Why Solar Power?

Solar Power is a Total Paradigm Shift, a Radically Different Relationship With Electric Power

Instead of renting power from the local energy monopoly -- chances are you don't really have much say in what power company you are able to hook into -- and pay whatever rate they decide to set you that year. Instead you can turn your house into an oversized vegetable that photosynthesizes it's own power. That's pretty fricken' cool!

There is no other technology that is more freeing, more democratic, more literally empowering to the common man than solar power. Distributed solar power breaks the chain between provider and dependent, it makes you -- the building owner --independent and self sustaining. You become the master of your own power.

Think about it. There is no-one to cut the cord on you. Ever. You will always have your electric power. That's not a thing that existed before.

Solid state technology like solar cells have almost no maintenance, which is pretty hard to beat. Solar panels have no moving parts, and no motors to burn out. They just sit there, bolted in place on the roof, absorbing the sunlight and pushing out the watts of power automatically.

They don't typically have pieces that can wear out or need regular replacing. There are no reservoirs of liquid or oil to keep topped up, or filters to replace, or rails, hinges, screws and gears that need to be derusted, degunked, and maintained like in many motors, pumps or turbines.

Can you put your solar cells on a motorized armature that automatically tracks the sun? Sure! Is it smart to do that? No! All you're doing is introducing unnecessary liability into the system, with future maintenance, electronic parts replacement, and mechanical parts replacement. It's like putting a computer system into car. You pay more in replacing sensors and computer components than in replace the original motor components that these systems are designed to protect. Most of the time it's a false economy. Solar cells are powerful enough these days that if you point the panels in roughly the correct direction you'll be making plenty of power. Trying to squeeze in a little more power by ruining the elegant, robust, simplicity of a fixed rack is not worth doing.

Assuming you don't have new constructions being built in your neighborhood that are throwing up abnormal amounts of dirt, if you mop down your panels every other year, then you're still probably doing too much cleaning. They ought to be cleaned on an as needed basis. If the power output feels the same, then don't clean 'em. Every 4-5 years is a good time frame. About the period it would take before you would want to pressure wash all the grime off your roof anyway.

Solar Panels Are a Set-It and Forget-It-Technology

The Warranty From Most Reputable Solar Panel Manufacturers is 25~30 Years

Other than covering the physical aspect of the panel, part of these 25 year warranties is that the system will still produce a certain amount of power at the end of the warranty period, (usually 80%+). That means that solar panels aren't ready to give up the ghost the day after their warranty ends like most modern day appliances. At year 25 they're basically still mostly new!

Most solar panels have a linear path of degradation (the % efficiency they lose every year is at a constant rate; usually max ~0.5%/year), so if they're pumping out 80% at year 25, they'll be pumping out at least 60% power at year 50.

Usually when panels get under 60% efficiency is when people like to upgrade to the latest and greatest thing (since the technology is moving so fast) but you can keep a panel running well past that the usual replacement age (30 years) and you can run it down all the way to 10% if you really want to.

There are definitely still panels out there from the 70's and 80's still producing useful (if not impressive) amounts of power. With how shoddy most modern day buildings have been constructed in the last couple of decades, these modern solar panels will most likely outlast you and your actual house.

Solar Cells are a Time Tested Technology With Several Decades of Field Testing Under Their Belt

Solar panels were first release onto the commercial market in 1965 by Bell Labs. At time of writing, that was more than 50 years ago!

People like treat solar power like some newfangled technology for space billionaires and rich techie people, but it just ain't so. Solar power is a fairly old, tried and true technology. It's older than most cars rolling around today, it's older than the mobile phone, older than the internet, older than the technology in your air conditioner, and are probably older than either you or the house you live in, and will likely outlast both!

How Solar Panels Generate the Electricity

The comparison to a plant is pretty apt as well. Both use the chemical properties of phosphorus to produce power. Phosphorus has a very loosely attached electron in it's outer shell, so loose in fact that even the individual photons of light from the sun can knock it free. Plant's use this property in the krebs cycle along with water and carbon dioxide to make ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate) which is either used up immediately, or used to store that energy from the sun into sugars and starches for the plant to use later. These are the same sugars and starches that eventually become our food. So the interaction of phosphorus and light is what basically powers all of life on earth.

In solar panels the phosphorus is bound in a matrix of silicon, which stabilizes most of the electrons around the phosphorus atom in place, leaving only the weak outer layer to interact. This is the negative or active component of the electric cell inside the panel. Another layer of silicon is infused with boron which is an element that is slightly deficient in electrons in it's outer shell. So this creates the attraction for the electrons knocked loose by the sun from the phosphorus layer in the panel to move towards the deficient layer with the boron, causing electric current to flow in the same direction which allows it to be useful. Without the boron layer, the free electrons knocked loose from the phosphorus would move around the silicon lattice in random directions, causing most of the current to cancel itself out.

State Backed Clean Energy Loans Are The Most Typical Way That People Going Solar

If you were wondering, typically the type of clean energy loan used is a PACE loan Which is attached to the property and not your personal credit, so if you sell the building early the balance passes to the new owner and you get to leave scratch free. PACE is available for both residential and commercial projects.

There are Now Special Green Banks That Can Offer You Better Even Better Deals Than Before

There are now also special green banks who's main goal is rolling out the good, clean, renewable technology with profit being only a secondary goal. They offer very similar loan deals compared to state backed programs, but having other attractive benefits, like:

• having lower borrowing fees

• let you use the actual panels as the collateral for the loan (instead of your house like in PACE loans),

• some banks are even feeling safe and confident enough to offer totally unsecured loans clean energy loans,

Since the loan payments are typically cheaper than a person's former electric bill, extremely few people fail to meet their obligations to the bank, so offers have been getting better and better as time goes on.

The Federal Government Is Making Itself Useful

The 2022 IRA (Inflation Reduction Act) renewed and reinvigorated the previous solar tax break and bumped it up from 26% to 30% the total install price. Assuming that you spend that tax break money on the solar system and not paying down a different higher interest debt (which is definitely a strategy worth looking into), that can chop off a big chunk of your loan and bring your your yearly price of electricity down into the --40%~70% range. That's some huge savings!

State Incentives are Also a Thing Too

Here in sunny Florida, the state incentives aren't exactly game-changing, or even anything to be impressed about, but the benefits do exist and they do have their conveniences.

In Florida solar power systems:

• Have no sales tax to pay on purchase or installation

• Do not increase your property taxes

Thus, the state incentives are kinda not very good in the sense that they aren't actually going to lower the bar for people to get a solar power system (the billed cost), but they do help keep you from getting a surprise fee afterward (ironically from the same state government) , which is definitely welcome.

Businesses Can Get Way Better Tax Breaks

The Modified Asset Cost Recovery System (MACRS) is a program from the IRS that allows you to write off the depreciation of commercial property as it ages and wears down. Along with the ITC, the MACRS has been amended so that instead of having to wait the entire depreciation period (for solar 5 years) and getting the tax break as a yearly trickle, you can get the all or most of the tax break as a lump sum in the first year!

The Solar Energy Industries Association website (SEIA) has a good overview on the topic. Link to article

If you want to estimate how much you can get as a return using the MACRS program, FitSmallBusiness.com has a calculator.

Non Profit Organizations Can Now Benefit From the ITC Too

Before the ITC was a strictly tax break only in all situations. If you didn't pay federal taxes, then you got no tax break. But, that means that traditional not-for-profit organizations like churches or homeless shelters that would normally be the first in line to get a helping hand or at least a write-off get passed up, and it was actually harder for them to get real cash incentives than even the most soul crushingly capitalistic of giant mega corporations.

Effective January 2023, the ITC was amended to give the same 30% off the total install price of a solar power system to non-profit organizations, such as charities and religious institutions. Now even such groups can get the same 30% off the install price, not as a tax break, but as a direct payment. This is the only clean, simple, no strings attached payout that I've seen that the US federal government offers for installing solar.

You Can Design a System with Our Tools to Get a Better Idea of What's Available

You can use our interactive tools to get a preview of what kind of a system would be good for your building, how much energy your system can produce, what month's you're going to be covered for your system size, how much electricity you can sell back to the grid, and how much lower that system can cost you per year.

Design Considerations

Net Metering & System Size

Systems in areas with an electric grid that offers net metering are normally designed to produce an amount of power where you'll break even for your electrical consumption for the year.

Designing the system to the breakeven level is standard practice in the solar business where the grid is available to tie to. This keeps the overall price for the system very affordable and in-reach for common people. It gives you a budget that pocket the difference, or put towards getting a battery for your solar power system. This works well with the budget billing option provided by FPL and other power companies, so you get a flat bill from them the whole year, and if you make more electricity than you consume that year, then you basically make no payment utility payment and you can just focus only on the solar system with no undue surprises, like the typical summer electric bill spike.

Batteries, Grid Down & Night-Time Power

Solar panels don't produce any meaningful power at night time, and normally you sell your excess power during the day. If you need power at night then you buy it back from the grid against your energy credits. Having a battery lets you keep a reserve of power so you can be self reliant at night time too. This isn't tremendously important under most circumstances, but if you don't have a battery then during a grid-down situation, you would only have power during the day. Which isn't a huge problem since most of your power consumption happens during the day anyway: with your AC being the biggest draw, followed your water heating, followed by your other large appliances normally.

Still having a small battery is better than having no battery, and it means that your fridge, your lights, and your telecommunications can be kept running at whatever hour of the day.

In wiring solar power systems, the most essential appliances get their own service panel, and all the other, shed-able loads go on a different service panel. This helps keep your most essential services running in case of an emergency.

Should You Go Full Sized to Sell More Electricity?

You can design a system to completely cover your maximum electric load for the year, and you would have lots electricity to sell back to the grid provider. Here in Florida, at the time of writing, the grid provider is obligated to give you energy credits at the commercial rate, and you spend credits against what you pull from the grid.

• If you run out of credits you would simply pay for what you use from the grid.

• If you have credits left over at the end of the year, then what you pay is zero dollars to the grid provider.

It would be nice if they would cash you out for the difference in any excess electricity that you sell them, but I'm not aware of any utility company that actually does that. You would never get rich selling the grid power at their rates, but it would be nice if you could have that little bit of passive income to at least say that you can afford a 6-pack of beer every now and then selling them electricity from your solar panel system. But no such luck for now.

Having lots of excess power to sell isn't going to earn you any profit, so if you have that excess that usually means you that you probably wasted money on extra panels which lowers your return on investment. Get what you need and not anything more.

Grid Providers Really Don't Want You Selling Them Electricity

You might still want to go for full yearly maximum coverage to go off-grid or have the option in the future to go off-grid since every year the big power companies do more and more to influence state legislature to allow them to do less and less for electric producers on their grid, and do annoying things like raise the minimum monthly bill fee, which doesn't affect people with normal electric bills but does definitely affect folks who have solar and only over-consume some on occasion or just part of the year. If you hate these shenanigans, by all means, go full self-service, and tell them to kindly go kick dirt.

How We Like to Go About Things

In all cases, how we try to design systems is so that we get a consumer to a level of break-even self sufficiency, and then we help them lower their electrical consumption to flatten out any humps in their usage, and these fixes also tend to lower their usage overall.

Things That You Can Do to Lower or Flatten Your Electrical Consumption

Briefly the most important bang for the buck changes are:

• Installing a smart thermostat that runs the air on a schedule, or only when the building is actually occupied

• Installing a radiant barrier under your roof in the attic, to reject and bounce back the heat hitting the roof on the top of your building

• Installing heat rejecting film on the windows

• Changing out the AC for a more efficient modern one

• Changing out the water-heater for a more efficient modern one

• Changing out any other large energy-hungry appliances

• Installing proper insulation

These fixes are listed in order the order in which it would be easier and cheapest to do. Getting the building properly insulated is the gold standard for lowering HVAC related heating and cooling costs, but is also the most invasive and expensive option to go.

Tax Breaks for Energy Efficient Appliances

Energy efficient appliances are good way to reduce your energy consumption. Like the solar panels these also come with a big tax break, 50% off starting in 2023, so you can spend twice as much as you normally would for a more efficient AC, and get your money back in tax breaks. There is a limit to how much you can qualify per year in tax breaks for appliances ($2,000 at last reading) so by all means, if your energy bill isn't very high to begin with, feel free to space out these improvements over a couple of years. If you have very old or inefficient appliances, changing them out sooner rather than later might save you more over the course of the year.

Finale

If you're ready to finalize a design, please schedule a meeting with us so we can see the site, double check that all the engineering and numbers check out properly, and so we can any answer any questions and concerns that you may have, and do the little bit of paperwork needed to get your solar power journey started!

You can contact us using the email or phone number at the bottom of the page.