Home electricity from solar and/or wind

[RichZ]

Does anyone have solar panels for electricity or a wind generator? If so, how is it working out? Was it worth the expense? Did it raise your property taxes? What was the ball park figure on what you spent? Did you get back tax credits? We were thinking of net metering, does anyone have any experience with that? I'd like to hear anyone's thoughts and ideas, good and bad.

Thanks!!

 

[keegs]

Does anyone have solar panels for electricity or a wind generator? If so, how is it working out? Was it worth the expense? Did it raise your property taxes? What was the ball park figure on what you spent? Did you get back tax credits? We were thinking of net metering, does anyone have any experience with that? I'd like to hear anyone's thoughts and ideas, good and bad.

Thanks!!

I know of one member, Loren49 that is off the grid. He's from upstate NY. Haven't heard from him in a while though.

 

[magicheater]

Lots of good info here.

 

[mbohuntr]

Try this... Welcome to OTHERPOWER.COM

Or Fieldlines.com

Good homebrew stuff

 

[eepete]

I'm in the middle of a 7800 watt (dc) install, will be done in about 2 months, and will post to the projects when it's done. Grid tie system, bought the parts, doing all the install myself.

Weather this winter put me behind by 4 months, so missed any tax credits.

Pete

 

[dcyrilc]

Check these threads from 3rrl. Rob lives off grid in California and powers both his house and shop off his solar power system (200 Amp main panel).
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/projects/86406-solar-power-shed-project.html
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/projects/104037-3r-home-barn-project.html

 

[txdon]

It really depends on the electric company in your area. 50 miles from me in Austin they were giving about $15,000 rebate for a solar sytem and here nothing. Here the repayment on net metering is very low. The best place to start to compute your payoff or rebates is you electric company. If they have the attitude that they need to produce electricity when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine and you can't help us....they will not make it worth you money to spend on wind or solar.

In Texas there is a law that the property taxes cannot be increased because of added solar or wind power to the property.

 

[JJT]

Does anyone have solar panels for electricity or a wind generator? If so, how is it working out? Was it worth the expense? Did it raise your property taxes? What was the ball park figure on what you spent? Did you get back tax credits? We were thinking of net metering, does anyone have any experience with that? I'd like to hear anyone's thoughts and ideas, good and bad.

Thanks!!

Rich,

A renewable energy install should not increase your property taxes, double check with your town assessor. In NY towns need a local law to tax these installs, the default is no property tax increase due to an RE install.

If you have decent wind, that's the way to go, almost 1/3 the cost of a solar install. To find out how good your on-site wind resource is, you're going to need to fly an anemometer for at least a year. More than likely you will not have the wind needed to produce decent power.

Solar is almost no maint and with the NYSERDA and fed tax breaks, it's almost affordable......

I've been toying with the idea of a renewable energy install for many years. Solar prices will come down significantly when they get the bugs worked out of the thin film process.

JT

 

[RobertN]

We had a solar/electric water heater installed. It's real cloudy right now; it's running pretty much electric. Couple days ago, it was cranking on solar with a sunny day. This system uses a closed loop glycol collector system with heat exchange in the tank.

We are looking at solar electricuty options, and have ahad a couple companies out. But... We need to reroof before we put anything else up on the roof. That is holding things up more than anything else at this point in time.

 

[ihuntbear]

my camp is totally off the grid with two solar panels on the roof for nice sunny days and a 10 foot windmill that starts making power with 5 mph winds.I use forklift batteries for storage.Wouldn't have any other way.the hole system cost me less then 2000.00....been using it for 10 years now