Costly to build, but that is made up for in time. A large area is needed for a small amount of power. Tree huggers will claim that it will affect the environment by shading spaces that normally aren't. Some will say it only works when it is sunny, but batteries are charged for the power storage to be used at night.
This post was edited by Element 99 at October 11, 2017 7:34 AM MDT
I have solar at my house and I love it, but like E said, it's really expensive up front. Half of my roof is covered in panels... I don't know if that would be a large area for a small amount of power though. Seems reasonable to me because they generally fulfill the power needs of five of us. Here in Arizona, the savings are astronomical though. My normal power bill (before solar) in the summer sometimes hit $400. Now, I pay just my lease on the panels, which is little more than $100. I did leasing because of the up front cost, but I have a company that manages my panels and fixes them free when something goes wrong, monitors them constantly, etc., so it's brainless. I guess if I had outright purchased them, having to maintain them would be a headache.
Most days, my panels do cover our electricity in full, and I get credits from the local power company because they get my surplus. But, if it's a cloudy day, they don't make enough. So, during monsoon season here, there are days when I do pay for power. I find that December and January, I have a couple of weeks where I'm buying power from the power company as well- all due to cloud cover. On the flip side, most of the time when there's an outage, I'm not affected. I can still work. I don't have to worry about losing a fridge full of groceries. Overall, I find solar more stable and dependable, but only when it's joined with traditional power. I don't think I'd be a huge fan if it was all I could have or if I didn't have a company maintaining it for me.
Thank you for your thoughtful, helpful and informative reply JA. I appreciate it. Well we rent and our landlord is not the kind who will pay for something like that. But if we did own a home and could afford it we would definitely go solar. Hemet gets pretty dam * hot in the summer but not as hot as certain areas in Arizona. Our high this past summer was 115 and we had a few days in a row in excess of 112! AARRGGHH. Happy Wednesday! :)
Wait a minute! How can that be true? I thought the sun kept energizing them so their lives would be endless? Of course I don't KNOW bh. Thank you for your reply. :)
Mine are maintained and guaranteed/ warrantied for 20 years. They do lose some ability as time passes, but I just looked it up and it's about 1% degradation per year. To me, that's not a huge deal... By the time they lose significant production power, my kids will (hopefully) have moved out and they'll be just producing for my needs. I suppose it's no different than buying a house. You know that you'll need to repair and replace things over time. At least when I have to start replacing things, I don't have to worry about all the engineering and expenses and such that go into it.
I assume that you're referring to photovoltaic solar power . . . But is it really cleaner? Is the pollution created by extracting the necessary materials from the earth, the pollution caused by expending the fossil fuel or nuclear energy used to manufacture them REALLY more than offset by the energy that they produce over their lifetime and the reduction in pollution realized by that energy offset?
The disadvantage of solar is that it doesn't work a lot of the time. In dark of night they have no power output. During heavy cloud overcast their output is greatly reduced. So the array must be radically up-sized and some form of storage (usually battery*) utilized for those unproductive times. And then there's the maintenance. Chemical batteries (yet more pollution) have to be maintained, even replaced from time-to-time. And the solar cell arrays have to be periodical inspected and cleaned of debris or snow cover if installed in northern latitudes (or southern latitudes south of the equator).
On the PRO side is the fact that one can go "off-grid" and still have electric power. And likewise when the electric grid goes down for "conventional" reasons (son't expect it to survive an EMP though . . . ) But then how much more will that off-grid" living infringe on our very precious wilderness areas?
Unfortunately there's no free lunch here, yet. Maybe soon though.
* There's a "big kid" sized storage system in my area that uses the surplus power from a nuclear power plant to pump water "upstream" into a very large lake (it's a popular recreational area around these parts, lots of swimming, boating, fishing, camping and other debauchery to be enjoyed there . . . and pay no attention to the three-eyed fish). When the power demand exceeds the nuke's capacity then an axillary hydro plant powered by that stored water comes on-line to cover that excess load: in effect it's a battery. (And I'm only kidding about the three-eyed fish . . . )
Element 99 