Mildly Interesting

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The solar panels on top of my campervan have generated 1 megawatt hour of energy as of today (lemmy.world)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

how much do you invested in your solar system? I'm trying to convince my wife to install a solar roof (no battery), but I'm doing the math and it would take 8-10 years to barely break even (if nothing critical breaks down during that time).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

$16K in parts, PE drawings and tree removal. With 30% of that back in tax rebate. I did the install myself with help from my wife. 11.64KW DC worth of panels. Anything more than 11.7KW and I would have gone from class 1 to class 2. I didn't want to deal with all that required.

My degree is in computer engineering and I used to work in power generation so I was very comfortable with the electric design and working with high voltage and current. You might not be so comfortable. A similar system without battery was quoted to me at $24K by an installer.

Battery was about $2K. Tree was $1K. After rebate cost was $11.2K. It's reduced my power bill by about $210 a month. So about 4.4 years to break even.

It was a lot of work on my end but I know I didn't cut corners and was very careful to make a system that should last.