What should I know Before Going Solar?

okay and there are things like time abuse that occurs depending on where you live, that may or may not have meaning when you use power at prime time like 8:00 p.m. when people are at home, yes, it will be at a higher level or price than at 2:00 in the morning, so usage time could come into play and that measurement and all these variables can influence your result final. bill well, you

know

, and you also have base rates, things that no matter

what

you do, you'll always pay, it'll be like federal, blah, blah, blah, and all these different little things, you couldn't use energy if you're in a normal house . and you'll still have a ten dollar bill or something, so yeah, that won't necessarily change.

You just have to figure out

what

exactly they are so this is the part that might surprise people if your goal is to have a zero electric bill while connected to the grid that probably won't happen so what some utility companies What they're doing is charging you, say, ten percent based on your usage for the retail price, so you use five hundred kilowatt hours. produces five hundred kilowatt hours and they charge ten percent, that's 50 dollars a month, they'll charge you five dollars, so of course it's a low figure, but the point is that, and it's to cover the cost of maintaining network storage, etc.

Ten percent is just a number we made up, but the point is, that's where they're

going

and the bad news is those rates could go up over time, so it's something to keep in mind if they charge you a percentage and So one last thing is that if you are

going

to buy an electric car, an electric car charge or maybe you are going to install the 240 volt device, which costs some money, ask about the rates for electric car users because they will probably offer some incentivized rates that could help you pay less, yes, they will usually give you some kind of fixed level, so they will tell you this is the charging rate for your electric car mm-hmm and otherwise they will It will fix if you were on a tiered plan that electric cars can take. 30 hours of death per charge, you may be using so much more power that your bills are much higher, so they will count that and give you some sort of fixed price, feels good, but ask about that if you have an electric . auto, yes, they will tell you exactly what it is exactly and this moves on to the next topic, which is storage, if you want to have a zero electricity bill, the only way is to go off the grid, as long as you are connected to their network.

It will be a cost to you, but to do it you need batteries and I don't have batteries in my system. I get asked that all the time and the reason is because they are very expensive right now, which is what I would want. getting the tesla powerwall and the tesla powerwall costs around $6,000 what's the capacity of that? Yes, I think they have about 13.5 kilowatt hours and their idea is that their panels charge them in the morning and then use them at night. that if you use about 25 kilowatt hours a day in your home, then that

should

be enough, just one

should

be enough, so for us we use and we have kind of a medium sized condo, we don't have too many crazy things that we use around 20 kilowatt hours a day, so that would probably be yes, an electric wall would probably get us through the night if we were generating power during the day, so yes, and now they have a 10 year warranty, but again $6,000 is a lot of money and in 10 years you have to get another one, there may be some problems, advice on all this is going slow because prices were falling and production increasing in capacities, so we haven't hit bottom yet, so go slow, start small little by little exactly.

I think this

solar

industry has become a lot more affordable and we're getting to a point where

solar

panels are pretty affordable, but batteries aren't there yet. Stay tuned, we'll cover this in future videos, but Tesla will double the total. world's battery production with their Giga factory, so I think in the next five to 10 years the battery revolution could happen and when that happens this will probably be more viable and Chris said that you mentioned, remember you don't have to do it. buy your entire system upfront if they tell you everything you need 25 panels to have a zero bill you don't have to do that it will be a lot of money get half of it now because as the prices keep going down and you can always add it later it's very modular and don't feel pressured or anxious about it and I'll tell you the other thing and this goes for any sales people after you meet with them and get all the numbers tell them what I'm going to do. my research I'm going to think about it, I'm going to sleep and I'm going to get back to you, yeah, you probably shouldn't make any decisions that involve tens of thousands of dollars right when you're talking to someone because I think a little bit of perspective when you walk away will help you.

I agree so research all the information go to the links we provide find out how much you could earn if you are curious don't be shy you can contact us as Many of our commenters mentioned that my bill is so low that it would take me 50 years to recover the price, so that's where you have to calculate how long it will take us and if the return on your investment to get the money back is six or seven. years maybe it's worth it, if it's 20 years you probably shouldn't do it, no and just to conclude because people are wondering this right now. 2017 just the gross cost of the panels, what are we talking about for a 300 watt panel?

If then. The cost of the panel could be around $300 for 300 watts, so a dollar per watt for a channel itself, nothing more, what other costs are there? Yes, then you would need if you want the microinverter wrapper, which is what I would do. They could cost another $150 for each panel, yes we now have microinverters that drive the price even higher per watt, what else is there? What other costs are there? All materials, racks, tie-downs and all installation hardware included. that's a cable cost and all the brackets and all that kind of stuff and then of course the permits and all that with your junction box okay so there's a little cost there and then the labor on Yeah.

I mean, let's face it, that's where these guys do it. your money they're probably not making a lot of money on hardware, so at the end of 2017, we're going to say that an installed system costs between three and four dollars per watt, yeah, roughly, and that's really kind of Generally speaking, roughly between 3 and 4 dollars per installed watt, that's in the US in California, but if wherever you live has a lower or higher rate or around the world, we would love to hear it in the comments since we don't have good data in this regard and it is a constantly changing situation. landscape, so let us

know

in the comments, but that should give you an idea of ​​what to expect and how much it should cost if your installers give you a quote and you do the calculations you know divided by the extras you know should be much higher than that.

If so, they want to charge you five dollars per watt, you can tell them that's too high and No, thank you. I will continue to buy, but like everything else, get two or three quotes, compare them and get an idea. If they are all very close together then you will probably get good numbers, but if there is quite a difference, keep buying, keep buying and look around, and if you know someone in your area who has recently purchased them, talk to them to know it. I know even if you see a neighbor who has them on their roof, so just say: Hello, were you happy?

Because they will give you the nitty-gritty and help you figure out what is best. Well, one more thing real quick. Remember one of the commenters mentioned is hail damage hmmm so there are weather and natural disaster elements too so if a hurricane or Canada comes in overnight destroys your panels are you covered? Ask that question, especially if you live in the Midwest or in cold places where there is snow and hail, we don't have those problems here, but we do have wildfires, I mean, but the thing is, if they are not covered by the warranty for now for disaster and what happens to your homeowners insurance?

Well, call your homeowners insurance because that's a big deal, that's a good point, and the other thing we forgot to mention was the snow. Some people talked about areas where there is a lot of snow, we don't know, we've never seen snow, we don't know, so if you have solar panels. and you have snow, how do you handle it? Are there automated things for snow removal? or what heaters let us know because we just don't know it's a blind spot for us, but we'd love to hear your experience in the The comments below are fine, because you might think that if there's snow you shouldn't have solar, but there are probably places in the world where there is snow in the winter, but there is very good sun during the rest of the year, so yes, we would love to know.

I'm a little curious, yeah I'm really curious, it's something we never thought about because it's California, so yeah, I would say Chris, our goal wasn't to answer every question you have, but to give you a lot of questions you should ask. that if you have all this information and ask these questions you will be well informed with a good decision, a very big investment, a lot of money and if you are knowledgeable about police or other things depending on where you live, let's continue this discussion if you tweet us at tuba DaVinci or you use the hashtag let's talk about solar energy, maybe we can get a lot of information from different people and we can get a better idea depending on where you live.

Yeah, well, put it somewhere, but thanks. guys thank you so much for tuning in we hope this was informative yes as always comment we left in the comments good romance you guys have gotten some crazy comments and I can be honest I love you all everyone is throwing the ball thank you guys, even to the ones who think they're hurting our feelings, we love you because some of them it's just never a dull moment when you make comments. I put it that way, we have five or six related videos coming out in the next few weeks. and I think your department will love them if you want, if you watch this video, the ones we've come to will probably like you too, so hit the subscribe button and we'll see you soon and remember it's just photons and electrons, that's all .