Artificial Intelligence and Solar power Breakthrough

[QUOTE=rawimpact;14359511]Good way to harness the sun's power without having to burn anything. Always wondered why they never developed a concave large dome and harness that energy in the form of heat at the focal point.

Solar panels are still not efficient enough unfortunately and they certainly wouldn't be a good investment where I live because of our nor'easters and storms. I've considered them second hand from ebay though but they ship out of Gilbert AZ so shipping kills the cost/watt.

My brother just recently got Tesla installed on their home for like 1.50/watt in socal which I thought was a good deal for a reputable company. He got like a 15kw system which took up nearly all of the roof space on his 4500sqft home. That alone would worry me since he has those mexican clay style tiles which I thought were fragile[/QUOTE]

Wow you brother got a bargain deal . I got mine 5 years ago and I spent $2.25/watt CASH but smaller 7.8 kw System LG solar panels in my primary home of 4100 sq in So Cal. This is from reputable electrical company that has been in business for over 20 years . This is the most overlooked but very important in choosing solar installers , workmanship warranty, because any business can go down and you gonna spent out of pocket to repair any breakdown. So far I only have one repair done on inverters .

From what I recall , Solar City /Tesla have those cheap Chinese solar panels and that was red flag considering this is long term commitment. Salesman was also trying to convince me to lease it and I asked him that if you gonna guys gonna solidify panels in my roof, what if I sell my home and the answer was getting complicated going on different direction to confuse me. The salesman pretty much trying to sway me from purchasing it so I knew something was not making any sense. The final coffin was a mechanical lien . So I did my own due diligence , and figure out the Federal rebate of 30% (Solar City goal was to collect that) around that time and that was a no brainer after that.

The most underrated part of having solar is the net metering that is grandfather at least here in So Cal. I believed other states does not have that.


But the most satisfying part of all that is I have multibag the solar investments from SolarEdge, Ephase and Sunpower and will set to realize that in 2023.

[QUOTE=Rooster;14359622]Wow you brother got a bargain deal . I got mine 5 years ago and I spent $2.25/watt CASH but smaller 7.8 kw System LG solar panels in my primary home of 4100 sq in So Cal. This is from reputable electrical company that has been in business for over 20 years . This is the most overlooked but very important in choosing solar installers , workmanship warranty, because any business can go down and you gonna spent out of pocket to repair any breakdown. So far I only have one repair done on inverters .

From what I recall , Solar City /Tesla have those cheap Chinese solar panels and that was red flag considering this is long term commitment. Salesman was also trying to convince me to lease it and I asked him that if you gonna guys gonna solidify panels in my roof, what if I sell my home and the answer was getting complicated going on different direction to confuse me. The salesman pretty much trying to sway me from purchasing it so I knew something was not making any sense. The final coffin was a mechanical lien . So I did my own due diligence , and figure out the Federal rebate of 30% (Solar City goal was to collect that) around that time and that was a no brainer after that.

The most underrated part of having solar is the net metering that is grandfather at least here in So Cal. I believed other states does not have that.


But the most satisfying part of all that is I have multibag the solar investments from SolarEdge, Ephase and Sunpower and will set to realize that in 2023.[/QUOTE]

Some states also have SRECs on top of the federal tax credit so those solar lease companies make money off those SRECs as well. They get 30% federal tax credit, collect lease money from you monthly and collect SREC money from the state. They rip you off.

It's best to buy the solar system in cash or if you don't have cash, take a home equity line of credit for home improvement. Best way to go about it. Then you can collect the federal tax credit, take in the SREC yourself and not pay any lease money or electric bill ever again.

Also avoid any cheap Chinese companies. Go with LG or Samsung or Canadian solar. I feel Samsung has the best bang for the buck and arguably the best warranty. Canadian solar had the longest warranty last I checked. Tesla used to outsource solar panels to Samsung and in source the software portion, but I don't know what they do now. I know tesla opened up a facility in China and have couple in the USA - not sure which panels they are using nowadays.

I plan on installing solar panels not as a major move , but more less as a backup