I was thinking that it would be possible for off property solar panels. If a Power Company would have a sizable area and allowed a company like Tesla to erect solar panels on that property near the power plant (solar farm) the power generated could be monitored by the home owner by installing a gateway and power meter on each system that feeds the grid. The size system will no longer be limited by the roof size or direction. This will give people that live in condos, houses that are covered by trees and many others the ability to have solar. The Power company will benefit since there will be less cost for building a solar farm.
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Off Property Solar Panels------ let's discuss
- Thread starter Gixx1300R
- Start date
I think you'd be missing out on economies of scale and then of course maintenance and liability come in to play. Hard to manage that when it's physically separated. That's why you see community programs that have shared ownership and responsibility.
Be a part of the solution! is sort of a mix between those two.
Be a part of the solution! is sort of a mix between those two.
I think there is little incentive for the power company to support something like this. They still need to deliver power to your house and maintain the infrastructure to your house as well as the infrastructure to the solar site. Right now they are buying power at wholesale rates and delivering it to your house at retail rates. Why would they pay anything more than wholesale rates for the power that your little solar patch generates? And you would still be buying power at retail rates for your house to use. Not to mention that whoever owned the land that the solar panels were installed on would want a cut as well. And at that point I think there would be little incentive for a homeowner to pay for solar panels to save what, maybe 20 or 30% at best on their power bill.
The reason solar panels make sense on your house is because you are producing and consuming much of the power right there. You aren’t relying on the power company to deliver that power to you from the other side of the city or the other side of the state or wherever your little solar garden is and you aren’t leasing land from anyone for your solar panels to go on.
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I agree with the general consensus that community solar seems to be the closest, viable solution. There are companies that manage these things (like @gpez linked) to avoid the issues of trying to create your own solar co-op. I think this really is the solution for people who cannot produce solar for whatever reason - condos, shade, renting, etc. An alternative we have in MD (as I know a lot of other states do) is to buy power from a competitive supplier who guaranteed some or all of the power to be from clean or renewable sources.
Somebody recently posted some changes FERC is making that might make it more practical to start your own solar farm and connect it to the grid, but even then, it would seem to only make sense for land you already own, which does not have better uses for it, and where the economics can be made to work.
Somebody recently posted some changes FERC is making that might make it more practical to start your own solar farm and connect it to the grid, but even then, it would seem to only make sense for land you already own, which does not have better uses for it, and where the economics can be made to work.
If you want to do this go out and buy some land and install solar panels and feed it into the grid. You can wholesale electricity into the grid.
In theory you should be able to offset your electricity costs. At the end of the day this is a business a lot people are doing. I seen people do this for less then $1 million including land purchase for 5 to 10 acre solar farm. If you have 20 people that is only $50k a person and even less if you borrow money on it.
Since this is a business you can pretty much locate anywhere where land is cheap
In theory you should be able to offset your electricity costs. At the end of the day this is a business a lot people are doing. I seen people do this for less then $1 million including land purchase for 5 to 10 acre solar farm. If you have 20 people that is only $50k a person and even less if you borrow money on it.
Since this is a business you can pretty much locate anywhere where land is cheap
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