The Chinese government has just taken steps to ensure that the country remains in the number 1 position.
Chinese manufacturers have now been forbidden to use or share their advanced solar manufacturing technologies overseas, according to the most recent export guidelines published by the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Science and Technology.
Asia Times reports:
Chinese firms produce more than 80% of the world’s solar panels and modules but have faced heavy tariffs imposed by the United States over the past decade.
Some of them moved their facilities to Thailand and Malaysia to avoid the tariffs but Beijing does not want them to take their core technologies abroad.
Technology experts said China wanted to prevent India from becoming one of the world’s major solar panel suppliers.
In 2011, the US Commerce Department ruled that China was dumping solar panels in the US market. In 2012, it imposed duties on Chinese solar panels.
Some Chinese solar panel makers moved to Taiwan to try to evade the tariffs but the US expanded its tariffs to apply to the island.
They then moved to Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. Last June, the Biden administration said it would waive tariffs on solar panels imported to the US from these four countries for 24 months.
To forbid more Chinese firms to transfer their core silicon technologies overseas, China’s commerce ministry last month proposed to include these technologies in its import and export guidelines.
This may sound like closing door after the horse is out of the barn, but that’s not quite the case. Companies may have moved some machines abroad already to make large-sized silicon – but when they need parts, machines and technical support they cannot any longer buy from mainland China
Beijing also proposed to restrict the export of the country’s laser radar, genome editing and agricultural cross-breeding technologies. A public consultation began on December 30 and ended on January 28.
After the consultation, the commerce industry decided to ban the export of large silicon, black silicon and cast-mono passivated emitter and rear cell (PERC) technologies.
A Chinese IT columnist said large silicons sized between 182mm and 210mm would become the world’s standard as their market share had grown from 4.5% in 2020 to 45% in 2021 and would probably increase to 90% in future.
Should you buy or lease your solar panel system? You already know that choosing solar has significant financial returns and environmental benefits, but there are questions you have to answer before you start to see your reader run backwards. Most importantly, how will you finance your system? There are solutions for every budget. There are two main financing options available when installing a solar energy system. One way is to buy the system like buying a house.
The other way is like renting an apartment. Both have benefits. Buying your system, is the best way to maximize your financial savings and returns. All the savings come straight to you. You can save between 40 % and 70 % over the lifetime of your solar panels.
Buying your system yourself, usually costs at least $10,000 to $20,000 after tax breaks and incentives. If you don’t have that kind of capital, many lending institutions around the country offer loans that are specific to going solar.
With loans, you can own your system with zero money down. If you own your solar panels, you can take advantage of the ITC, a federal tax credit that helps people pay for solar projects. The ITC lets you subtract 30 % of the cost of your system from your tax bill.
If your tax bill is smaller than the value of the ITC for your system, leasing can be a great option. Leasing is also ideal if you don’t want to pay the upfront costs or take out a loan or if your credit score is below 650.
When you lease your system, you sign an agreement with the company that owns the solar panels. In exchange for a set monthly payment, they install the panels on your property, for you to use and you enjoy the electricity produced for the length of the contract. Solar panels are very durable and require little to no maintenance during their 30 year lifespan. However, if you’re worried about maintenance, a solar lease might be a better option for you.
The company that owns the panels will be responsible for any repairs and they’ll come out and give you a hand. Now you know the different benefits of buying and leasing your solar energy system.
Got more questions? We’ve got the answers on our solar frequently asked questions.
Hey I’m Adam with the Solar Truth here and I’m with Andy out in Temecula California, and we did a really cool uh battery backup system, not totally off-grid. You know it is grid tied, but it could go off-grid.
You know we got battery solar, SolArK inverters and a 10.5 kilowatt LGsolar panel system um. You know so uh so Andy. If you want to uh just talk about why we, what your goal was here and and what we were trying to accomplish with your house yeah thanks Adam well, when I was looking for a solar system, I was really looking for a system that could take our House to be the on the critical circuit, so the whole house could be powered and um looking around at different systems and different companies.
I really couldn’t find a solution until I came to SunPro and I’m not being paid for this, but uh it’s for real. These guys know what they’re doing they do. Customized designs and you’ll see from the installation that uh it delivered exactly what they promised they would.
So it’s really great yeah and I know Andy’s uh, one of his big concerns was was off-grid. You know we’re out here. We’re actually just outside the fire zone, so we didn’t get like the really big battery rebate that is available in California for a little bit longer um.
But we got a pretty good uh uh size rebate, it’s about 6500 bucks yeah, just over 69 um, so which is the standard rebate but locked in at a tier that that kind of went away and it’s dwindling down um.
But we were able to reserve that a while ago and get that locked in what the concern was was a lot of production when we’re off grid, especially when uh in the winter like when the sun’s not out as much.
So. That’S why these these panels are actually at uh more tilted a little bit more than normal, so they’re at about they’re right about 30 degree angle at perfectly true magnetic south, and the reason for that is in the summer, with a little bit flatter array like 15 To 20 percent you’re getting more production because there’s more hours in the in the summer, the sun’s out longer, but in the winter you’re, not nearly as getting as much production when you don’t have as much sun.
So then you need more production to charge your batteries to get, you know that production too. So anyway, you get a little bit more uh winter production with this system and a little bit less summer production because of that, but overall the production isn’t much less cumulatively.
Um, so it’s you know going to provide more uh when you need it basically to get you through those winter nights and stuff, and then we did a pretty cool battery backup system here too, that we’ll show you in a second and you know able to provide um, you know pretty much all the power for his home here, so we got two solar, 12 kilowatt inverters here.
These are very popular with prepper scenarios. So in fact, a lot of people actually replace other battery systems like even Tesla powerwalls, for example, when they can’t provide enough power for backup cases.
So, there’s actually quite a few advantages with these, when you have off-grid one is, you can do dc connection to your solar. So if your battery totally drains a lot of battery systems, can’t even restart you have to like manually start them or charge the batteries, it can create a lot of problems, but with dc power.
As soon as that sun hits those panels, the batteries are charging and the system’s on. They also can do load shedding and reduce demand charges automatically like with commercial scenarios too so they’re just very universal and have they can auto start generators, there’s just a lot of capacity with these.
So if you know like here, we can add an auto start generator if you want now, you know if that ends up being needed, so we have uh. You know 12 kilowatts. What that does is one it can have a lot of solar connected to it.
You can have 12 to 16 kilowatts of solar actually connected to it, each one and then um they can do 50 amps of power each. So that means we got 100 amps of backup power, which you would need five Tesla Powerwalls to do that.
So we have one of those arrays out there connected to this one and then two of them connected to this one and then we’re charging our stores. Batteries that we have over here I’ll show those in a second and um yeah.
We’Ll do a live test also to shut the power off and and uh I’ll be out here, shutting it off and then we’ll video inside as it’s being shut off, and you know using you know whatever we want in the house, um with uh uh.
Basically, the power being awful okay, so we have a stores battery system here, uh. These have a lot of advantages versus a lot of batteries on the market. One is their lithium ion phosphate, which can’t catch fire explode.
It’s non-toxic lithium-ion technology, batteries like cell phones and cars, are lightweight, but they have those disadvantages to them. You know you shouldn’t put it on like a bedroom wall, for example, so these actually have 8000 life cycles, which will generally give you about 15 to 20 years of operating time.
Most battery systems are about 4000 life cycles and it’s a 15 year production warranty, uh they’re 5.12 kilowatt hours each. So the whole system is about 20.5 kilowatt hours, which will give you like one to two days run time uh when the when, when it’s raining and your solar is not working uh, it really depends on how many loads you have going and what you’re using off-grid Uh and when the power goes out, they’re also stackable up to 14 batteries.
So you could do a pretty large system you could add on later, so we can check out the inverter system now and show you the monitoring and and what you can all see from the system as it’s functioning. So the solar inverters, unlike a lot of other inverters out there, actually have a display screen on them and a mobile app.
So you can look at it. However, you want, you know you can come out here if uh something’s wrong with your phone and uh just tap on the screen there. Right now we have uh power comes from the solar, we have energy going to the grid.
We have energy going to the house and we have the battery state of charge so um on this one. We’Ve already had uh 48 kilowatt hours today and about half that, on the other one, with with a third of the arrays and uh, the battery is at 98 charge right now.
We have, you, know power going to the grid and to the home. So on your app um, you have uh everything you can see here too, and you can actually, you know, choose what you can see um and look at your production, the battery state of charge, uh the energy same.
You know same thing on there, except a little clearer and kind of all the options you want. Then you can adjust your settings on the inverters as well. Here. Our main panel here is actually a 400 amp panel um.
Our main disconnect is here, and then our solar inverters and the house is actually on this panel over here. So what I’m gonna do for this test is shut off our main panel and then we’re powering the backup panel and the solar and we’ll do a live feed into the house running stuff and show how that’s gonna work.
Okay, so we’re doing a live test. Now I’m gonna go ahead and shut off the main power to the house and we’re gonna run some equipment in the house. Here we go three two one all right: simulating uh, off-grid power shut off all right, everything’s still running.
There was just a slight little flicker and we’re boiling water right now on an induction cooktop and it’s on a boost setting the next thing we’re going to try is run the microwave. At the same time. Here we go we’re heating, a cup of water, with a microwave running at full blast, we’re boiling the water.
Now I’m going to turn on the oven. Okay, the oven is preheating and all our lights. Halogen lights are on indoors and not a hiccup everything’s running and now yeah over here we have, our solar inverter has uh, it shows the grids off, yellow and now all the power is coming from our solar system, as you can see there and the batteries as You can see here on both inverters, so that’s what our app will be, showing now too, that um the batteries are starting to discharge and uh there.
We got all our information there too, on the solar battery and everything pretty cool, all right cool. We have water boiling and the water’s boiling in here. You may recognize this because we were trying to do a different battery system before called Paladin, and it sounded amazing.
It kind of sounded too good to be true to be honest and uh that that’s what I believe it was kind of too good to be true, so you got to be really careful. You know SolArk has been around for a long time, so we ended up uh just having a lot of delays not able to get the battery.
We got the the container, and that was it just the cabinet. The batteries going, no inverters, no batteries or anything and uh. You know I didn’t want to. I didn’t trust that uh, that it was gonna happen.
So I ended up switching to SolArk, which just has a lot of advantages that are uh, reliable and they’ve been around for a long time. I think, like at least like 10 years and um uh they’re they’re, probably the most common battery in a proper situation.
They’Ve won awards for being the best thought out: uh off-grid battery system and uh generator uh available battery, so uh. This is a great way to go and it’s got a great monitoring system, just everything’s dialed in so it ends up being just an amazing solution.
If you need a lot of power off-grid all right, thanks for watching our video on Sol-ark, live test demonstration with our off-grid or grid tie, but can go off-grid battery backup system uh. That test we did was actually the first test we had done here and uh.
It was live and um, you know no edits and we just filmed it as it was and worked great worked perfectly so um that was pretty awesome and um. Uh yeah make sure you like and subscribe to the videos I’m gonna try to do a lot more of these videos of like pretty cool off-grid systems.
We’ve been doing a lot. I’ve been helping a lot of battery backup systems, mainly because of the fire rebate out in California, because it’s just such a good rebate. That’s uh, amazing and uh, sadly not going to be available for very much longer because it looks like they’re, not funding it.
Uh more so join us next time and thanks for watching
What makes the sol-ark different in the solar industry is our inverter technology. We are a hybrid all-in-one inverter, we are a transformerless inverter. We are battery agnostic, so you can actually use the sol-ark with any battery out there and we work well with existing systems.
So if a customer has a grid-tied system and they want to retrofit it to an off-grid system battery backup, we can do that. The primary thing that I see that sol-ark does different than other companies in the solar industry is the support I hear from customers and Installers all the time that, because we do try to answer the phone as fast as we can answer emails as fast as we can and having seven-day support so that, if someone’s got a system that is down, we try to get that system up and running for them as fast as we possibly can hands down. I think EnergySage is a testament to how pleased our customers are with us and we will always support them, whether it is the installer, the end-user or DIY-er.
So our core values are know. You bring the energy, stay grounded, reach your potential radical support, family power and all-in. So the thing that puts sol-ark ahead of every other company is just the work atmosphere, the work culture as well as the customer support and our dedication and attention to detail to what we do.
I see sol-ark going pretty much uh, probably dominating the uh, the inverter industry. It seems like what we’ve got does everything that the customers needed to do with the being able to parallel stack them to make a bigger system? At the same time, we’ve got the smaller systems that are available.
I’Ve been here for almost a year and I’ve seen the company doubling in size. I really see us kind of taking over the inverter industry.
Okay, well, everybody’s looking for a good solar system installation, but there are a few core components and the actual work on your house on your roof is really just one of them. So what makes up a good installation? It is the entire package.
First, we’re going to look at your system design. Not all solar energy systems are the same. We’ve got to look at product selection, make sure the product we’re using is right for what we’re trying to achieve at your place.
Then we’re looking at planning. We’re going to look at planning and make sure that where we’re putting solar panels on your roof and where we’re putting the equipment is really the right location. One size doesn’t fit all.
The physical installation then comes along. We’re going to work on your home after we’ve planned it so our team know exactly what they’re going to achieve on site. Commissioning is really important. As we move through this process, we’re going to make sure what we’ve installed is working and then we’re going to hand over the solar system to you so that you understand exactly what you had installed and how it’s going to work.
Then we move to day two, quality checks are really important. We’ll do those remotely and sometimes we’ll come to
site and do quality checks but importantly we’re going
to make sure the system has been set up the way we
intended it to be designed and then we’re going to look
at performance monitoring.
All of our solar pv systems we’re watching to make sure the output of the system matches what we sold you and then after we moved forward, support and problem resolution is really important. We’ve got to make sure that if there’s a problem in your site it’s resolved quickly and you know what’s going on.
So please talk to us about the entire package. We’ll give you a great installation. We’re going to help you understand what’s going to work right for you. It could be the best 10 minutes of your solar power journey.
Welcome to the Solar Energy Channel, where you’ll get an honest inside look at all things solar. In this video, we’re gonna talk about three great alternatives to the Tesla Powerwall. I’m Warren and I’m Larry.
And don’t forget to like, and subscribe so that you’ll receive notifications for future videos, just like this. You know Larry, everybody’s heard of the Tesla Powerwall. It’s a popular product, people associated with Tesla and the company and the brand, but there are great alternatives to the Powerwall that are out there.
Great, let’s dive into that first option, the LG Chem battery with the SolarEdge storage option. How is that better than a Powerwall? – Yeah so one of the really neat things about the SolarEdge Energy Hub system with the LG Chem battery is that you can add up to three inverters to one backup system, and each inverter can have up to two batteries.
So you can end up with a lot of storage, not only that, but you can also integrate an EV charger as well, which is another neat feature with the energy hub. So now let’s talk about Larry, SMA with the same LG Chem battery and how that compares to a Tesla Powerwall.
Yeah, so SMA is a AC coupled system, which means that you can add it onto an existing system. That’s the great part about the SMA inverter setup. It’s a great add on solution, which is really their strength.
They don’t have the option to integrate with the EV charger, but it’s a great add on solution. – Great, so you could decide to do that at any time. You can put in solar now and add on an SMA battery with the LG Chem a year from now or six months from now.
Correct, yup. – And then finally, let’s talk about the Enphase system. – Enphase also has a great system and it’s similar and set up to the SolarEdge Energy Hub, in that you can add multiple batteries.
You can set it up to backup your whole house. If you’d like to do that. Enphase can be a little bit more expensive, than SolarEdge Energy Hub, but another great technology. Great, and overall, the SolarEdge with the SMA with the LG Chem batteries or the Enphase, how do they compare price-wise to the Powerwall? Yeah, great questions.
So they’re all gonna be a little bit more expensive than the Powerwall overall, but they’re also more robust and have additional features that you can build out to your system. Great. – So in summary, the Tesla Powerwall is a great brand.
It’s a great product, but there’s three
alternatives that we think are just as good or better
to the Tesla Powerwall. That’s the SolarEdge Energy Hub Inverter with an LG Chem battery,
an SMA battery inverter with that same LG Chem battery, or the Enphase Encharge system.
And the nice thing about the SMA battery inverter is that you can install it either during your solar installation or at any time after. So if you have an existing system, and you’re thinking about adding on batteries, that may be a great solution for you.
Thanks for watching, if you enjoyed this content, don’t forget to like this video and subscribe to our channel for future releases.
I have reviewed some power stations in the past few months, but the VESTWOODS Power I’m going to present today seems to have unique highlights that make it different from the rest. And today they invited me to their lab to check out everything.
So, what’s special about it? Let’s take a closer look! Starting with the unboxing. We have a bag of accessories that you need to get this power station to work and the main VESTWOODS Power unit. Definitely included for the official unit will be some paperwork like a manual or warranty card.
Moving on to the design, here are all the
ports on the machine. We have two communication ports, an ON/OFF
switch, and two sets of positive and negative ports. Moving down are the indicators. Turning to the back, we have the bracket so
you can mount the machine to your wall if needed.
While today in the lab, we are not going to mount it on a wall. We’ll just put it on the floor to test. But before the test, let me walk you through the key specs first. The one we were testing was the VE51100W model with a 5.12KWh capacity, they have a larger version boasting a capacity of 14.33 kWh. The cost that comes with such an enormous capacity of course is the weight. The weight of the two is 54kg and 128.5kg respectively, this is definitely not something you can easily move around.
But we can see the logic here, they are designed
to let you mount on a wall or put in a corner instead of moving it around. It has more than 6000 cycles and was designed
to use for more than 15 years.
For others, you can check out on the screen. To use the VESTWOODS Power, you have to connect it to a solar inverter, VESTWOODS also sells that as well. We use the cables that come with the box to connect the positive, negative port, and the Communication cable with the solar inverter, and then press the ON/OFF switch to turn it on.
As we can see, the indicator will light up as well. Now moving to the max loading power test. Of course, the max loading power relates to the solar inverter as well. I’m just so glad that it handles those high-power electrical appliances without a hiccup.
The next test is the charging and discharging speed. We used the RePower, a professional battery test machine to test that, as you can see it reached almost 100amp for charging, which means, theoretically, you could fully charge this 5.12KWh capacity in just one hour because the VESTWOODS battery backup we were testing came with 51.2 nominal voltage. That’s fast compared to some of the big players on the market. And here is the discharging.
Just like you would expect, the VESTWOODS Power offers an App. Here on the home page, you can clearly see the status of it. How much power you get from the solar panel or the grid and the remaining capacity and consumption of the battery.
You can check your production power and consumption each day. You can view more from the Statistics, so you will know your total production, total grid Feed-in, etc. Also, you can check more data about your Inverter.
Alright, that’s a very simple and first
look at the VESTWOODS Power. Compared to the “Portable” Power Stations
I’ve reviewed before, the advantages are obvious, it offers a massive capacity that
lasts for days that other normal ones couldn’t even imagine.
It integrates with your family grid power system seamlessly even when power outages occur, your power still stays on. And it stores solar energy. This is great as you probably live in an area with time-of-use charges, like the sample plan in California, 33 cents from 8 am to 4 pm and then 53 cents from 4 pm to 9 pm, that’s a much higher rate.
All solar generation happens during the day so if you are not home and you are not consuming that power you could store it in your battery and use it when the peak charges are present. But like all such battery backups, they are not cheap, definitely more expensive than let’s say, a whole home generator.
Usually, the price lies between $15,000 to
$20,000 for a 10 – 15 kWh backup. Gladly, if we compared to other big brands,
VESTWOODS still has the best price per Wh. Thus reliability and safety are the two most
important factors when buying such battery backups.
The VESTWOODS adopts a new Lithium Iron Phosphate battery technology, which has a higher resistance to thermal runaway, and doesn’t set on fire or explode under pressure so they are safe and reliable, with 6,000 cycles and 10 years of warranty, that could definitely earn back all you invest for such a product.
So if you experience power outages often for an extended period of time and you want to be able to stay warm or cold, or for those areas with extreme weather events that are without power for weeks that could lead to severe damage, then this VESTWOODS is more of a convenience reason to buy and sometimes even a necessity, what do you think?
This is the largest solar energy plant in the United States, with more than eight million solar panels and an area roughly 16 kilometers in size. The project was announced back in 2011 and intended to transform the energy sector throughout California, but nearly 1.4 billion dollars later. Why did the U.S. government build this massive solar facility and how has it impacted, California’s goals of operating on 100% renewable energy? The desert sunlight solar farm was first announced back in 2011 and was completed just four years.
The solar farm is co-owned by three different companies: Next Era Energy Resources, GE financial services and the Sumitomo corporation of America. All share ownership of the facility. The solar farm generates enough electricity to power more than 160 thousand California homes after being produced.
The electricity is then sold to the Southern California Edison company under a 25-year power purchase agreement, in addition to the direct jobs created by the solar farm, it’s estimated that the project will create nearly one billion dollars in economic activity throughout the state over the life of the project.
To understand the real goal of this facility, we need to take a look at the current energy situation in California. Currently, natural gas is the largest source of energy for the state, accounting for about 50 percent of energy production, with roughly half of the state’s energy being produced by non-renewable forms of electricity.
Throughout the past few decades, solar energy in the state has been rapidly expanding into hundreds of new facilities. To date, the state government has spent upwards of 73 billion dollars on various solar energy projects throughout the state, and there are a number of reasons behind this.
For one studies have revealed that California is the best state to build solar farms resulting in the maximum effectiveness of each of the panels. The state sees nearly 300 sunny or partly cloudy days per year, allowing the solar farms to profit from electricity on nearly every single day of the year.
Additionally, the state has many vast areas of open land that can be turned into solar farms when it comes to desert sunlight, solar farm, the state needed a large area capable of storing nearly 8 million solar panels, while at the same time maximizing the effectiveness of this Multi-Billion dollar project in the end, the project’s success can be tied to the effectiveness of building solar farms in the state of California.
Today, desert sunlight solar farm supplies electricity to more than 160,000 homes and helps solar make up about 17 of the state’s total energy production. In all, there are more than 750 solar facilities across the state, and the government is continuously working to expand into even more facilities in the coming years.
California has a goal of using 100% renewable energy by 2045.. In order to meet these ambitious deadlines, the state government is developing a number of renewable energy projects and legislation to go along with them, in addition to the state having the best conditions for solar farms.
One of the most important factors is the economics behind building a solar facility in the past, solar has been unreliable and extremely expensive, making the return on investment take extremely long amounts of time.
This has then obstructed plans for large-scale solar facilities to be constructed, but recently the developments of new and advanced solar technology have allowed solar farms and solar panels to become a lot more affordable.
The types of panels that these large-scale farms are using are called photovoltaic panels. When the sun shines onto these panels, the energy from the sunlight is absorbed into the interior cells and into a conductive wire from there.
The electricity is distributed to either a storage facility or directly for usage in the past. Photovoltaic panels have been extremely expensive to build and operate, but throughout the past few years, prices for these panels have dropped by double digit figures.
This has then allowed more companies and state governments to begin investing into solar technology. Well, these panels are mainly for converting sunlight into electricity. Regular solar panels are mainly used for turning solar radiation into heat energy.
This then creates the difference between utility scale solar panels and residential scale. Solar technology will the availability of open land and the economics behind these panels are factors behind the rapid expansion of solar energy.
We also have to account for the reliability of solar power compared to other forms of electricity generation. Studies have found that for every 10,000 solar panels in operation, roughly five of them end up failing every year.
This very minimal percentage of the total panels allows them to be more reliable than other forms of power generation for a state such as California, solar energy is currently allowing the state to suffer the decrease in production by hydroelectric power as a result of the ongoing drought.
The production of hydroelectricity in the state has been steadily declining throughout the past few years as the water levels at the hoover dam and many other reservoirs have fallen to extremely low levels.
This is just another key cause of the state’s rapid expansion into solar energy production. As we can see, this project has worked out very well for the state of California and the U.S. Department of Energy.
The purpose of this facility was to profit from a very large area of land in central California and continue expanding the state’s network of solar farms. But not everyone is in agreement with this transition into renewable energy, while the state of California is promoting further construction of new solar farms.
Not everyone is in agreement with this transition into renewable energy. We have to keep note of the many disadvantages that solar energy farms come along with. They may alter the landscape and environment in negative ways, and they take up a very large amount of space.
These factors influence where solar farms can be built and if they receive permits for construction. The problem is that there has been disagreement between the state government and local residents debating as to where solar farms should be built, how large they will be and the local impacts of the projects.
Various studies have revealed that solar farms can reduce surrounding property values, and this has caused the disagreement when it comes to constructing new solar facilities. Because of this, the state has chosen to build some of the largest solar farms in remote areas of the state where they are not negatively affecting property values nearby.
In the end, these debates will unfortunately, continue as the state looks, to continue constructing even more solar facilities. Throughout the next few decades, in the end, the department of energy has invested such a large amount of money into this project because of the long-term benefits of solar energy production, while California does have ideal conditions to build solar farms.
There is a long list of benefits that come along with this technology. The economics behind these panels have also convinced many companies to dive into solar energy and build massive production farms across the state.
Today, California is seeing the most benefits from its investments into solar energy. As non-renewable forms of energy production have either become too expensive or not as effective as they previously were, while the state has invested billions of dollars into solar technology.
Recent reports have stated that the entire state may still face electricity shortages as a result of transitioning away from fossil fuels. While we have yet to see the full effect of this initiative, only time will tell if california’s investment into solar energy really pays off.
Thank you for watching and please consider subscribing. If you enjoyed the video you
NARRATOR: Solar panels are built to last decades, thanks to NREL scientists like Tim, who have a long history of destroying solar panels. TIM SILVERMAN: I study the way that solar panels wear out and break down outside.
So, my job is to break solar panels. NARRATOR: Not only are NREL scientists constantly finding new ways to make solar cells, they’re finding creative ways to break them, too… to test their reliability.
And while their latest contraption looks like it belongs at a heavy metal concert, it’s actually designed to reveal how tiny invisible cracks can add up to long-term damage. TIM SILVERMAN: It’s easy to cause invisible damage, and it’s a lot harder to figure out what the long-term effects are.
And this new test is about figuring out those long-term effects. NARRATOR: Informed by computer simulations of wind in real power plants, Tim and his team use speakers to drive pressure cycles.
They can run a million realistic pressure
cycles a day to speed up the testing process— cutting patience out of the equation. TIM SILVERMAN: What we’re doing is wearing out cracks
that are already there.
That helps us get closer to understanding how things are really going to play out outside. NARRATOR: This kind of accelerated testing helps the scientists who make the solar panels understand what stresses they need to design their materials around, which helps the industry put higher-quality, more reliable solar panels on the market.
TIM SILVERMAN: Better tests mean better predictions and better products. When it comes to solar panels, we break them better so that manufacturers can make them better.
With thousands of solar panel manufacturers around the world, it can be tough and confusing to pick the best solar panels for your home. Don’t worry, though, because in this video we’ve put together a list of the 7 best solar panels for home use in 2022, since no 2 homes are completely the same, we categorize the list to highlight which of these top-rated choices would be ideal to meet your needs, to further help you decide the right solar panel for your home.
We will share with you the key qualities for each model, such as the size, weight, energy output, efficiency and warranty program for more information and the updated prices of the solar panel systems check out the links in the description box below now.
Let’s get into the top 7 best solar panels for your home. First off, we have the best budget solar panel, let’s begin with the best solar panel for those with a limited budget, the astronergy chsm 6612m365 compared to other models within the same price range.
The solar panel has a pretty solid, build weighing about 48 pounds or 106 kilos. In terms of efficiency, expect it to be somewhere between 17.7 percent to 18.9 percent, one of the great things about astroneergy, a brand that belongs to one of the biggest electronic manufacturers in china, is the 12-year product warranty in comparison.
The affordable models from other companies tend to have 10-year product warranties. Only for the performance warranty, the company guarantees their product to retain its efficiency after 25 years of usage.
Moreover, astronergy has partnered with australia’s clean energy regulator in 2019. This means that their products undergo strict quality validation before being released in the market next would be the best us-made solar panel in the u.s. Some homeowners believe that locally made solar panels are more affordable than imported ones because of the taxes and import fees involved. The thing is, the price gaps between the local and imported solar panels have been shrinking in the past few years.
What sets support the american based manufacturers, however, is their accessibility. They produce and assemble the solar panels and factories within North America. So you can easily order a unit and have it delivered immediately in case you need to have the solar panel repaired or replaced the processing time tends to be shorter too.
So if you’re looking for the best North American made solar panel, that is price competitive, we suggest the Helene 320 black mono perk. The company itself is in Ontario Canada, but it has some factories in the us too.
This model features a 60 cell monocrystalline panel. The power rating for the solar panel is 320 watts, with an efficiency rating of 19.26 for the degradation state. Helene states that it’s negative 0.7 percent per year, as you can see, even though clean is priced a little bit more than astronergy. It makes up for it with a higher efficiency rating of its solar panels. For the customer’s peace of mind, the company also offers a 10-year product warranty and 25-year performance warranty and now for the best premium solar panel.
What if budget is not an issue for you in case you fall into this category. The best premium solar panel on the market this year is the lg solar, 375 q1c v5. For years, lg solar panels have been considered by experts and consumers as the top of the line.
This specific model has a 60 cell mono crystalline black panel and a power rating of 375 watts. It weighs almost 40 pounds or 18 kilos with physical dimensions that are a lot more compact than most of the lower priced models, which typically have 72 cell panels.
According to lg, the efficiency of the solar panel is 21.7 and their performance warranty is set at 90.8 percent after 25 years of usage, given that the industry standard is somewhere around 80, only for the same period, you’re truly getting your money’s worth with this model, and Now, for the most efficient solar panel, despite the premium specs of a recommended lg solar panel, it still isn’t the most efficient model in the market.
Today, with the advancements in cell technology, some new releases have crossed the 22 mark for efficiency if you’re after the most efficient model. The best solar panel for you is the sun power sbr max 3 400 or better known as the maxeon 3., with a 104 mono crystalline panel and a 400 watt power rating. It promises to convert a lot more solar energy into electricity using less space compared to other models. Your long-term savings will also be maximized, since its module efficiency is rated at 22.6 to 22.8 percent, similar to lg sunpower offers a 25 year warranty period for both the product and the performance. The degradation per year is also quite low. So, by the time you reach the end of the warranty, the retained power output of the sun solar panel will still be 90 or even higher and now for the best mid-range solar panel, looking for something in between the affordable and premium solar panels.
At the moment, the best mid-range option is the Panasonic hit n300, though it has less power than the most expensive n340 model from the same manufacturer. This 300 watt solar panel makes up for it with its efficiency rating of 19.5 percent. For the first year of use, the n300 will have a performance degradation of around 3 percent. This doesn’t mean it has a poor system, though, because the degradation rate will drop to 0.5 percent for each succeeding year.
Furthermore, panasonic offers a 25-year performance warranty for this model and now for the best portable solar panel. The solar panels aren’t just for the typical home settings. If you live in an rv or a boat home, you can power things up with the use of compact solar panels for mobile applications.
Like these, we highly recommend the sol go: xg flex 115 sx. The team behind salgo consists of former sunpower employees who dealt with specialty products. That’s why the design for this portable solar panel makes it quite easy to install the materials used for its construction.
Are waterproof lightweight and can be bent up to 30 degrees weighing only 4.8 pounds or 2.2 kilos? The 115 watt class has a high power density that would likely meet the electrical requirements of your rv or boathouse, since it is designed for non-typical living conditions.
The 5-year power warranty has no salt water exclusion and, last but not least, the sturdiest solar panel. If you live somewhere with strong winds, though, we believe that the Peimar sm325m solar panel is the best pick for you in case you’re not familiar with this brand Peimar is an Italian company that focuses on manufacturing, solar panels with high efficiency.
The majority of their products feature sleek black cells and panels. What makes the sm-3325m ideal for rough weather is its maximum wind load at 5,400 pascals. The capacity of the solar panel to withstand windy conditions is more than twice the majority of mid-range models.
The Peimar solar panel has a 325 watt mono crystalline panel and an efficiency of about 19.5 percent. Another reason to pick this model is the extended warranty periods that the company offers to its customers.
The product warranty lasts for 20 years, while the performance warranty is up to 30 years, while it’s important to consider your budget and the specs of the solar panel models, you must also think about the return on investment going for affordable options will reduce your upfront expenses.
If you pick the ones we’ve recommended in this video, then you can expect great performance and stellar customer service from the manufacturers. However, compared to the premium models, the degradation rates of the cheaper solar panels tend to be significantly faster.
Typically, the chance of technical or performance issues occurring would surge up after five to eight years of usage in comparison. Solar panels on the higher end of the market would prove their value in the long run by the 10th year of operation.
Premium models would likely be generating 10 percent more power each year than the more affordable options. So what do you think of our suggestions for the 7 best solar panels for home use? Did you find one that matches your needs comment below and let us know your favorites on the list or if you have other recommendations to share with your fellow homeowners, if you enjoyed this video, make sure to subscribe to our channel and hit the bell to get Updated when we release more videos, just like this one, thanks again for watching and I’ll see you in the next video.
Welcome to The Solar Energy Channel where you’ll get an honest inside look at all things solar. In this video, we’re going to discuss how child and forced labor practices in a western province in China are impacting the solar industry.
I’m Warren – And I’m Larry, and don’t forget to like and subscribe so that you’ll receive notifications for future videos, just like this. – So Larry, in this video, we’re talking about a specific province in China, western province that’s known to have child and forced labor practices.
And unfortunately that’s where a lot of solar components come from or the silicon at least. – That’s correct Warren. It’s affecting really the entire world, in the solar industry particularly the US, China and all countries for that matter because it affects where a lot of the raw materials come from for solar modules.
So what’s happening there is customs is holding a lot of solar modules at the border, nearly all of the solar modules that are trying to make their way into the country, are being held at the border, until manufacturers can produce a documentation that their raw materials don’t come from that province in China.
So this is just a confluence of delays that we’re seeing with solar panels. First it started with COVID and all the manufacturing delays that came with that. Then we had the delays in shipments getting it across the oceans to the United States.
And on top of all of this, their solar panels are now being delayed in customs. – That’s correct, yes. So there’s a lot of delays that we’re seeing right now with our product. And I just wanna be clear that here at Paradise, we stand with customs border patrol, we’re against the child labor and the forced labor.
Unfortunately it affects
a lot of what we do, in a lot of our product. – So in summary, we’re just talking about
a specific region in China that is responsible for the majority of the production of
silicon across the globe.
And unfortunately, those silicon based solar panels are being held at US customs ports around the country. At paradise energy solutions, we’re in full support of this withholding release order. We do not support forced or child labor.
And so we’re just hopeful that the United States
customs and border patrol will be able to put process in place that allows them to identify
the origin of the silicon, so we can get panels from
other regions of the world, into the United States
sooner rather than later.
Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed this content don’t forget to like this video and subscribe to our channel for future releases.
I’m Warren. – And I’m Larry. And don’t forget to like, and subscribe so that you’ll receive notifications for future videos just like this. – So Larry, why don’t you break it down for us.
What’s the difference between the two inverters? – So these inverters have some similarities. They both have the built-in rapid shutdown, shade mitigation features. However, the primary difference is that, Enphase will produce AC power on your rooftop, whereas SolarEdge will put DC power down to the inverter on the side of your house, and then produce AC from there.
All right, so Larry, what’s the benefit of going with Enphase? – There’s two main benefits that I can think of with Enphase, one is their 25 year warranty. And then the second one is that all your inverters are up on the roof.
So you don’t have that inverter on the side of your house. – Which can be a challenge as well. It’s a benefit in terms of space, but if you’re coming to do work and repair work, you’ve got to get up on the roof and remove panels in order to get to the inverter.
That’s true. So on the maintenance side, while both of these inverters are high quality inverters, we’ve had a lot of experience with both. If you replace a SolarEdge inverter on the side of your house, that’s much easier than going up on the roof replacing the microinverter.
And then what are some of the benefits of going with SolarEdge and optimizers? – So some of the benefits of SolarEdge, first of all cost, they tend to be a little bit cheaper than Enphase. They also integrate quite well with batteries and with EV chargers and with some other technologies that SolarEdge is working on and coming out with.
What about the warranties of SolarEdge? – Yes, so I mentioned Enphase has the 25 year warranty. SolarEdge comes with a 12 year on the inverter, 25 year on the optimizer. That can be extended to 25 on the inverter if you pay some additional.
One of the benefits of
SolarEdge’s warranty is that they do pay a labor reimbursement to whoever comes out to replace parts for a longer period of time
than what Enphase does. So that is an added benefit
for the SolarEdge system – Great.
You know I struggled with this decision myself when I put solar on my roof. I ended up deciding to go with Enphase for the 25 year warranty, but they’re both great options. So in summary, both SolarEdge and Enphase inverters are great options that will both give you more panel level monitoring.
They both can have up
to 25 year warranties. You might pay a little more
for that on the SolarEdge, but the SolarEdge is a
less expensive option that really provides
you all of the benefits that you get with Enphase.
Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed this content, don’t forget to like this video and subscribe to our channel for future releases.
Several new polysilicon production factories have come online, resulting in a major decline in the price of polysilicon wafers. Those wafers are the building blocks for solar panels, being pieced together into a complete module.
Several big solar-panel makers are ramping up production in a boon to clean energy. A key reason: the collapse of material costs that had been elevated for more than a year.
Three leading Chinese module manufacturers are bumping up January output forecasts, according to Shanghai Metals Market, which didn’t identify its sources. Promising near-term demand is another factor driving the output boost.
The world is racing to fight climate change, but accessing solar panels has been a challenge in some markets including the US. A surge of cheap panels would help countries reduce their dependence on fossil fuels and potentially lower power prices.
Solar demand has been growing for several years, but manufacturers were hamstrung in 2021 and 2022 by a rare stretch of increasing material costs for polysilicon — a key material for most panels.
This specifically designed off-grid system was installed at cannons creek in the scenic rim region of queensland and is the first stage of a project Springers Solar will manage moving this home to complete self-sustainability.
The customer approached Springers Solar before building their energy-efficient holiday home not wanting a large space occupied by a battery bank they required the tidiest setup as possible. So for Springers have installed 22 Winaico 325 watt full black modules, each panel is fitted with a SolarEdge DC optimizer and the entire system is managed by a SolarEdge 6kW HD wave inverter. Springers Solar also installed 2 Powerwall units and a generator.
The property has a tablet installed for on-site monitoring at any time all components used have off-site monitoring capabilities easily accessed from anywhere in Australia. Once completed the system will double in size with 2 more batteries and 22 more solar panels booked for installation when the remainder of the property has been built.
Due to the location and cost of grid establishment, the customer needed complete off-grid functionality installing a generator was essentially to operate as backup power for the solar modules and Powerwall units. We will return to Cannon’s Creek once the project is completed to see how the system is performing. Thank you for watching leave us a like, comment, and subscribe for more videos like this
Welcome to The Solar Energy Channel where you’ll get an honest inside look at all things solar. In this video, we’re going to talk about virtual net metering for solar energy or otherwise known as meter aggregation.
I’m Warren. – And I’m Larry, and don’t forget to like and subscribe so that you’ll receive notifications for future videos, just like this. – So Larry, why don’t you tell us what is virtual net metering or meter aggregation? – Meter aggregation is a really neat concept, which allows you to build one system tied into one meter and then use the overproduction from that one system to virtually supply kilowatt hours to another meter.
And the benefit of that or an ideal case study use case for that would be a farm or a business that has a perfect location for solar, but they have multiple meters and they don’t want to have to trench or try and connect that solar array to multiple different meters.
That’s correct, so now instead of building multiple systems which take multiple designs and multiple installations, you can now do one big system on one meter and virtually aggregate that power to all the other meters.
And it also saves money on fees associated with each of those meters as well. – Correct. – So not everybody qualifies for meter aggregation in states it’s a little different in each state and it’s also a little different between each utility.
So maybe why don’t you give us an example Larry of Pennsylvania and how meter aggregation is handled in Pennsylvania. – So here in Pennsylvania, meter aggregation is allowed. However, there’s a requirement that all your meter that you’re aggregating to are in the same utility and also that they’re all within two miles of the host meter or the meter where you’re tying your system into.
In addition to that different utilities do handle the crediting of kilowatt hours a little bit differently, – But anybody can qualify if they meet those qualifications. – Correct. – And so that’s a little different Larry compared to Maryland.
For example in Maryland, you have to be a farmer or
nonprofit or a government entity in order to take advantage
of virtual net metering. – Yeah that’s great
Warren, and so in summary, virtual meter aggregation is a great tool if you have multiple meters and wanna save costs by
installing just one system.
However the key is to check with your installer to make sure that your local utility and your state allow you to virtually meter aggregate in your area. – Thanks for watching. If you found this content helpful, don’t forget to like the video and subscribe to our channel for future releases
Welcome to the Solar Energy Channel, where you’ll get an honest inside look at all things solar. In this video, we’re gonna talk about solar inverter clipping. I’m Warren. – And I’m Larry, and don’t forget to like, and subscribe so that you’ll receive notifications for future videos, just like this.
So, Larry, what exactly is inverter clipping? – So inverter clipping, Warren, happens when your solar modules are producing more DC power than what your inverter can actually harvest. – And when would you choose to start clipping? – Yeah, so there’s a couple of situations where you might design so that your inverter clips more often.
One would be, if you have a limitation like a transformer size or
maybe utility size limitation, where you’ll build the
inverter to match that size, and then you’ll have a
much larger DC system size. So even though you’re clipping
during the highest production times of the day, during
those shorter times, you’re still producing the full amount of what that inverter
can actually produce.
So that begs the question, Larry, should I rather have more solar panels or more inverters? – That’s the real question, Warren. And that’s something that we look at on a case by case basis. We look at all the variables for your system and determine how big the inverter should be versus the solar module size so that we can build that system to produce as many kilowatt hours per system costs as, as humanly possible.
So in summary, your design team may choose to use inverters that will require some clipping to in order to either save you money or to meet the requirements of the utility company, their transformer sizes, et cetera.
Thanks for watching, if you enjoyed this content, don’t forget to like this video and subscribe to our channel for future releases.
Welcome to The Solar Energy Channel, where you’ll get an honest inside look, at all things solar. In this video, we’re gonna talk about how Paradise Energy Solutions determines the size of your solar energy system.
I’m Warren. – And I’m Larry, and don’t forget to like, and subscribe so that you’ll receive notifications for future videos, just like this. So Warren, when the sales team goes out to a customer’s house, what are they looking for? What information do they gather? – Yeah, great question Larry, so the first thing we do is we go to the location, and we’ll take several pictures.
We’ll take a picture of the transformer so we know where it is and what size it is, we’ll take a picture of where the solar’s gonna go, whether that’s out in the field or on the roof, we’ll take a picture of the customer’s utility meter, as well as your electric panels so we know what breaker sizes they have or server size they have there.
And then finally, we’ll get a
copy of their electric bill. And we do an analysis to
see how much energy they use in a one-year period. And then we take all of that information, and we send it over to our design team for them to design the system.
Let’s talk about that Larry, what do you guys do once you receive all the information from the sales team? – Yeah, good question Warren. So we take that information. Our first goal is to try to cover a 100% of the customer’s electricity usage.
That’s what we focus on. That’s what most of our
customers want to see. We look at things like weather, tilt and orientation of
the roof, shading, soiling, those kinds of things that will cut down the production of the system.
And then of course we look at the size and space that’s available for the solar project, and we fit as many panels as we can on that space, and try to get as close to a 100% as we can within reason. And then of course there’s other potential restrictions like the transformer size, the service size, some of those kinds of things that we’ll look at as well towards the end of the design process.
So it’s not as simple as thinking if I use 1,000 kilowatt hours a month, I’m gonna need 12,000 kilowatt hours a year, so I need a 12 KW system, it doesn’t work like that? – It doesn’t quite work that way no.
Typically the system is a little bit smaller than your total overall usage. And our goal is to piece that all together into a reasonable, good looking system that covers your electric usage. – So in summary, our sales team will come out, they’ll do an analysis onsite, gather all the information they need to hand over to our design team, who will then account for all of the other variables, such as shading, soiling, and space, so that we can design a solar electric system that’s designed to cover as much of your electricity as possible.
Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed this content, don’t forget to like this video, and subscribe to our channel for future releases.
Gigawatts upon gigawatts of clean, green solar capacity is being churned out by high-tech factories all around the world. But how are solar panels actually made? Join us now on a sun-seeking sojourn as we look inside a solar panel factory.
Last month the Indian government announced it had reached the psychologically important milestone of 100 gigawatts in nationwide renewable energy capacity. India, eager to develop its renewable infrastructure, may yet reach its ambitious target of 175 gigawatts on-stream in the year 2022, and 450 GW overall renewable energy capacity by the close of this decade.
To do that, Indians will need to make solar panels. Lots of them. Vikram Solar is one of a few big players in the field vying for a slice of this lucrative growing market. And Vikram recently expanded its own capacity by a not-insignificant 1.3GW through the opening of its new 130,000 square feet plant in Oragadam, Tamil Nadu. So let’s see what goes down inside. Solar panels, also called solar modules, are made up of a number of individual solar cells.
These cells can trace their origins back to simple silica sand, from which silicon is extracted. Silicon is the second-most-abundant element found in the earth’s crust by the way. So we’re not likely to run out any time soon.
Cooked at 2,000 degrees Celsius in a furnace along with a source of carbon, the raw element is then cooled to create metallurgical grade silicon. This is usually liquified again in order to remove remaining impurities.
It’s then blended with a pinch of boron and a dash of phosphorus, molded into ingots then sliced into tiny wafers less than 0.2mm thick. These wafers are then coated with silicon nitride and roughed up a bit to create texture and reduce reflectivity – any light that bounces off a solar panel is wasted, of course.
A silver paste is then applied to the front and rear surface and, pretty much, that’s your solar cell. At Vikram Solar’s new Tamil Nadu facility, these incoming cells are visually inspected to find any obvious cracks or breakages.
Cracks in the solar cells render them useless for large modular applications like solar panels. But more often than not, smaller sections of solar cell can be cut away and used for smaller, less intensive off-grid applications, like solar powered toys.
After this manual visual inspection, the first of several tests under blasts of artificial sunlight, to check they work, is undertaken. Then a hydraulic conveyor system introduces a layer of EVA – that stands for Ethylene-vinyl acetate – to a flat pane of tempered glass.
This EVA layer serves as an adhesive to hold fast the rows of solar cells that are automatically laid on the pane in a careful tile pattern, by this six-axis robot arm that can move 12 cells at once.
The cells are connected to each other, and ultimately the grid, via a criss-cross pattern of narrow metal ‘fingers’ and fatter ‘busbars’ . These carry electrons generated from the activated cells to the tab wires and beyond, to whatever the panel will ultimately power.
Engineers looking to maximize efficiency of solar cells have debated whether its better having more busbars – conventional wisdom says 5 is a good upper limit – because resistance is lowered, although the additional hardware inevitably shades parts of the solar cell.
More fingers and busbars can also mitigate the risk of micro cracks appearing in the cell, or at least prevent cracks spreading too far across the cell. Once all the cells are in place, another layer of EVA is laid over the panel and an additional backsheet is added to encapsulate the cells and internal wiring.
The next stage is called ‘pre-lamination electroluminescence’. Exploiting one curious property of photovoltaic cells – that they light up whenever a current is passed through them – inspectors can look even closer for microcracks that might render the final panel inefficient or at worse useless.
All they need to do is identify the dark spots. These microcracks, incidentally, can creep in at any stage of the process. Silicon wafers are notoriously brittle, and mishaps during the manufacturing or transportation phase are common.
Wild fluctuations in ambient temperature can also cause irreversible damage. After this pre-lamination electroluminescence phase comes – you guessed it – lamination. An industrial laminator applies heat and vacuum pressure to the ‘sandwich’ of glass, EVA, solar cells and wires, bonding everything together in a taut, weatherproof panel.
Following this stage, circuit ribbons are attached to the edges, and an aluminum frame placed around the edge. This aluminum frame offers the panel sturdiness, which helps prevent nasty cracks.
These frames also make the panels much easier to handle and store, as well as offering some resistance to the day-to-day mechanical loads the panel will be subjected to, like heavy snow or gale-force winds.
Another electroluminescence test follows, and the installation of a so-called ‘junction box’ on the backside of the module using strong silicone adhesive. This junction box serves not only as the collector of electricity, but its diodes ensure power only ever flows in one direction.
This is important, because solar panels by their very nature generate differing and unpredictable amounts of electricity throughout their working lives. Final testing looks for weaknesses in the panel’s weatherproofing.
Next, the completed panel is subjected to a final blast of artificial sunlight. And now our panel is ready to ship. Vikram Solar’s shiny new Tamil Nadu facility is part of a wider drive within India to achieve what prime minister Narendra Modi has called his ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ initiative.
As Vikram Solar’s managing director Gyanesh Chaudhary puts it. ‘This is an extension of our endeavor to provide high quality, reliable, technologically superior products and timely delivery to our customers.
It will further contribute as an R&D platform for next-gen module technology’. Talk about sunny optimism. What do you think? Is solar still exciting? Let us know in the comments, and don’t forget to subscribe for more utterly illuminating tech content.
Welcome to the solar energy channel where you will get an honest inside look at all things solar. So in this video, we’re going to dive into the pros and cons of solar leases.
I’m Charles. And I’m Warren. So Warren help us understand what are solar leases. Sure, so solar leases take on a variety of different forms.
Sometimes they’re called power purchase agreements and sometimes they’re leases but either way structured slightly differently but they are where another company or entity owns the solar system and you basically rent or you pay for the electricity that’s produced from those systems.
So one of the pros of that is then that I don’t have to lay out the cash to buy the solar array. – Correct. The great thing about solar leases is that you don’t have to come up with an upfront investment.
Somebody else is going to pay for the solar on your roof. And another approach to that is that they’re also responsible for the maintenance and the insurance of that solar array, while you should still have insurance on your property to cover you, the company who owns or installs that a solar system for you is going to maintain it and insure it as well.
Yep, so there certainly are some cons though, to giving up that right of ownership. And one of those is you do not get the incentives. Yes, so over the long-term, you’re better off owning the system from a financial perspective.
However, if you’re not in a situation to invest or to buy solar, you might be able to save money from the get-go. One of the great things about leases is that many of them offer you an introductory rate that is lower than what you’re currently paying for electricity.
Yeah the reality of that is if you look as a industry standard on the lease, we are seeing 3 to 4% inflation rates on that lease rate over the life of the lease, which may be 10, 15 and 20 years. – And that’s the true trap with leases is that you’ve got to look for, is what is that escalator? You might be starting off with the slightly lower introductory rate, but it’s going to increase at 3 or 4% a year.
And then in five or 10 years from now, you might be paying more for your solar than you would have had you stayed with your utility company. Yep, so the thing again you want to look for is what is that inflation rate per kilowatt hour year over year? Because you do not want to be spending more in 10, 15, 20 years than you would need to, if you were purchasing your power from the utility.
Absolutely and there’s another very important point that you need to be aware of with solar leases is that if you want to sell your home or your property, you need to find a buyer that’s willing to assume that lease.
And so realtors might find that to be a burden or a liability on the sale because you got to find a very specific buyer for that property. And the reality is if you have a lease and you want to move, you’re not going to take that solar array with you and keep paying your lease payment and put it on the new property.
The leasing company is not going to want to pay, to remove and reinstall it. Absolutely, and it’s usually cost prohibitive and they won’t let you get out of those contracts. But if you’d like to learn more about the real estate side of things, we do have additional videos and blogs on that.
So in summary, if you’re looking to save the most amount of money over time, buying your own solar project is going to be the best way to go. However, if you do not have the money to make that purchase, a solar lease could be a good option for you.
You do want to, however, make sure that you’re aware of those pitfalls that we discussed in this video. – Thanks for watching. If you enjoy this information, be sure to like this video and subscribe to our channel for future releases.
So how should a business pay for a solar investments? – Yeah, well, the first way and the most easiest way is to use cash, but there are some things to consider before you dial out your cash. Number one, do you have cash? And number two, what else could you do with that cash that might have a better return than investing in solar? – Yeah, so the reality, if you have cash, great, there is also the conventional loan where you could borrow and depending on your interest rate, and your return on investment, it may make a lot of sense to borrow that money because you can take your savings, your electric bill that you would have owed to the utility, and you can use that now to pay off your loan.
Correct, and if you’re a business, you’re gonna be essentially eliminating, or dramatically reducing an expense to pay off the debt service that you have on that loan. – Yeah, so you can pay with cash, you can get a conventional loan.
Another option is a lease, there’s two types of leases. One is a capital lease and the other is an operating lease. – Absolutely, and those are primarily for businesses, the capital and operating leases, and we suggest that you seek the advice on your accountant for what makes more sense for you and your business.
Yeah, the capital lease is where you actually own it’s, you can almost consider a traditional loan. – Correct. – Couched in the form of a lease, or an operating lease is you actually do not hold title to, you do not actually own the equipment, but at the end of the lease term, you do get the title.
You do own the system. – And typically the distinction there is that with the capital leases, you get the benefits that come with owning the tax credits, etc. With the operating leases, you do not. So, in most environments, capital leases make more sense for businesses and operating leases make more sense for nonprofit entities.
Yeah, and then another way that you can invest in solar and pay for that investment is through a PPA. And a PPA stands for Power Purchase Agreement. And what that is is a third party will actually own and operate and maintain the system.
So let’s say you have a nonprofit and they do not want to
get a traditional loan, or they do not have the cash. They can get solar through
a Power Purchase Agreement where someone will buy the solar, maybe an investor, someone
close to the entity.
They will sell the power to that nonprofit or to that end user, and in that way they can still benefit from solar. – Sure, and PPAs aren’t necessarily just for nonprofits, they work well for nonprofits, but for profit businesses can explore PPAs as well if they don’t wanna the capital necessary to install solar.
But the person who would get the incentives would be the owner of the system, not necessarily the ones who take it. – Correct, a business that would sign up for a PPA would see a reduction in their kilowatt hour costs or their cost of energy, but they would not take advantage of any of the incentives that come along with it.
So in summary, there’s really four great ways to pay for solar, either with cash if you have that available, taken out a conventional loan, taking out a lease either a capital operating lease depending on your situation or a power purchase agreement.
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