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davis_squareRant = ON.
I signed up with Sungevity, the solar power company and it recently went live. OK, they put a yard sign in front of my house, and I suppose that encourages strangers to want to talk to me. But why would someone ring my doorbell at 9:30pm on a weeknight hoping to ask me some questions about the system? It's not just me, right? That's kind of a weird thing to do, right?
If the stranger in question reads this board: Maybe you should leave a note with your phone number or email address instead? If you don't have any paper with you, well, you know where I live and you could always come back later.
Rant = OFF.
Before anyone asks, I paid about $2,900 upfront for a 15 year lease with no additional monthly payments. They also gave me a $500 iPad as a special promotion, so the net cost was more like $2,400. My thinking on lease vs. buy was that, 15 years from now, I won't want to be stuck with what will (hopefully) be very outdated technology.
I haven't gotten my first post-solar electric bill yet (it's due next week), but things look very promising. I've had the system live for 3+ weeks and I'm averaging over 100kWh/week. That should save me close to $100/month at current NSTAR rates which means the system pays for itself in 2-3 years.
And I swear this isn't why I wrote this post (really!), but if anyone is seriously interested in using Sungevity, please use my referral code when visiting sungevity.com. I think we each get $500 if you sign up. My code is 75403.
I signed up with Sungevity, the solar power company and it recently went live. OK, they put a yard sign in front of my house, and I suppose that encourages strangers to want to talk to me. But why would someone ring my doorbell at 9:30pm on a weeknight hoping to ask me some questions about the system? It's not just me, right? That's kind of a weird thing to do, right?
If the stranger in question reads this board: Maybe you should leave a note with your phone number or email address instead? If you don't have any paper with you, well, you know where I live and you could always come back later.
Rant = OFF.
Before anyone asks, I paid about $2,900 upfront for a 15 year lease with no additional monthly payments. They also gave me a $500 iPad as a special promotion, so the net cost was more like $2,400. My thinking on lease vs. buy was that, 15 years from now, I won't want to be stuck with what will (hopefully) be very outdated technology.
I haven't gotten my first post-solar electric bill yet (it's due next week), but things look very promising. I've had the system live for 3+ weeks and I'm averaging over 100kWh/week. That should save me close to $100/month at current NSTAR rates which means the system pays for itself in 2-3 years.
And I swear this isn't why I wrote this post (really!), but if anyone is seriously interested in using Sungevity, please use my referral code when visiting sungevity.com. I think we each get $500 if you sign up. My code is 75403.
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no subject
Date: 2013-04-14 03:50 am (UTC)That said, I'm surprised at how much you're getting out of the system. The standard solar insolation charts show rates of an annual average of 3 watt hours of generation per watt of array size per day in our area. You seem to be doing about 50% better than that - around 4.5 wh/w/day. I'd think that this time of year, around the equinox, would be pretty close to the annual average. I hadn't noticed that it's been unusually sunny this spring. Interesting.
Anyway, even if it doesn't keep up that rate of generation and ends up being only 3 wh/w/day, it will still pay off in 9 years, even assuming NStar doesn't raise their rates (hah!).
Hope it works out for you.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-15 02:16 pm (UTC)On the equinox in Somerville, the sun at noon is 42.4 degrees from vertical. At the summer solstice, it.s 20.2 degrees from vertical, and at the winter solstice it's 64.4 degrees from vertical. For a flat panel facing up, the summer solstice is the best time because the sun's rays are only 20.2 degree off-axis. But on a slanted roof, the equinoxes can be the peak season, since a 45-degree angle is pretty much facing the sun directly, like a horizontal panel at noon on the equator.
Basically, different angles have different advantages at different times of the year. Solar panels on a south facing roof with a 45 degree angle will be close to peak efficiency right now and in the fall.