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Does solar make sense in Texas?
- Thread starter jboy210
- Start date
Silicon Desert
Well-Known Member
Hi J, I had the same thought when I bought a home up here in Sparks where the rate is typically about 9 cents per KWH. It made sense for me only because my orientation and pitch is absolutely perfect for maximum production. With the fed rebate I got and figuring the final cost, it seems my ROI would take about 7 1/2 years to recoup the investment I'm now into the 5th year and I'm on track to meet that goal. Not sure about the rates in Texas.
Thanks G. I believe the rates are similar to what you see. But, Texas seems to have a lot more electrical providers and a vast number of plans.
Silicon Desert
Well-Known Member
Now that you mention it, all of the homes I ever bought in California were on bedrock. Not that it would prevent damage, but better than landfill. Let's hope you don't have to worry about that. I used to joke about that with my family in the South that said we didn't have 4 seasons like they do in the South. I said sure we do. we have 4 seasons.... Fire, Flood, Earthquake, and LandslideAnd so many say California is terrible.Now, when the big one hits, glad I am in the foothills on rock
A roof rake would've allowed him to clear off some of his panels. Installing his Powerwalls inside would've helped too.
Whenever we get snow, I can clear off 14 panels easily and that's enough to power our house and start charging the Powerwalls back up. Our solar and Powerwalls have gotten us through several multi-day outages and we also went off the grid for 8 days (with 10 inches of snow, IIRC) and had no issues. Thanks to having a large system, we usually generate solar even when it's overcast or raining. Typically we have sun which melts the snow enough for it to slide off half the panels within a day of a storm. If it doesn't slide off on its own, I can clear a bit and it will usually slide off the panels on the garage an hour or so later. I can't easily reach the panels on the 2nd story but typically the ones I can reach are more than enough to power everything.
Silicon Desert
Well-Known Member
Hmmm, I just looked and see what you mean. Up here I only have one provider to choose from. Not sure how multiple providers and plans would affect the decision. Maybe having a solar installer provide a free layout and ROI would help. Yet, you likely already thought about that.
Unimpressed, really? Compared to why my family members in Austin went through he had a great experience. He even says so at the beginning. The biggest issue is he had was weather was overcast for large amounts of time that cut into his system's production. He was able to cook dinner, use the internet, and had at least partial power.
In contrast, my relatives were unable to heat their house for parts of days since while they had gas, without electricity their furnace would not light or blow hot air. They spent at least one night huddled in front of their fireplace since they had gas and the fireplace was the only source of heat in the house. Fortunately, they were able to keep the house warm enough to prevent the pipes from freezing.
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I was for my relative's neighbor. The neighbor had a pipe burst in the attic and water poured through the sheetrock ceiling and into the hallway. The neighbor had to go out to the street to shut off the water, and in a fit of panic also turned off my relative's water. The relative was able to eventually figure out what happened but had to endure nearly 18 hours without water which meant no flushing, etc.
Nice info. Thanks for sharing. Looks like everything is from your solar panels during the day.
Answer to the OP's question - it all depends...
We have a 15.4 KW/4 PW system in Houston - that has been operating for almost 1.5 years.
With the low electricity rates, achieving "break even" based on electricity cost savings could take 8 to 10 years - so it's a pretty long term investment - if you're looking to save $$$.
When modelling the long-term cost savings, it does help to factor in annual electricity cost increases - which are likely to jump considerably after the utilities pass through their costs for winterizing equipment after this year's winter storms. But that's probably going to be a one-time spike and then annual increases should drop to 2-3% per year (while the cost for solar/PW power stays constant).
When we designed our system, we focused on running "off grid" after hurricanes - and have a system that should provide enough solar and stored battery power to run for several days - long enough for the grid to come back.
What we didn't expect was extended outages during winter - when you have to keep heaters and pool equipment running. And that uses more power than keeping the house somewhat cool during an extended summer outage.
If designing a system for Austin, it may be worthwhile to profile electricity usage for both summer and winter - and determine if the system is large enough to provide whatever "off grid" power that is desired (and not be surprised when this happens once the system is installed).
We do have a "Free Nights" plan. Our electricity during the day is costing us $.20/KWh (dropping to $.18/KWh next month). Between 9PM to 9AM, electricity is completely free. And because we've shifted our EV charging to nighttime and use solar/PW during the day, we're only purchasing about 22% of our electricity - resulting in about an 80% reduction in our electricity bills.
As for hail damage - I lived in Austin for over 20 years - and had the roof of one home replaced after a bad hail storm. Tile or metal roofs will hold up better - but most homes have the softer roof coverings - which are more likely to be damaged by hail.
We've been assured by our solar installers, that our solar panels should be at least as hardy as our concrete tile roof.
We have a 15.4 KW/4 PW system in Houston - that has been operating for almost 1.5 years.
With the low electricity rates, achieving "break even" based on electricity cost savings could take 8 to 10 years - so it's a pretty long term investment - if you're looking to save $$$.
When modelling the long-term cost savings, it does help to factor in annual electricity cost increases - which are likely to jump considerably after the utilities pass through their costs for winterizing equipment after this year's winter storms. But that's probably going to be a one-time spike and then annual increases should drop to 2-3% per year (while the cost for solar/PW power stays constant).
When we designed our system, we focused on running "off grid" after hurricanes - and have a system that should provide enough solar and stored battery power to run for several days - long enough for the grid to come back.
What we didn't expect was extended outages during winter - when you have to keep heaters and pool equipment running. And that uses more power than keeping the house somewhat cool during an extended summer outage.
If designing a system for Austin, it may be worthwhile to profile electricity usage for both summer and winter - and determine if the system is large enough to provide whatever "off grid" power that is desired (and not be surprised when this happens once the system is installed).
We do have a "Free Nights" plan. Our electricity during the day is costing us $.20/KWh (dropping to $.18/KWh next month). Between 9PM to 9AM, electricity is completely free. And because we've shifted our EV charging to nighttime and use solar/PW during the day, we're only purchasing about 22% of our electricity - resulting in about an 80% reduction in our electricity bills.
As for hail damage - I lived in Austin for over 20 years - and had the roof of one home replaced after a bad hail storm. Tile or metal roofs will hold up better - but most homes have the softer roof coverings - which are more likely to be damaged by hail.
We've been assured by our solar installers, that our solar panels should be at least as hardy as our concrete tile roof.
Thanks for the information. We are in closing, and the current owner is getting the roof replaced because of hail damage. They say they will meet the close date. The roof is a composite shingle circa 2004 so it was probably due for replacement anyway.
The house has a pool with a heater so your comments are timely. Still on the fence on solar. Might just wait and see. There are a crazy number of rate plans in Texas.
The websites comparing the TX electrical plans can be very misleading. The price per KWh quoted is based on assumptions each provider makes on the average monthly electrical usage for a home. Using more or less electricity in some months will likely change what you would be charged. And for plans with free periods, the assumptions are almost guaranteed not to match what a home uses.
If possible, go to Smart Meter Texas and pull down the actual energy usage (in 15 minute increments) for the last calendar year. You can import this data into an Excel spreadsheet and then evaluate how much the various electrical plans would charge for that home.
Though... You can also have a huge impact on the future electrical usage by identifying the highest consumption devices. For us, charging our S 100D and X 100D was using 13%. The largest consumer was our pool equipment - using 30%. Our pool has a separate pump for a waterfall (purely decorative); the installers chose a very energy inefficient fixed speed pump that we were running 7 hours a day - which was using 15% of our electricity. By reducing the hours we ran that pump plus recently replacing it with a much more energy efficient variable speed pump (now using closer to 100W), we've been able to significantly reduce the pool pump usage. And then we identified the incandescent bulbs used most often and changes those to LEDs - plus have smart thermostats running the house in "setback" mode during the day. And after those changes, we reduced our electricity usage quite a bit - and even more for a free nights plan by shifting load to the free period.
If possible, go to Smart Meter Texas and pull down the actual energy usage (in 15 minute increments) for the last calendar year. You can import this data into an Excel spreadsheet and then evaluate how much the various electrical plans would charge for that home.
Though... You can also have a huge impact on the future electrical usage by identifying the highest consumption devices. For us, charging our S 100D and X 100D was using 13%. The largest consumer was our pool equipment - using 30%. Our pool has a separate pump for a waterfall (purely decorative); the installers chose a very energy inefficient fixed speed pump that we were running 7 hours a day - which was using 15% of our electricity. By reducing the hours we ran that pump plus recently replacing it with a much more energy efficient variable speed pump (now using closer to 100W), we've been able to significantly reduce the pool pump usage. And then we identified the incandescent bulbs used most often and changes those to LEDs - plus have smart thermostats running the house in "setback" mode during the day. And after those changes, we reduced our electricity usage quite a bit - and even more for a free nights plan by shifting load to the free period.
good advice here. Also I would make the suggestion to charge EVs at night anyway, regardless of your current rate plan, if it works for your life/driving schedule. This makes it much easier to recognize car charging from the rest of your home loads in the future if you are trying to analyze home usage by time of day. Typically car charging is the easiest load to “shift” without any lifestyle impact.
Whoa, lots of bad info here.
We got our SolarCity panels back in 2013. They paid for themselves in 15 months.
We powered our two Model S's, and the entire house, last year for a grand total of $40.13.
FOR THE ENTIRE YEAR.
Side benefit: helping leave a useable planet for future generations.
Using solar power in Texas is pretty much a no-brainer.
Also, HIGHLY recommend you ask the seller to NOT install a new roof; just ask for a credit at closing instead. They are moving out and will very likely buy the cheapest shingles they can find, but what you want is a UL Class 3 (or 4, which is the highest rating) IR shingle, for "Impact Resistant."
They will likely cost about $2k or $3k more than the non-IR shingles, but will save you around $1k per year in your insurance premium--another no-brainer move.
If the seller insists on installing the new roof for insurance payout reasons, be sure to negotiate a small increase in your purchase price if the seller installs a Class 3 or 4 shingle. It is worth it, even if to just avoid the hassle after another hail storm.
Our first thought was to get a price reduction and pay for the roof ourselves. But the insurance companies will not cover and the mortgage companies will not underwrite without a replacement roof installed once a claim has been started. Bottom line, no new roof, no sale.
Also with 10+ offers after the first weekend for every home we looked at in the Austin area we did not want to lose the house.
Where in TX are you, and what was your price for electricity prior to solar? 15 month ROI is impressive
One way to lower the cost of a system is to install only solar panels - no PowerWalls. For our 44 350W solar panels and 4 PowerWalls, the PowerWalls (including installation) were almost half of the cost of the system (which was sized to provide about half of our annual electricity, including charging our S & X)..
We estimated our breakeven is between 8 to 10 years. If we had only the solar panels, we might have reduced that to 4-5 years - but we wouldn't get the benefits of having energy storage, including backup power during winter storms and after hurricanes.
15 months does seem pretty incredible...
We estimated our breakeven is between 8 to 10 years. If we had only the solar panels, we might have reduced that to 4-5 years - but we wouldn't get the benefits of having energy storage, including backup power during winter storms and after hurricanes.
15 months does seem pretty incredible...
I’m thinking there was some fuzzy math going on there to convince the spouse of such expense
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