GaslessInSeattle
Well-known member
- Joined
- May 6, 2011
- Messages
- 1,566
thanks for that, very helpful. yes, solar still comes at a premium here, which means for now the motivation has to come from environmental conscience or some kind of strong belief.
I was not aware that you could get all those credits and do the install yourself. If you could go into that a little more it would be appreciated.
George
I was not aware that you could get all those credits and do the install yourself. If you could go into that a little more it would be appreciated.
George
FairwoodRed said:rainnw said:If I could get around 6kW-10kW/day, just to charge the car, i would love to go solar. But with an average of 4 hours a day here in Seattle, it might have to be a pretty sizable system.
I've been planning my solar system over the last year and yes, it is sizeable because of the average sunlight hours. But not as bad as you might think, because we also have lower average temps. (As temp goes up, PV output goes down.) For my situation, My home uses 5200 kWh per year and I planned for between 3000 & 6000 kWh for the leaf. I figured I could fit a 14kW system on my roof and that it would produce 11kWh per year (9200 after winter shading). 2/3rds of that comes from the south facing panels. The North, East, and West panels produce the other 1/3rd.
My out of pocket cost will be $42k for this large system. $12k will come back in federal credits, $12k in State production credits (over 9 years), and another $8k in avoided electricity costs (over the same 9 years). I'll only get 75% back after 9 years. I could cut my shading losses from 15% to 4% if I trimmed my trees, but I don't think I want to do that. Oh, and I am fully installing this system myself.
The bottom line is it is hard to justify solar in WA based on economics.