[01G]

If you want or need solar I'm all for that.

Economically, if you want to reduce your electric bill. Purchase a quality utility stock that pays a good dividend and apply that money to your electric bill.

Solar systems have about a 20 year life expectancy. Batteries have about a 3 to 4 year life expectancy.

A quality utility will pay dividends forever and they should increase with inflation.


Best,
Paul B

 

[LLigetfa]

If you want or need solar I'm all for that.
Batteries have about a 3 to 4 year life expectancy.

Many solar installations don't use batteries. They are grid tied so they push their surplus onto the grid.

 

[Obscured_by_Clouds]

If you want or need solar I'm all for that.

Economically, if you want to reduce your electric bill.

That's not really the point of Solar though is it? That may be what people say they're after, but that isn't the whole story.

Self reliance is a big reason. To have power when the grid goes down for some reason, like ours did for over three hours yesterday on a bright sunny day.

Then there's that whole OTHER reason.

 

[LLigetfa]

... like ours did for over three hours yesterday on a bright sunny day.

So, the sun wasn't obscured by clouds? Many grid tied solar (without batteries) won't work when the grid is down. In most jurisdictions that is a PoCo requirement.

Around here the power most often goes out at night or during storms. That's why I have a generator. If it was really important to me to have power, I would get a whole house automatic transfer genset and run it on natural gas.

 

[Obscured_by_Clouds]

I wouldn't even consider a system that didn't provide full power off batteries. To me, that's the whole reason for doing it. Ideally, a wind turbine would also be part of it. Utility power would only be used as a back up once the batteries drained.