Eco friendly house mod

[Jeremy C]

As some of you know I purchased my first home last year right about this time. Since then, we've been doing a few small things here and there to make the house ours. Well, last week we finally completed our first major modification, and one that will really pay for itself in the end.
PV array install (https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.412030542151331.92840.100000331653002&type=3)
(don't worry, you don't have to have a facebook account to view these).

Emily and I decided that since we don't intend to sell for quite a while (at least 10-15 years minimum) that solar was really in our best interest. Our setup will be good for producing over 10mW of power each year which will completely cover us at our current usage.

With the incentives from the City, State, and Federal levels my end cost will be about $12.5K. Since I didn't have that laying around I set this up through a solar lease whereas I'll pay $60/mth for the least, and about $10/mth to the electric company to stay attached to the grid. In 7 years, I'll buyout the lease for the fair market value of the array (about $5K estimated) and be done. I'll see an immediate decrease in my electric bill from an average of $110 to $80/mth, and the best part is that AZ has a law on the books that the PV array cannot be added to my property value for tax purposes. :D

My current power usage/production
https://www.sunpowermonitor.com/residential/kioskshare.aspx?id=d039ccc5-97f3-4ff3-80b8-ec4f3b75e757&type=address

The ROI on my system will be between 7-9 years based on today's electricity costs, but more importantly I like the fact that I'm doing a little bit more to help out environment. Cutting my usage of coal-fired power to next to nothing is a pretty big step. We intend in the future to also add a water harvesting system along with grey water irrigation so as to maximize our water savings as well. By the time we move out of this house, I think it will be highly sought for on the market simply for it's ability to cut utility costs as much as it does.

tl:dr - got solar, my hippie self is excited and I'll be saving cash.

[CoopKill]

Nice man!

Too bad I live where it is cloudy 60% of the time or more. I would look into this as well. The tech will be hopefully getting more and more efficient soon...

[beepbeep]

That's really cool. Good for you guys. If we had the opportunity, I'd definitely do it. Maybe in another few years.

[stealthify]

That's great news, Jeremy. Here in the High Sierras we get a lot of sun too. Going solar is almost a no brainer.

Are you planning on checking out any other energy alternatives as well, such as hydro or wind?

[AgentOblivious]

Nice. My dad's very much into green (a.k.a. cheaper in the long run) technology. His company's truck runs on natural gas, as well as two of his previous personal vehicles, because at the time it was cheaper and we could fill up at home. We have a solar hot water heater which runs glycol through glass tubes on our roof, and yes it does work in the winter up here. Our house is heated and cooled by a geothermal heat pump, our backup generator runs off of natural gas straight from the gas line, we have way more insulation installed than what the house was built with, and a nifty little gadget on our drain pipe that recycles heat from waste water, so that when you plug the shower drain for a little bit, and then unplug it, you'll need to adjust the temperature because its a noticeable difference. Oh, and grey water for the toilets, a rain barrel collection system for our sprinklers...

...and yeah, I got dragged into installing some of those setups as a kid, because nobody in town knew what the heck it was.

Its good that you're doing this now, because electricity costs are growing like crazy, and given that a good chunk of US production is coal or oil based, its going to be tough slogging for those that are waiting for the prices to get to the point where you'd have to go solar or wind.

[Jeremy C]

That's great news, Jeremy. Here in the High Sierras we get a lot of sun too. Going solar is almost a no brainer.

Are you planning on checking out any other energy alternatives as well, such as hydro or wind?

Oddly enough wind wouldn't be beneficial for me down here in the valley. If I was closer to the mountains wind would be better, but we generally have very still winds followed by massive gusts. For a wind generator to be big enough to power my house, I would need sustained 10mph winds to make it worthwhile. Hydro is a no go as there's no water to speak of here in the desert. :p Water reclamation is the next big step as conserving water is a HUGE thing here. Water is the most expensive commodity I pay for, so that and better insulation of the house as we have high ceilings and let the cool air out pretty easily here.

I won't lie - I squee'd when I got to turn the system on. :D This was something that I've wanted for years, and to finally get to see it in action is pretty cool. Once I can afford it, I've been thinking about a Volt for my next vehicle as it fits my driving habits perfectly and paying nothing for fuel sounds kind of nice.

[vroom4]

You mentioned the system increasing the value of your house when you put it on the market in 10+ years. Do you believe that your system will be up to date that far out with the advances in solar? What would it cost to make it up to date? Just replacing panels?

[UTRacerX9]

Very nice! I looked into getting a system two years ago when we were buying our house. Unfortunately, had to pass for one primary reason, our house faces south. Our HOA doesn't allow solar panels to be used on the front facing portion of a house. While we could put them on the north facing side of the roof, the efficiency of that setup would be about 1/3 vs mounting them in the proper location. At a price of $30k to be completely off the grid with some energy to spare, that didn't seem to be a good investment.

My next home will definitely have this, I'd love to have our house off the grid as much as possible.

[Jeremy C]

Very nice! I looked into getting a system two years ago when we were buying our house. Unfortunately, had to pass for one primary reason, our house faces south. Our HOA doesn't allow solar panels to be used on the front facing portion of a house. While we could put them on the north facing side of the roof, the efficiency of that setup would be about 1/3 vs mounting them in the proper location. At a price of $30k to be completely off the grid with some energy to spare, that didn't seem to be a good investment.

My next home will definitely have this, I'd love to have our house off the grid as much as possible.

One of the few nice things about AZ - there is a law on the books that basically says the HOA has no rights when it comes to solar install. I can do whatever I please and the HOA gets to say nothing in return. :D

vroom - Even with the constant increase in solar tech, I honestly don't think we'll be seeing that great of a technological leap. My panels are 19% efficient which is about the best you can get on the market today. In 10 years I expect that will be pretty normal numbers and I have a 20yr warranty on the output of the panels still giving 80% of their maximum output (or something close, I'd have to look it up again). The only thing that I would probably update at that point would be the inverter as those see the largest drop off in efficiency over the years. Even still, replacement of panels/inverter is a lot less than the original install since you don't have to run the electrical again nor get new permits for installation. Just pull down old, install new.

[vroom4]

Gotcha, my pops builds the structural arrays for people putting in huge systems in their farms and stuff that rotate throughout the day to point at the sun, I know how pricey these things can get :) Does your generation company pay you for what you put back into the grid?

[Jeremy C]

Yeah, but payback is $.03 vs the $.07-$.11 that I pay out for the same juice. We averaged 8 months of usage (all I had in the house at the time of speccing it out), extrapolated to a year, then sized the system for zero sum at the end of the year. The way TEP does the payback here is once a year based on production for the prior 12 months. I won't get much of it this year since we're already touching 100*, but starting after this summer I'll start building a net surplus of energy produced and then when I hit mid summer and can't produce more than I use I'll start pulling from that surplus.

Did your father have anything to do with the monster solar array that was installed in the UofA tech park last year? University of Arizona Science and Technology Park (http://www.uatechpark.org/static/index.cfm?contentID=92) I work in this park and watched this one go up. It's a pretty damned impressive array.