states with my family going by car through states, there are some places were the highway literally just stretches on for days, were you got vast expenses of bushes and desert like areas and just miles and miles upon more miles of absolutely nothing but scorching sun and uninhabited land. And yes if you look at the maps, some of those areas are literally as big as some European countries. We have oil pipes running under ground allover the place and even in the sea in some places, so don't see why they don't set up some solar panel farm areas as well, but off course there are always reasons.

Originally posted by ohhwataloser
reply to post by DarkSecret

 

You have many of your electricity facts wrong. DC is only more dangerous because it does not hit a zero point, so it is harder to let go if you get hung up on it. However it takes much more voltage for a dc system to kill you compared to a AC. a 120v AC system actually peaks at 170 volts, the average is 120. DC is just what it is, there is no sine wave. Wire insulation is purely based off the voltage and the environment, DC or AC isn't even a thought. Your car moves and bounces around, you can't have paper thin insulation or it will wear through, but it can handle the voltage. At least in michigan you need to be licensed journeyman to preform any electrical work (unless it's your own property), but no special licence is required for solar installations beyond that.

The reason we use AC is because all you need to do to change voltage is a transformer, I can go from high voltage power on a pole, to your 120 house voltage in one simple cheap efficient step.

As an electrician myself, obviously I don't care about any install cost, as I can do it myself. I just look at gov incentives for myself and the current price and 1.20 per watt isn't going to pay itself back in my household for many many years. Its not worth the investment for me yet, I don't know what numbers people are looking at that can have these things installed for 4 bucks a watt and think they are getting a return on investment in the next 15 years. By that time the batteries need replacing twice (more cost), parts are past warranty and you dump more money into the system.

Don't take my word for it... Here are some calculations that you can verify at www.solar-wind.co.uk...

240 watt solar panel (we assume the output to be 12 volt after the solar regulator)
=> 12 volt & 20 amp => for a cable length of 15 meters (45 ft) you need a cable that's 4 AWG (25 mm sq) - that is THICK cable.

Now the same 240 watt solar panels in series (4 x 60) which would return 48 volts after the solar regulator
=> 48 v & 5amp => 15m/45 ft length cable needs 1.5mm sq / 16 AWG - that is much THINNER cable


The fact that the car bounces around has nothing to do with battery cable thickness and only the fact that your ignition (starter motor) uses hundreds of amps. I never mentioned the insulation thickness (it surely is a factor but not relevant to my point) - I only said 12 volt low voltage DC power is a fire hazard if someone doesn't size the cables (several time thicker) and those cables end up getting hot and cause something around them to catch on fire. This is one reason why I would prefer to install 48 volt dc on my property if I had the money and option to do so.


However 48 volt is enough to kill if you increase the amps. But again don't trust me, trust the ANSI, you know the people who actually write the books:

SHOCK HAZARD: As defined in American National Standard, C39.5, Safety Requirements for Electrical & Electronic Measuring & Controlling Instrumentation: A shock hazard shall be considered to exist at any part involving a potential in excess of 30 volts RMS (sine wave) or 42.4 volts DC or peak and where a leakage current from that part to ground exceeds 0.5 milliampere, when measured with an appropriate measuring instrument defined in Section 11.6.1 of ANSI C39.5.

And finally, the reason we use AC is because transmission lines get thinner with the higher voltage and lower amps (which equate to the same power of the lower voltage and higher amps but would require thicker/more expensive transmission cables). The losses in AC are far less than in DC for any length of cable.

So which facts exactly did I get wrong about electricity?

The problem with this thread is installation costs - not the direct cost of the solar panels themselves. Solar panels can be found for as low as 50 cents to 1 dollar per watt.

As pointed out above there are tons of free info on the web showing you how to correctly size, position and install your own solar system. It takes very little time and effort to learn and almost anyone can do it with the help of a few friends and a few simple skills like building a platform plugging stuff in and running any wires. If your going to grid tie to existing electric grid you may want an electrician to come hook that part up and it mostly will have to be inspected. If not going to tie to a grid you can do it all yourself.

This is the problem with people today - no self reliance. No one wants to learn and do simple skills. House wiring in the US is simple. Cavemen can do it. Installing on poles or roofs is simple. Roofing is simple. Carpentry skills required to build platforms and weatherproof them is simple. Sure these may take a little time to learn properly but none of it is hard to understand and put into practice. All these things can be done cheap with hand tools and elbow grease. Installation of solar does not have to involve huge expense.

Want dirt cheap solar - you can have it, just do it yourself.