One Louder said:

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American Hardwood said:

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Houstonag said:

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Solar panels deteriorate over time due to UV light and they also do not like hail. Long term cost of solar panels is not being properly factored. If it were not for the tax credits people would not put them in.

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Precisely. The systems might be all well and good when they are brand new, but over time, they are going to need maintenance and replacement. They aren't cheap and I want to see life cycle costs. Cheap monthly bills may not be all that great if you have a few thousand dollars worth of maintenance every few years.

Not to mention the damage a poor installation can do to a roof, which I hear is a problem. Which brings up another question, what do you do when you have to re-roof? Who removes the solar panels? How do insurance companies deal with these, especially in windstorm areas?

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We had to get a new roof after all the hail last spring. The solar panels are only on the sides and back of our house but our insurance covered the cost of SunPro coming to remove and then reinstall the panels after the work was done. The panels are not permanently installed. If we ever decided to move (which we don't plan on doing), we can take the panels with us to install on the next house.

Another thing, though...we got the panels a few years back and saw savings but not as much as we could because of the City of CS's metering policies. They would buy our surplus at the wholesale rate during the day but then at night, we would have to buy it back at retail instead of a net-metering system. For that reason, we bought a pair of batteries and have seen much greater utility savings (not to mention we never lost power during the winter weather event of 2021).

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What's the useful life of the battery? I've always been concerned that I have to dispose of those every 10 years or so at great expense.

Did a hole .. bury.. cover up!

lobopride said:

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I have 45 solar panels on my roof. Not to be green but because I don't trust the government to tie its shoes.

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Got 24 on my roof and a 24kw generator.... best thing we've done to our home. They can take their power and shove it. Oh BTW we are completely off grid.

Definitely better to be one of the first homes in your neighborhood to get solar panels on your roof. As more and more homes do this, the power purchasing deal from the utility is going to get worse and worse for the homeowner. Last thing they want is a totally self sufficient neighborhood during sunny times, and their pricing structure will reflect that. It's a big bugaboo in the pro solar crowd's plan.

I've already seen this happen with coworkers here in Idaho