Waiting for Recognition?

Aside from cost, orientation to the sun has a lot to do with considering solar panels.

Maybe they are waiting for a non-polluting production system for solar panels?

Photovoltaics is waisting taxpayers money in most applications.

If you don't have access to any power and need a few watts then PV is ok.

If you need some more then a small or big generator is much more efficient.

If you need a lot then try to get access to the power grid.

Anything else is daytime-dreaming.

House-owners seem to be wiser in decision-making then politicians.

RHABE

Electricity in Australia is about to jump 10 percent again this month (just got the notice) so it is now more affordable for us to use solar and diesel, with batteries we only need to run the diesel gen at one dollars worth of diesel a day and we are 300 a quarter better of, you see the supply charge and tax is 90 dollars without the cost of the power on top, so for 90 dollars only we have no other cost. The cost is batteries not panels, grid connect is crap, power goes off so does yours, self sufficiency was about 45,000 for a standard house solar only, but now you can drop half the panels and spend the 90 dollars a quarter on the generator and still be better off..

The trick is not to buy it all at once, one item per week, a panel or battery or inverter, or turbine and so on.

It depends on where you are. My previous location gets about 300 days of sunshine per year, so solar water heaters and PV panels make some sense there.

Where I am now gets maybe 60 sunshiny days per year, but even then the low-angle sun is largely shadowed by trees; so solar is basically a sick black joke here. When on hydro, the electricity here is about US$0.12/kwh; if the lake runs dry it's diesel gensets at about US$0.25/kwh. Last year an avalanche took out a power line to Juneau, and those folks had to pay about US$0.50/kwh for a few months.

My fish plant has 2050 peak hp of refrigeration, with a yearly average of something like 1000 hp. Many $.

The price of the solar panels has been a very small part of the price of a complete system for some time now. Further reduction in panel prices is not going to have muc of an impact on market growth.

Give us a good, cheap storage system, and you might get some attention...

Neither; the government has not figured out a way to put a meter on the sun.

It is called property tax ... as you just increased the value of your property ... your taxes just went up. At least that is how they get you in my neck of the woods.

And no ... that doesn't seem fair. Perhaps we should have legislation to exempt the value of such things from taxation. I wrote my reps already ... have you?

I always thought it unfair that you can improve the property you own with your income (that was already taxed) along with your blood and sweat ... and then have to pay more in taxes for it. It should only be realized when you sell it. Like a capital gain.

Don't know from where you hail ... just throwing it out there.

With a 10-15 payback for the original investment before you start saving any money over being on the grid, most people will not go with solar. They won't even keep that home that long, usually needing something bigger or smaller or having to follow thier job to a new town.

There has to be a monetary gain for the homeowner, just feeling good about it won't sell it.

When photovoltaic roofing installed prices are finally equal to regular roofing prices, then people will go solar.

This is not out of the question with oil going over $100 a barrel, asphalt shingles will get more expensive, tile roofing materials have always been expensive and standing seam metal roofing is as well.