Going Solar: Tips for Your Home

By Jon Fisher, The Nature Conservancy

We all want to decrease our energy use, both for the sake of our wallets and the benefit of the planet. But is putting solar panels on our home rooftops the best way to do that?

Residential solar systems (especially photovoltaic or “PV” systems) are substantially less efficient than their commercial counterparts. One estimate (admittedly controversial) from UC Berkeley professor Severin Borenstein says that residential PV systems cost roughly twice as much as their commercial counterparts (40 cents/kWh vs 20 cents/kWh)1.

Commercial systems have many advantages over residential: they are typically developed in locations with lots of sun, they can take advantage of innovative technologies that don’t work at small scales, they can utilize larger storage cells, and many other reasons.

Which brings us back to the question of why so many people love the idea of putting solar panels on their roofs. In talking to friends and co-workers who have solar panels, there seem to be two common reasons: the appeal of being energy independent and an “every little bit counts” desire to do their part to help. Installing solar panels on your own home is a more readily achievable goal than successfully lobbying to change the way we subsidize different kinds of power plants.

The good news is that there’s an often overlooked form of residential solar power that is almost always far more efficient than photovoltaics. Solar Water Heating Systems (SWHS) are typically much cheaper than PV systems, and focus on using heat from the sun to produce hot water (which is much simpler than converting sunlight to electricity).

While PV systems may take decades to pay for themselves (although this varies considerably state by state due to considerable variation in both subsidies and how much sun is available), solar water heaters can pay for themselves much more quickly. There is an excellent article on payback times in Home Power magazine (note that it doesn’t include subsidies, which vary substantially by state and city).

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Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Michael C.

8:44AM PST on Jan 23, 2012

What I am witnessing is a lot of White Noise. Think excuses, "I would have voted but it might have rained." Just White Noise.

We installed SOLAR MODULES over 30 years ago, and I too, tried to find an excuse to not INVEST in renewables. Yes, it was expensive, our newest group cost $5.28 per watt and we have 3000 watts, nearly $16,000 USD, yet we had so little choice.

My advice, do your homework, use the term INVESTMENT, not cost.

Currently, Solar Modules are at their lowest cost in history, completed systems are also lower than ever before.

We have not had a electric bill for 30 years, you could have done the same, expect that all the White Noise got in the way.

Americans can never realize an Arab Spring, their just too lazy, besides if you want liberty, there is always the movies.

First Solar sells Modules for $1.00 per watt. Question...Who owns First Solar...WalMart.

send a green star

Kimberly M.

12:40PM PST on Jan 21, 2012

This costs less than a second car garage newly built

Chloe M.

10:56PM PST on Jan 18, 2012

Thank you

Peter M.

4:59AM PST on Jan 18, 2012

thanks

TQ M.

5:30AM PST on Jan 17, 2012

Thanks for sharing. Solar isn't an option at the moment, but we'll definitely check into this.

Danuta W.

12:52AM PST on Jan 17, 2012

Thanks for the article.

Sri V.

12:51AM PST on Jan 17, 2012

I live in Bengaluru, India, in a largely "solarized" house at much expense . There is also water harvesting. It has been so for over 6 years! Unfortunately the ministry in charge in Government of India Delhi is, to put it mildly, both antediluvian and unclean The state Government is no better. The subsidy is miniscule and limited to water heating. There are taxes on the components too. We need a sea change in our political leadership and the top bureaucracy if India is to move forward in clean energy . This is painful but true. Even well to people do a cost benefit analysis and drop the matter

Emily S.

9:25AM PST on Jan 16, 2012

Can't wait till it becomes even more mainstream!

Elisabeth T.

8:04AM PST on Jan 14, 2012

Great information, thank you..

pamela k.

6:31AM PST on Jan 14, 2012

Thanks for sharing the artical