this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2025
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You could have totally built small scale water and wind power a few decades ago. Also solar was already viable 15 years ago and would have been cheap af if it had been scaled up to "economy of scale" levels. For example Germanies solar capacity was already at 1/5th of todays level 15 years ago. That was without any huge subsidies and the panels and feed in returns were not great either. We could have easily been at todays level in terms of solar 10-15 years ago if the lobby for it was as powerful as the coal/gas/nuclear lobby.
When I was in grade 9, in 1977, my science teacher told us about his solar panels. He was projecting that they would pay off the investment in about 20 years. How much better must that be now (and we are talking about Ontario, Canada, hardly the best place for solar power)?
This site is slow af to load a measly pdf so im gonna add this screenshot. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35489.pdf
"Current" are the numbers from 2004, anticipated is probably realistic for what we have now. This calculation is not for private installations tho, because those get much less money for each kWh. With huge scale commercial installations 2-3 years is probably realistic. For private installations its still like 10 years for it to pay back its cost. Depends heavily on you local weather and electricity buy/sell prices ofcourse.
Right now we're seeing lots of roofs start to show damage and leaks from rooftop solar. The industry is going to have to figure out a better way because people won't be happy about the trade of cheap electricity for expensive roof work. It can be done well, but these companies that pop up and install panels as cheaply as possible are going to screw things up.
With tiled roofs its honestly not so bad. As long as the installation hooks and overall kit you have is good ofcourse. It took me and my friend like 2-3 days of hopping around on the roof with little prior experience. Before we closed it up we had someone professional attest it which cost a tiny fraction of what letting them install it would have cost.
But i generally agree, there are lots of shitty companies for both equipment and installation that just rip you off.
Also, solar thermal generation was viable a hundred years ago, but nobody invested in it.
Sad this never got refined like it deserved for small scale.