Solar panels are now required
on all new homes in California.
So that's about 80,000 new homes each year
that are getting solar.
In October of 2020 California ranked
as the highest solar power generating state in the nation
producing enough solar capacity
to power about 8.4 million homes in the state.
And in 2020, the SEIA estimated
that California will increase its solar capacity
by over 19,000 megawatts over the next five years
second behind Texas at 20,000 megawatts.
And I happened to get my solar panels
on my house just over four years ago in March of 2017.
And in that time I've learned a lot.
My solar panels set up at my house contains 16 panels,
and generates just over five kilowatts of peak power.
These 16 panels feed into a string inverter in my garage
that converts the DC energy into AC energy
that my house can then use.
I also have two Tesla Powerwalls,
and a Smart Panel from Span
giving me a really complete home energy system
that's pretty advanced.
But if you wanna learn more about those other systems
check the description down for links to those videos.
And where I live in California
we have net energy metering,
which means that I can actually sell energy
back to the grid,
and build up credits with my local utility.
Coincidentally, this is what makes having a home battery
not a financially beneficial option for most people.
If you're in the United States
you likely already live in a state with net energy metering,
but if you're not sure
I'll put a link to an article from EnergySage,
that has more detail on it down in the description below.
So basically that's my setup.
The sun comes up, it generates energy,
any excess that I'm not using at that exact moment
goes back to the grid.
And then later I can buy back that energy at a later time.
The question now is after four years how's it going?
How much energy have they generated?
And is there anything I would do differently?
Let's start with the most important question
you probably are wondering about,
is it worth it financially?
So since installed back in March of 2017,
my solar panels have generated 35,480 kilowatt hours
which costs an average of 27 cents where I live.
Except now in 2021, it's 31 cents
thanks to a rate hike from our local utility.
And when you multiply those two
you get $9,683.60.
This is how much the energy is worth
that my panels have generated
over the four years that I've had them.
And looking at the net cost of the system
right around $14,000 minus the powerwalls
we find that I'm about 70% paid off
from the initial investment in just four years.
And this is good news because the original quote
I got from the installer had us right around $9,200
worth of energy at this point, not 9,600.
So we're a little bit ahead of schedule
when it comes to these panels paying themselves off.
And then if we forecast out from here
looking at our yearly average consumption
of 8,500 kilowatt hours,
and the new energy cost of 31 cents per kilowatt hour,
we see that they should have paid for themselves
in about year six,
we're half a year ahead of schedule
from our initial estimate.
Again, that's partly aided by the energy price hike
from my local utility,
but this is just how things go.
Every year the prices go up just a little.
Now, if we extrapolate that for the next 25 years
we're looking at about an $85,000 profit
assuming that the annual reduction
in photovoltaic production is around .4%,
and the annual utility rating increase is around 5%.
So are they worth it?
Totally, but it doesn't mean
that I didn't make any mistakes along the way,
and have anything that I would have done differently.
When I first started this journey
I used EnergySage to find my installer.
The way it works is by submitting your information,
your electricity bill,
and putting a pin on your roof
so they can see exactly the orientation of your house,
and if there's any shade or anything nearby.
Then getting quotes from various installers
without them ever getting your personal information,
which means no one's gonna be calling you,
or stopping by unannounced trying to sell you something.
You just get a nicely laid out dashboard
inside of their portal on energysage.com
to compare all of these quotes.
And with summer right around the corner
now is a great time
to head over to bensullins.com/EnergySage,
sign up and get quotes for your house
to see how much you could be saving.
Again, there's no obligations there,
if you head over it's all free.
You sign up, you get the information and all that.
The actual installers are the ones that pay a commission
to EnergySage so that that's how that whole thing works.
Totally free to you.
And even if you already have quotes from other people
I would highly recommend it just to
get more kind of second and third opinions out there
just to see what kind of deals,
and what kind of quotes you can get.
So thanks to EnergySage for sponsoring the channel.
Again, they're one of my favorite partners
that I've been recommending for years
on and off the internet.
And so I really do believe in what they have to offer.
As well as it's one of the best websites
just to learn about this stuff.
So give them a look, link in the description,
or just bensullins.com/EnergySage.
Okay, so the biggest thing that I've learned
over this time that I would do differently
is that there is a fixed cost
to even getting one solar panel on your house.
The way it works when you get this process going,
is that you have an installer design a system for you.
Which basically means where are the panel's gonna go?
And how are they going to connect to the grid?
The installer there has to submit those plans to the city,
or your local utility,
or whomever kind of has jurisdiction in that area,
and get it approved.
And you likely have to then get a permit
which you have to pay for.
This is all to be done before
you can actually move ahead with the install.
So if you want one panel on your house
you'd have to do all these steps.
Or if you want a hundred panels on your house
you would also have to do all of these steps.
So the lesson here is that you should probably
get as much solar energy as you think you will ever need.
Not just how much you need now,
but how much you might think you need
within the next 20 years.
So if you think you might get an electric car,
or two within the next 25 years,
or maybe you're gonna be working from home,
and your kids are gonna be home
when they should be in school,
and your energy needs are gonna go up because of that,
yeah, you might wanna get more panels now
than you think you need.
So what that means is, when you get these quotes,
they're gonna say, hey, this is gonna cover
98% of your energy needs or something like that.
And yeah, you can buy some energy from the local utility
because it's just gonna be cheaper.
But that's today.
In the next twenty-five years
chances are your energy needs are gonna go up.
A lot of appliances in our house
are switching over to electric,
and overall we're just gonna be using more and more energy.
So my recommendation,
the thing I wish I would have done differently,
is just got as many panels as my roof could hold.
That of course is within reason, right?
If you have this massive house that could hold, you know,
a hundred panels or something crazy,
I'm not suggesting go you know, two or three x
what your energy needs are today.
I'm just suggesting that when you do the layout
if you have room for like four or five extra panels
like I did, go for it.
'Cause the cost of adding this four or five panels now
is gonna be far cheaper than trying to add them later.
Also, if you wanna add them later,
there's a good chance that those same panels
aren't in manufacturing anymore,
they're not in production.
So you'll get a different kind of panel
which will look different
giving your roof this kind of patchwork design
which personally I just am not fan of.
So if you have a layout, if you're doing some stuff here,
you're already gonna be going down this route,
I do recommend that you get kind of,
you kinda max it out to an extent that makes sense
for your family's needs, and your future potential needs.
The next thing is the type of inverter that you wanna get.
Now I have a string inverter
which is this big box in my garage.
These do tend to have better durability
than some of the other types of inverters,
but my house and my garage are really small.
And I would totally rather have these located
underneath the panels all tucked away with microinverters.
Microinverters tend to be a bit more expensive
than the other options out there.
But they do give you panel level monitoring,
meaning you can look at each panel and how it's doing.
And most importantly, for me anyways,
they are completely hidden underneath the panels.
So you don't have this big box inside of your garage
taking up all this room.
Now, however your panel and system get designed
you could put that box, that inverter somewhere else.
For me I put it in the garage
because that's where I wanted my powerwalls to go.
Only later to learn
that I couldn't have my powerwalls in there
'cause there wasn't enough room
due to the fire code or whatever,
it just wouldn't be a place that I could actually have them.
So I have this big box in there
taking up this room on this wall
that's super precious and valuable
in this really small garage,
and I can't really move it.
So pay attention to that,
and pay attention to the kind of inverter,
because if I were to do it again
I would have got the microinverters
which are all tucked up underneath the panels,
and there's nothing else that you have to install,
nor other big boxes outside your house,
or in the garage, or anywhere else.
For us that would be a big win.
And again, depending on your situation
there could be other options,
but just pay attention to that
when you get your system design.
And again all of this info is on EnergySage.
I'll put a link to an article that they have
which really just breaks it all down for you
in case you're curious.
And then that way when you go into these discussions
about what kind of inverter would make sense for you
you can already have this knowledge at your disposal.
And lastly the thing that I would probably do differently
is get a different design of solar panel.
The ones I have you can kind of see
the layout of where the solar cells are,
but now they have these ones that are just all black.
They just look like a black sheet of glass,
and it just looks a lot cleaner I feel like on your roof
than what I have.
And again, now because I've had these for four years
if I wanted to add more panels
they're not gonna match the same design
giving it a really kind of odd look on the roof
more so than you already may think
how odd they look already.
Because it is one of the things people talk about
how ugly solar panels are.
I've never felt that way,
but when I see them with different mismatched designs
I definitely think it's like something's wrong there.
And so that's another reason again
to just get more solar than you think you'll need right now,
and that way you save money on that whole setup again,
and then the design if that's important to you at all
is something that will at least match down the road.
All told I'm really happy that we got solar when we did.
And I really do recommend it to almost everyone out there.
Again, if you wanna get a quote for your house,
head over to bensullins.com/EnergySage,
upload your info,
and just start seeing what installers
would put on your house,
and how much it would cost and all that.
There's no obligations again.
And it's just more info that you can use
to make a better decision
which of course is what I'm all about.
Also, if you wanna learn more about my powerwall setup,
and how I've tuned it to actually save me
even more money using the timer use pricing,
and this thing called peak shaving,
check out this video over here.
I did it not too long ago,
and I think there's some really great info on there
that might help you decide whether or not a home battery
is also worth it for you.
That's it for this one guys.
Lemme know what you think down in the comments.
Thanks for watching again.
And I'll see you back here in the next one.