(Birds chirping - clank of the ladder as it gets set down)
So, it's been about 2 years since we installed these solar panels on the roof of my house.
And green energy is great and all that, but today we're going to talk about how much
green went back into my wallet...sunlight to cash,
if you will. Since basically these black rectangles are employees that work for me
every day of the week, all year long. It should be a pretty interesting video and it will probably
also be a whole lot of me talking. The panels on this roof are part of a grid tied system,
meaning I'm connected to the electrical grid and I don't have any battery back up. I do, however,
have an off-grid battery backup system on my barn and we'll talk about that a little later
in the video. We'll see how that's been holding up over the past year and especially over the winter.
And since we're talking about a grid tied and an off-grid system, it only makes sense that we talk
about...give me one second...it only makes sense that we talk about an emergency portable battery
system as well from my channel sponsor, Anker. Anker is calling this large box of portable power
the World's Longest Lasting Battery, with the ability to charge and discharge over 3,000 times
without any noticeable reduction in capacity. And it has a 5 year warranty, which is pretty
bonkers. Nobody does mobile charging better than Anker. With a full automotive grade aluminum frame
and handles, it's perfect for portability, like in RV's, camping, or emergency backup systems,
and can even be used as a UPS for computers or uninterrupted power supply if the power goes out.
If the power goes out it can switch to a battery backup within 20 milliseconds
and your computer won't even notice the switch and will continue staying powered on.
That's how I'll be using this one. This Anker 757 powerhouse is using lithium ion phosphate cells
which is what helps them get all those charging cycles. It can charge up from a normal wall outlet
in just an hour, and using 300 watts of solar, like one of the panels behind me, it can charge
up in about 3 or 4 hours. There are 6 AC power outlets on the front, along with 100 watt USB-C
ports, as well as even a car outlet. One thousand five hundred watts of power to share around.
I'll leave a link down in the description so you can pick up one of these for yourself.
And now it's time to see how much green my green energy is saving me. Let's get started.
[Intro]
When I was a little kid my mom read me a science story about the sun and how it's going to burn
out in about 6 billion years. So I was really distraught as we would drive around and see solar
panels on the roof of people's houses. I thought that they were taking extra power from the sun
and that it would burn out sooner. So growing up, the whole solar panel thing really made me nervous
until I understood more of what's going on. There really wasn't anything to worry about.
Let me explain briefly what's happening here. The sun's rays come down through the atmosphere and
hit these panels behind my head. When the sunlight hits the panels, sciency magic stuff happens and
DC electricity is generated. These panels are then connected in groups of 4 to micro inverters which
then changes the DC power into AC - the type of electricity that the house uses. All of the TVs,
appliances, cell phone chargers, they all run off of the AC electricity. All of the micro
inverters are then joined here at this panel, poke down through my attic, and join with this
array right here in this junction box. Then the solar juice continues its pipeline down here to
the junction box and the emergency shut off before it pokes through the wall into my control panel.
The control panel behind me, or breaker box, is where all of my appliances and
outlets can start to get the energy from the solar panels. My appliances get first dibs on the solar
electricity, and any excess that my panels produce flows out to the grid for my neighbors to use.
And that might sound weird at first, but my utility company keeps track of the electricity
that flows out, you know, that my neighbors are using, stores it as a credit and gives
90% of it back to me so I can use it at night, you know, when the sun isn't shining. That's how
a grid tied system works since I don't have a battery capturing that excess electricity
And I'm fine with it for the moment since batteries are pretty expensive. Until I get
a battery, the grid is acting like my battery with about the same efficiencies as well – 90%.
If you remember, the first year we generated right around 13,000 kilowatt hours, which at
Utah's 10 cents per kilowatt hour ended up being right around $13,000 in energy savings. Year two
we produced slightly less electricity at 12,639 kilowatt hours in the last 365 days. And while
we did produce slightly less electricity, this could be due to just more cloudy days, longer
periods of snow on top of the panels, or maybe because I haven't washed the panels at all in the
last 365 days. Dusty or dirty panels do make it a little bit harder for the sunlight to get through.
But 12,639 kilowatt hours is still quite a lot. And if we factor in Utah's new utility price of
.1059 cents per kilowatt hour, we end up saving just about as much money as last year, right
around $13,000, which equals to a little more than $3 a day or $100 per month. And that's not too bad
for year two. We're still on track for the panels to pay themselves off in energy savings in about 6
years...or I guess 4 years now since it's already been 2 years. And once they've paid themselves off
of course, they will continue making about $100 a month for the next 25 or 30 years.
Like I said earlier, each black rectangle is an employee and the sun now works for me.
If you remember, these panels cost me around $8,000 after the government
incentives. And if we extrapolate that out over the lifespan of 25 years or so,
they should end up saving me around $30,000. It is interesting though when people say the
lifespan of solar panels,usually that's the warranty The panels are warranted that for
at least 25 years they will retain 80% of their solar producing capabilities But that 25 or 30
years is just the warranty Even after that period is over they will continue making electricity
The biggest cost saving part of these panels was that I installed them myself.
The second biggest part was probably the government incentives. There is a 26% federal tax
credit that I took advantage of back in 2020, and that credit is still applicable right now in 2022.
Next year, however, it does drop to 22% instead of 26%. Unless, of course, the government decides
to extend the tax credit, which I do think they should since they've been subsidizing oil
quite a bit more for quite a bit longer. I am excited though, 2 years in there's
been absolutely zero maintenance and it's performing just about how we predicted.
It's not all about the money though. A big goal for me is to be energy independent.
If you remember last year back when Texas had the massive power outage in the middle of the winter,
5 million people were without power for more than 3 days. Pipes were breaking inside of
people's houses. It was just a giant mess, and I personally would like to avoid situations like
that. The goal for me is to eventually have some kind of battery backup system here at the house,
and lucky for me I don't have to install everything at the same time because batteries
at the moment are really expensive Currently the least expensive battery backup system is
probably going to be the Ford F-150 Lightning that has the vehicle-to-grid technology
Using the same plug that charges up the truck, the truck can charge up a house. It's got enough
juice inside to last for a few days and also can still be used as a truck. Using the Ford
F-150 would be tens of thousands of dollars less expensive than buying a bunch of Tesla power walls
So it is pretty tempting. I do have a much smaller off-grid setup over here on my barn. It's enough
to keep the lights on, keep the electric lawnmower and all of our off-road wheelchairs charged up,
as well as keep the horses and chickens' water from freezing in the winter. The two panels on
the roof work fantastic during the summer. The whole system usually never drops below
60% even when we're using it heavily. However, in the winter, we did run into a pretty big issue.
For most of the winter here in Utah, it regularly dips below freezing, and if you remember,
lithium batteries can be used or discharged below freezing but they can't be charged up
below freezing. So even though the sun does rise during the winter and the sunlight hits my panels,
these batteries won't charge up unless the ambient temperature is above 32 degrees Fahrenheit,
which is a much smaller window of the day during winter months.
So I did have to run an extension cord out here and charge these up probably once a week to keep
everything running out here in the barn. There are a couple ways to solve the problem though. I could
put these batteries in an insulated chamber to keep them warm so they would charge up during the
day. Or I can add some more solar panels up on the roof, which is probably what I'll do this fall.
And two panels should be enough to keep everything going next winter. This was a fun little project.
I'll leave a link to both of these setups down in the description. One of the ways I was able
to make it so cost effective for me was that I installed them myself. I worked with a company
called Solar Wholesale who was able to look at my situation and design a kit that was specific
to me. The panels, the inverters, the wiring, the racking, everything that was needed to get this
up on my roof. And it was really helpful because I had never installed solar panels before or really
knew how they worked. I have managed to get a $250 discount for anyone else who decides to go through
Solar Wholesale for their own solar project. I'll leave a link for that down in the description.
It's SolarWholesale.com/JerryRigEverything. Now I also, as someone who has fallen off a ladder
and broken their wrist, completely understand if installing solar yourself isn't something
you want to do. In that case, Tesla Solar is also a viable option. They were one of the
cheapest back when I was pricing it out, and I will leave a $300 discount as well down in the
description. But shop around, solar is booming everywhere and it's nice to have options. There
might be a cheaper installer that's local to you. If I did have to do it all over again,
I would probably just end up buying more panels. Now that we have 3 electric vehicles including the
military Humvee that I turned electric myself, we do use a lot of electricity. But at least
it's clean and it's still way cheaper than the current gas prices. I'm a pretty big fan of energy
independence. I'm also a fan of green energy and making money, so I see these panels as an
investment – a pretty darn good one. Let me know if you have any questions down in the
comments below. I will link everything I talked about in the description of this video. Come
hang out with me on Instagram and Twitter. And thanks a ton for watching. I'll see you around.