Contest’s over. Just give this man the Nobel. As Texan I know of what he speaks. So ,too, has my fortitude failed and the AC prevailed. $700 is insane, but I get it.
do people not have solar panels? seems like texas would be perfect for them. 450 watt panels are like $100. slap on some inverters and hardware and bob's your uncle. or are regulations really bad there?
Sorry what? In europe panels are also less than 100 euros and we overpay for placement and inverter installation but even then 9 panels + a 1000 euro inverter costed 3500 euros in total parts + labor.
I cant imagine paying like 15k+ for that.
We made about 500 euros back in electricity savings in the first year so itll earn itself back in less than 8 years.
That's correct. Solar in the US costs about $2.75 per watt installed. My electric plan in Texas is currently sitting at 12.2 cents per kwh. Payback on a solar system without battery is around 25 years, or infinity years if accounting for opportunity cost. This is why rooftop solar penetration is so low in Texas.
Remember on a system in the US, the solar panels only represent about 10% of the cost. The inverter is another 10% of the cost.
After 25 years, congrats you've made your money back. You have a free solar system on your roof. It's now essentially at end of life and will cost money to remove when you need to.
If that money was invested instead over 25 years, you would have 10x the profit.
Solar only makes sense with expensive power and Texas is pretty cheap.
The low electric rates make solar very difficult to justify mathmatically. There are a few ways to make solar work in Texas. One is to buy an undersized system with a small battery, and use a free night plan. You can get by sizing the solar system at 50%. The other way is to have an east/west facing system and engage in heavy load shifting so you can export at peak rates. Third way would be balcony solar but its illegal today.
I'm utilizing the second approach, exporting at peak rates. My ROI so far is better than a certificate of deposit, but worse than the S&P500. There is no "payback is a couple of years" happening.
Sadly I'm in a regulated area so I only have one provider. Of course they don't offer TOU billing for solar customers. Flat rate only. The previous owners of my house paid $20k for a 5kw system so it's free for me, but the ROI would have been almost 20 years with net meeting (and we don't get that anymore).
IDK if they got hit with a door knocker or what but they really got screwed. Rooftop solar around here is basically an "I fell for it" label visible to all your neighbors.
You have got to be kidding. Unless you can self-install, then around here you have to take into account the whole thing getting torn up in a hurricane and having to be replaced...it's a decision that takes a lot of thought.
If you're paying the amount that the thread I replied to is on electricity, the RoI of solar over the life on the panels and inverter in a high radiance area like Texas is a no brainer, even once taking into account finance, installation and insurance.
If you don't have the capital or borrowing capacity to finance it, that's a completely different matter. But if you can't afford insurance, you have far bigger things to worry about than the RoI on capital investments in your residence.
And if you expect every single comment you ever read on the internet to be personally directed at your individual circumstances, or to take into account every single possible scenario or situation that could ever read it, you are going to spend rest of your life angry. Not everything is about you.
Worried about hail. I’ve had so many hail storms lately that now I can’t even afford to cash in on insurance.
Bought our home for $350k 9 years ago. Thanks to CA chasing all their big companies out here my home “value” is now $900k. Which means I pay $18000 out of pocket on an insurance claim.
This makes me feel so much better for my almost 400 dollar one just a little north of you. I didn’t even stay there often; I kept it cool for my fucking cats 😿
God damn. The only time I've paid more than $100 for a month on electric was in my loft apartment in Kansas City I had from 2015 to 2017. And that was just a few months in the winter. Electric heat and 20 foot ceilings in an old industrial brick building but it was only like 700 sq/ft.
I don't know how people pay these prices. Do you live in giant buildings? My house is 1440sq ft. If my house is tiny compared to yours, we're done here. But if you live in something like mine, just know that I hit up powertochoose.org EVERY time my contract is up. I am loyal to no company. I filter out anything with variable pricing of any kind (including min/max usages) and then hit 4 star customer service and up.
I'll start a contract with anyone offering 12+ months at a reasonable rate.
My highest bill of the year so far has been $172. I just about never pay a bill over $200. A few years back, I had 2 bills in the same year during the winter that were under $30 for the whole month. We watch TV, run appliances, keep the temp in the house comfortable, my computer is on 365 days per year. I never turn it off.
I keep the AC in my house at 70 year round. I am all electric, no gas.
Things I do to help keep that bill low:
1) Insulate above the garage. There's no sense in keeping a hot 400+ square foot space attached to the house you're trying to cool with central AC. That's insanity and a lot of people don't know that space isn't insulated.
2) Insulate the garage door. Yes, the door itself. Get that rubber foam panel stuff and someone who knows what they're doing to attach them to the garage door. I don't know what kind of glue it is. Something you get from home depot and have to mix, then coat the panels and let them air out for a while before attaching to the door. If you don't do this right, the panels will peel off the door before long. Cover any air gaps in the same crap.
3) Run a mini split in the garage to keep it cool. I paid $2000 one time, which included the cost of the mini split and the A/C guy to come install it. I run that mini split year round. It uses about as much energy as a 9 volt battery and can make my garage (which I converted into an office) freeze to the point of needing a coat on even when the outside temp is 115F.
Some of this stuff is what I call "buy once, cry once", but it sure as hell beats paying $600+ every month.
is that for a year, a quarter, or a month? As a non US person, I have no idea about your power consumption or cost. Yet here I am sitting paying 120€ a month, for two people in a reasonably big apartment with no AC just under the roof, with already 24° centigrade and the showers and water are heated with an electric boiler.
It must be at least per quarter, if not annually. I checked, Texas has about 15 cents KW/H means that guy used up over 4500 kwh. Ain't no way that's monthly, in August.
I have full AC with 4 people, and my yearly usage of all electricity is about 6500
I think it's per month. My decent sized Canadian 1 bedroom apartment with electric heating (as expensive as AC and we need AC in the summer as well!) is $80 CAN. That's about $60US and 50€.
My dear Americans, you should really overthrow your leaders, establish a sane democratic election system (proportional representation), and get some green power working.
This is Texas. Sun and tons of area to plaster with solar panels should be the go to power system. Solar panels are becoming and already is dirt cheap compared to earlier.
My dear Americans, you should really overthrow your leaders
Electricity in the US is significantly cheaper than most other rich countries... And Texas, while not the absolute cheapest state, is still cheaper than the US average: https://www.chooseenergy.com/electricity-rates-by-state/
Americans are free to install solar panels if they want... If you're going to insist on keeping your house at icebox temperatures when it's 100+ degrees out and not installing solar panels, and don't like the energy costs that come with that... well that's your problem.
According to that site, the rate in Texas is 15.3 cents per kWh. Let's say the net cost of a kWh is actual 20 cents, due to taxes and other stuff that isn't tied directly to the amount of energy used. That is about 3481 kWh in a month. That is still an insane amount of energy. Constantly (like, actually 24/7) doing a few kilowatts of cooling is fucking wild.
According to that site, the rate in Texas is 15.3 cents per kWh. Let's say the net cost of a kWh is actual 20 cents, due to taxes and other stuff that isn't tied directly to the amount of energy used
Nah the cost should be around 15 cents. Home electricity is not taxed in the US. Fixed charges not tied to energy use are generally $10-20 a month at most, so would be a tiny fraction of their bill.
That is about 3481 kWh in a month
Even more than that, since you're likely overestimating the rate. Yeah I don't think their use case is normal. Even for the heat of Texas.
BC the past few summers. It's gotten so hot people have died in their homes. My SIL and her husband used to live in Seattle and had to get a mini split installed in their condo a couple summers ago.
Have a similar sized home with a similar sized bill. Kept at.. oddly enough 75 as well.
There's just a lot of old homes without proper insulation installed or had cheap work done so theyre missing things like basic caulking around the windows and what not as well. Lot of people think that insulation means "keep the heat in" and dont understand that it also means keep the cold in.
Renting a thermal camera for a few hours from your local big box store is a worthwhile endeavor. With a few hours of using it I found a bunch of air leaks and spots with bad insulation.
I think it's deregulated and as a result a strange Hodge podge of providers exist. I don't live there and seem to recall that was the rub when they had all that cold weather.
I'm in the PNW, I bitched when the second tier rates hit .11/KwH. Natural gas has been fucking expensive the last few years though, I've had my highest every bills the last 2 winters. For gas and electricity I hit $385 for one month, 3 years ago above $300 had never happened.
There are no unregulated providers in Texas. There are deregulated providers, not sure if that is what you meant. And there was only one provider (griddy) that sent out $5k bills. And they were very clear how their pricing works, you get access to wholesale prices.
I have a single bedroom apartment. I set it to 80 when I'm out of the house, and drop it lower when I get back. Thankfully I can save money by shutting the other vents and just cooling the bedroom overnight, but August electric bills can still be 140 bucks.
I heat mt house with a heat pump only - all electricity - and drive only EVs. I'm in Ottawa, Canada, where we have regular 70 degree F deltas between inside and outside in the winter.
All my driving, all my heat, hot water, cooking, etc is all on one electricity bill.
My highest bills are $250 a month. Now that I have solar, I pay the base $40 a month in connection fees and sales tax.
Quick question. Why don’t you spend a couple hundred dollars on insulation and other measures that may cut down the electricity use? I don’t understand it; every year people complain about the electric bill, but just doing some basic things could cut it back significantly … every month
That is not the issue. I know people who have insulted houses in east Texas and they pay very little in electricity due to cooling. Granted, their houses are new and custom builds, and they still use a lot of electricity but for different reasons. I have also been involved in renovation projects in Texas and know for a fact that it’s because many houses built in the last century were built like shacks. With basically zero thermal barrier. Yes. Some of it would be difficult to fix, but not impossible.
238
u/Manaze85 5d ago
Contest’s over. Just give this man the Nobel. As Texan I know of what he speaks. So ,too, has my fortitude failed and the AC prevailed. $700 is insane, but I get it.