Looking a possibly putting solar panels on the plaza for electic.I know that whatever you don’t use goes back into the meter and they pay you for it.My Dad has had solar panels on his house in Gasport for heat and normally has a heat bill of around $100 for the winter months.He’s had them for about 20yrs so has no idea who put them up.
Anyone on here know anyone or anything about them?
D
I know that if you re-roofed hte plaza you could put photo voltaic panels in the roof system and you wouldnt even know they were there 
what specifically are the questions?
Where would you go to buy them or is there someone local that does this.
Also if anyone has them,their thoughts on them.
I seen a write up a little while back in the Buff news where farmers were putting them in their barns and selling the rest back to the electric company
D
seems like they are only interested in houses or apt buildings.I’m going to try and remember to call there and ask if they can recommend anything with my situation.
D
http://www.powernaturally.org/Programs/Solar/incentives.asp
they also have incentives for non residential. That link should help a bit more.
I work for another NYSERDA program, so I should be able to get you pointed in the right direction.
http://nyserdaweb.cleanpowerestimator.com/default.aspx
according to this chart it will cost me 15K to save 750 a yr.
Does this seem right?If this is correct why would anyone do it?There are good tax breaks, but your out of pocket expense is still $15K
D
yes those numbers are right.
I read in a magazine that a guy built one to power an outdoor computer, and it was nearly 1000 in panels.
Its not cost effective to do it, your deffinitely in it for the long haul to just break even.
Besides buffalo isn’t the sun capital of the world, so that will slow down your output.
that is a residential, which is a whole different ball park than commercial, I am assuming this would be for a commercial application from your other posts
go through there, there is a wealth of info and incentives that you can use.
How many houses do you see around here with solar panels? Exactly… almost none. There’s your reason.
Going back to the acetone thread…
If there was some cheap profitable way to save on your energy costs, everyone would be doing it. When it makes economic sense to be green, everyone wants to do it.
i’ve worked on a few residential projects which used the NYSERDA rebates ($4-$4.50 per watt). it’s still a very costly project for the customer. and i believe that NYSERDA is also restructuring that program as well.
based on local projects, an array will generate ~ 2.4 kWhr per day for every kW of installed capacity. what is your typical consumption? how much are you willing to spend?
In the LONG run, it will pay itself. You will be fronting a large upfront cost, but in the long run, it is cheaper, and if you look at the long run of enviromental impacts, it’s a sound enviromental choice.
If you can front the cost, and don’t need to worry about immediately recouping the costs and can wait some time, then I say go for it.
So in the long run 15k with a 750 a year savings…you have the solar panels paid off in 20 years…and then you save money sweet!!!
:cjerk:
But you help the cute and fuzzy bunnies, and get a smug sense of self righteousness every time you look at your roof and see your solar panels. It will compliment your Prius perfectly.
Take that 15k, invest it properly in the stock market, and in 20 years you will have made way more money that you saved by buying solar panels. And maybe in 20 years you’ll be able to buy solar roof shingles that only cost slightly more than standard roof shingles, and you can laugh at the people who wasted all that money 20 years earlier.
well for what it’s worth, most of the big name module manufacturers have a 15-20 year warranty.
it’ll be a long time before any renewable source gets cheaper than grid power.
Get your own brain! (I seem to agree with Jay quite often.)
As some of you know I am currently building a house.
I have reviewed/researched many of the green options and what I have found is that the vast majority of them are just way too expensive.
Ed Beagley(sp) has money to burn being an actor but, for the rest of us unfortunately green is way too expensive and the gov’t grants and tax relief programs are such a small amount of money, green still can’t be justified.
nm
The cost will come down as more money is dumped into the technology. Right now there are lots of companies putting tons of research dollars into getting the cost of these home systems down to something reasonable.
There is a huge market there because the design is perfect. You’re still hooked up to the grid, you never have to worry about not getting enough sun to power your house, and any time you make more power than you use the power company BUYS the extra from you.
If the government really wanted to make a big dent in energy consumption they’d offer to buy that privately produced clean energy for more than what the power company sells it to the consumer. That would do several things:
- It would motivate consumers to install the systems.
- That would motivate more companies to invest more in building them cheaply, so more people would want to install them.
- It would motivate consumers to consume less, since anything the put into the grid is good money in their pocket.
- It would increase the amount of power available in the grid, something we really need.
But even with this subsidy, you’ve got to wait for the price to come down some. Not many people are going to drop 15-20k on a solar system, even if the payback is cut down to 10 years.
also consider your insurance cost…we wanted to install those in our store …when we quoted umbrella…well, premium was up as much as the savings on electric. this was in 2001…i guess price of those went done since.,also those pannels…they are not 100% effective…meaning that some of them do not perform as stated…so the dif between estimated savings and actual… also remember they are moving parts…they move as the sun move…they give you warranty for the pannels of 10~15 or even 20…but the moving parts are less…also might be my location only but …a lot of kids throw bottles and rock to the commercial roof, if 1 pannel breaks, it’s not worth claiming thru insurance…besides premium would go up if you do…
just my 2cents.