Been a while since I chimed in with my 2 cents, so here we are.
I upgraded my solar panel setup a few months ago, and now having had the chance to see both the real-world financial impact and energy generation, I figured I would report and share my thoughts on the experience.
First of all, I dabbled on solar a few years back – 2 lower end frames working out to 4 panels.
My experiences with them have been so-so. The lack of an app and feedback on kwh generated made it seem more like a fairy dust boon, and I like knowing outright if something is working.
Faith has never been my strong suit and magic electricity with no tangible data always irks me.
Obviously, I logically knew that they were doing something, but the general impact didn’t feel significant, and with the amount of power I use, it made any financial benefit dubious at best.
My new set up had an extra 8 modern 550W panels installed, new generation, and a sexy inverter that connects to my WIFI and gives me a bunch of data to see if the (almost) 5000 euro was worth it.
In short, very much so.
See the graphs below but effectively when the sun is out, I don’t need to pull from the grid, and my overall consumption works to being 70% from my own panels. Pretty damn awesome.
To those of you who look at the amount of power I generate, please remember that I am a fragile European who got used to central heating when I lived in Canada, and as such I absolutely 100% need my home to be toasty during winter. This is not a negotiable factor.
The flip side is that I don’t have A/C and I am happy as a clam during the summer in Portugal, even over 30 degrees.
Yes, yes. I see how much I use, no need to tell me.
The panels themselves are cheap, the inverter isn’t. The bulk of the cost is the inverter and installation.
The panels themselves account for less than 1/6th of the price, which surprised me and definitely something you should look at, as it’s better to spend a few hundred bucks and get higher rated panels.
The weird biggest stumbling block for me was the idea that if the grid goes down, I don’t get power, as the panels go into the inverter, but need the grid to be active.
No way to *legally* bypass it – obviously in a real post-grid scenario, that wouldn’t bother me, as I would do what I needed to do to get my solar juice. But I do notice that sometimes I am consuming less power than I am generating and yet still pulling 10% of the power from the grid, and I wish I could effectively flip a switch and bypass the grid entirely.
A weird quirk but here we are.
I opted out of having batteries. I may add a spicy power bank set up later, but frankly I have always been a bit leery regarding slabs of lithium that cost a small fortune, and the charge/discharge cycle maximum being a bit wishy washy.
If my panel set up costs a little under 5k and handles 70% of my power, why would I pay 10k to take care of the other 30%?
The math doesn’t add up, even if the prepper in me thinks it would be a pretty good idea.
The other thing that bugged me are the legal limits in here in Portugal.
I can’t layer my entire roof in panels – max of 10 panels per residential house. This does mean that it’s best to go for the highest performance panels available.
At any rate, I would say my experience was broadly positive.
I will break even (after cost) in 2-3 years and the panels are theoretically guaranteed for 25 years so… we shall see.
I would say that if you have a bit of disposable income, it’s definitely worth it (depending on your environment of course!), especially if you pull a lot of power as a baseline.
Thoughts? What have your experiences been with solar panels?
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