Residential Solar

Will that proposed Inflation Reduction Act help lower your out of pocket cost?

 

As far as I can tell, no. I think it is more geared for businesses/manufacturing........probably the kind of manufacturing that make campaign contributions.

 

exactly

 

Due to the partially shaded area of where I wanted the yard mount solar panel array, I asked for a pole mounted system that would track the sunshine during the day and the price went up into the 60,000's!!! Their suggestion was to cut trees!

The other placement option of the array would be giving up way too much of the yard making it look more like a business instead of a home. No thanks. There is one more option that I would consider.........more on that later.

It all boils down to spending tens of thousands of dollars in order to save 100 dollars a month. Kind of hard to justify that amount of spending. The inflation reduction act did not help me in any way. Surprise.

The tractor search will begin again shortly.

 

If your bills aren’t much it certainly doesn’t make sense. The act you brought up just saved me another $3800 in rebates.

 

It looks like the Inflation Act saved me some bucks as well . Gonna do more research but might also replace the Hearthstone with something different .

 

That's cuz they named it wrong...but that was on purpose, ya know?

 

Unfortunately can't do much about shade unless you get rid of the shade makers. Everyone I talked to told me to take down every tree around my place (never mind that at least 50% aren't on my land). One company refused to come out to look unless I would cut them all down. Well, no, those save me solar gain during the summer months on the east side - not to mention help block out the sight of neighbor's properties and the parking lot out back. They lose their leaves in the fall so during early and late winter I do get some solar gain to help heat the house. But I did take a hard look at the trees and had the ones that were dying or leaning very hard toward the house as a preventative measure in the future.

I'll get back a about $1,000 more because of the increase from 26% to 30% credit.

 

(good) Trackers are pricey. Usually they recommend just over-panelling a little to compensate. Especially with the price of panels and/or the number of watts they are up to now.
From what I've garnered from the ACt it's mostly extensions of what already exists. At least for the average Joe.

 

The solar installation next door (2.4 MW) paid me good money to not shade them for 20 years, in the form of an easement.

 

The installation next door is a fixed rack. They were limited to the 2.4 MW so they chose to aim some panels a little southeast, and a few others a bit southwest to even out their production throughout the day. I’m surprised it is not cost effective to at least change the aspect angle of the panels twice a year.

 

The rack of panels I was looking at has the ablility to change its angle as suggested by the install company. Just a matter of a hand crank much like a boat trailer winch, I was told. Once in the fall and again in the spring.

 

I started my journey to have solar installed way back in April. Signed a contract on 5/12/22. All permits required (town and electric company) were approved on 6/29/22. Contract says installation date by 9/31/22. Yesterday they contacted me and said because of material shortages and a tight labor market, they are tentatively scheduling for 10/18/22. Of course that is subject to change depending on conditions.

I want to be mad at them, but can understand the situation too. My instant reaction is that they are scheduling bigger, more lucrative jobs for the resources they do have, before they are scheduling mine. But at the same time I work for a large company and when we can't muscle our way into getting parts for DoD contracts, that says something about availability. Oh yeah, and recent doings (plus anticipation of said doings) have probably stirred up demand in a huge way.

 

Sounds kinda suspect if they can't honor their end of the contract. Should've had everything on hand, no?

I wonder if they snuk in an extra job or two along the way?

 

I'm sure they did, like I saie, mine is a small job in the scheme of things. But at the same time, we have a hard time getting simple things like connectors to build our product And some chemicals are in short supply. And everyone (consumers and solar install companies) is looking at solar after the 100% rate hike was announced so the solar company might have had a contract themselves that said they would have product, but that product got delayed. Eh, another couple of weeks won't kill me.

I mean, I can illustrate the shortages and manpower issues on another project I have in the works; I bought a shed a couple of weeks ago that the install date is projected to be the beginning of December - and that ain't because I can't have the site prep work done (it was completed earlier this week). Could I get one faster? Sure, but I've seen those sheds and they aren't as well built as the one I will be getting, nor are the companies local or with as strong a reputation.

 

Well, the solar company called yesterday. I saw their name pop up on my phone and dreaded taking the call. But I was between meetings and not working on anything that couldn't be interrupted for a couple of minutes, so I braced myself for bad news and answered. guess what?

They had a cancellation so now my install date has been pulled in to the 7th of October. So 7 days later than expected to begin with, but 11 days earlier than their last guestimate. I'll take it and I'm doing my happy dance. It will hurt writing that check (70% before they start work). OTOH, despite the interest rate hikes, my credit union is still only paying 0.01% interest, so that money will earn me a much better return by saving me 28 cents per kwh.

 

Great news for you!

 

Good news bogieb