We are told that solar can reduce our heating bill; especially if we have electric heat. I beg to differ. Yes, it’s true that electric heating and hot water heating requires an enormous amount of kWh per hour. For instance, it requires 15kW to heat and provide hot water for a 1,500 square foot home per hour. Compare that to a solar set up though. A 15 kW solar array at 200 Watts per panel would require 75 solar panels on your roof or lawn and four solar inverters plus the installation, maintenance and insurance costs. This comes at an enormous cost—even with the 30% federal subsidy. In the winter, you’re lucky to get four hours of solar power. That leaves the remaining 20 hours to still require utility power. All assuming you don’t cook, do laundry, watch TV or turn on a single light.
While the sun has an infinite source power, solar panels are only 14% efficient. Meaning, they only turn 14% of usable sun power into actual power. Therefore have an energy factor (EF) of .14. Though with recent improvement, they are claiming to reach 19% EF. Compare that to a tank less water heater with an EF of .92 or 92% efficient. Thus, you need more solar panels to get the same effect. This translates into a larger investment that is scalable as per the size and load of a building. .
As an example, you could purchase a solar array system for $52,000, reduced to $40,000 after federal subsidies, to power your wasteful building. On the other hand, you could just invest $25,000 to reduce your energy waste and increase your efficiency with a much better ROI factor. Keep in mind that adding solar panels does nothing for the health, safety, comfort, or air quality of your home or business. Having an energy audit performed and retrofitting your home or business does though.
In fact, you add hidden costs installing solar array systems as now you have to maintain and insure them. Neither of which are never mentioned in their alluring advertisements. If you add battery banks to the system, you’re adding more maintenance costs and creating pollution hazards that are derived by maintaining batteries that have short life cycles.
Now I’m not saying that solar is not a bad agenda either. What I’m saying is that now may not be the time for it. After you have completely minimized your energy load, then it is best to use an alternative energy source to power your actual energy requirement. That’s when solar or wind power makes economic sense. With a robust economy, alternative energy sources could easily be afforded without government subsidies and should be explored at that moment in the energy life cycle. In fact, it can even be modeled into the equation before you do any work. Just have a professional energy audit and energy model done on your building. It works!
There are millions of talented building scientists that are struggling due to the fact that we, as a country are missing the boat with our allocation of funding directed at items that are viewed as an alluring, easy pill that will fix all of our issues – in fact it is the opposite. If we start with the problem—our energy wasteful buildings—we as a country can make alternative energy useful and successful.
-Rob Ross
As an example, you could purchase a solar array system for $52,000, reduced to $40,000 after federal subsidies, to power your wasteful building. On the other hand, you could just invest $25,000 to reduce your energy waste and increase your efficiency with a much better ROI factor. Keep in mind that adding solar panels does nothing for the health, safety, comfort, or air quality of your home or business. Having an energy audit performed and retrofitting your home or business does though.
In fact, you add hidden costs installing solar array systems as now you have to maintain and insure them. Neither of which are never mentioned in their alluring advertisements. If you add battery banks to the system, you’re adding more maintenance costs and creating pollution hazards that are derived by maintaining batteries that have short life cycles.
Now I’m not saying that solar is not a bad agenda either. What I’m saying is that now may not be the time for it. After you have completely minimized your energy load, then it is best to use an alternative energy source to power your actual energy requirement. That’s when solar or wind power makes economic sense. With a robust economy, alternative energy sources could easily be afforded without government subsidies and should be explored at that moment in the energy life cycle. In fact, it can even be modeled into the equation before you do any work. Just have a professional energy audit and energy model done on your building. It works!
There are millions of talented building scientists that are struggling due to the fact that we, as a country are missing the boat with our allocation of funding directed at items that are viewed as an alluring, easy pill that will fix all of our issues – in fact it is the opposite. If we start with the problem—our energy wasteful buildings—we as a country can make alternative energy useful and successful.
-Rob Ross
