Trump

[pogo]

It’s being widely reported that Mike Pence is Trump’s choice for vice president. Who? Exactly. Many are putting a positive spin on it.

Mike Pence Looks Like Trump's Ideal Veep

Yes, he will help Trump with conservatives, i.e. people who supported Ted Cruz in the primaries. But it’s a sign of Trump’s weakness that he is even now, with the nomination wrapped up, that he still needs to work to convince Republicans to vote for him. And that seems to be his only benefit for Trump. Pence will not help him nationally as he has no national profile. Trump is expected to win Pence’s home state Indiana so there’s no benefit there either.

[Darkflame]

Well, as I said, 7 years for ROI. So, give it some margin and call it 10. If you plan on staying in your property less then 10 years, then certainly dont go for it.
Longer it might be worth it.
Remember you can pass on some of the cost if you sale your house. For us its 30% knocked of our yearly bill, which would be a attractive plus if we got that without any effort when buying the house.

For some data, the last two months has cost us negative € 57,37 for electricity. (it would have cost 40ish euros if it wasn't for the generation)
As we get our gas from the same people, most of that negative 57 goes to canceling the gas bill.

So, basically another way of looking at it is the solar gave us free gas these 2 months with € 6.54 in change returned.

This, obviously, was a good two months sun wise though.

(maintenance against the damage they do to your own home rather than maintenance of the panels themselves, but you probably end up paying for both).

As I said, PVs dont need any maintensance aside. Cleaning. Like most solid state tech provided they work to start with they dont change much over time.
Invertors can go wrong though but thats what you have warrenty for. (however: they are warrentied a lot less then the panels themselves - typically 10 years. So factor that in to any costs)

But "damage to your home" seems less a issue with solar panels and more "someone fucked up the installation and needs suing".
PV's certainly should not be causing damage to your house.

Anywho....offtopic....
The long and short of it I actually spent a long time researching various things before buying the panels. The best best value is buying panels online and installing them yourselves - but then you really are fucking about.

[gumboot]

At the rates we're being charged/offered around here for electricity (conveniently the same figure), at $5/Watt installation, 1800 hours of full sunlight (equivalent) a year, it'd take 50 years to pay for itself.

[Little stoned kiwi]

Solar panels work well when you only have a couple of kilowatts to offset your household's use during the day. A small grid tie and a couple of panels can 'pay' for themselves in five to ten years.

[gumboot]

You people have either expensive electricity or cheap panels. I got $5/watt from SVP, and assume it's parts and labour and sundries combined. What's it like elsewhere in the world?

[CableTwitch]

[pogo]

[Neon360]

In terms of "being able to do whatever they think", thats not quite true. Americas political system is great at blocking things and inaction. The President does not have absolute power. Which is great. Unfortunately the track record regarding human rights, wars, torture etc isn't great. - no one in congress wants to be seen being "soft" after all.

And again, Clinton has not remotely said anything close to the horrors Trump has said he wants to do.
"there both just as bad!" which is so popular does not remotely wash.

Republican Party sets out its platform, is as inclusive and accepting as you would expect:

http://time.com/4401600/gop-platform-co ... d=homepage

Wow. Just wow.
It is 2016 right? I mean, I see solar panels on roofs and a car charging station around the corner.....but that platform makes me think its at least a decade back. Maybe two.

I mean, it is illegal to live completely off the grid in California at very least.... that should say a lot already.

Illegal ?

So if you have your own well, you have panels/generator and you have a small garden you grow your own ( or some at least ) food you are illegal ? (*)

[edit] (*) I forgot Monsanto .. yes if you plant your own seeds that are NOT hybrids ( supplied by Monsanto ) and you have plants that can actually replicated they will do ALL they can to make you stop.

Even if you want to live off the grid, you are still required to be connected to utility so at minimum, they are still charging you a monthy connection fee/charge. It's not like this is in all states, only California as I'm aware of - makes sense, seeing as how much sun Cali gets. Government is always ruining it for everyone. What happened to individuals having the right to self-sustain.

[5th Earth]

At least two-face is nice half the time.

[KlaxonCow]

it'd take 50 years to pay for itself.

At least it does pay for itself.

I mean, how many electricity bills do you have to pay before you break even and they start giving you free electricity?

Yes, that way requires "infinity years" to pay for itself. Because it never does pay for itself at any point whatsoever.

It's a weird phenomenon. Because when people talk about renewables, they always seem to insist on comparing it to some unattainable perfection - "can this one solar panel on my roof meet all the world's energy needs and pay for itself 9 times over by a week next Tuesday? Thanks" - whilst never comparing it to, you know, the actual alternative.

Which is digging up dead trees or sucking up dead fish from prehistory and setting them on fire. Literally fucking caveman technology.

Because that's what you'll get if you're not interested in the technology based on the quantum phenomenon of the Photoelectric Effect.

You just get a massive bonfire of long dead things. Its smoke choking the planet.

[gumboot]

The thing is, an investment that takes so long to give a return is vulnerable to changes that invalidate that potential. Like the limited lifespan of the panels, or the limited lifespan of the roof or the home or the owner, or a drastic drop in the value of electricity through changes in generation technology.

That's why its good business to sell all your oil as fast as you can. You have to get rid of it before it becomes worthless.

[F-ZeroOne]

At least two-face is nice half the time.

Also, Two-Face was a respected lawyer serving the public good before someone threw acid in his face, whereas (depending on the story) the Joker was a small-time criminal who went - if you'll pardon the expression - batsh*t crazy after falling in some chemicals.

Hmm.

[CableTwitch]

In response to the whole PV panel thing, I had a quick google, and came across this...

http://energyinformative.org/lifespan-solar-panels/

Which seemed to give the idea that they'll degrade at around 0.5% a year on average. However, something people don't seem to realise is that further down, it states that the batteries and inverters need replacing around every 5 years also. Each time you have to shell out for new ones, you put that break-even point further back. Keep going long enough, and you'll get to a point where the panels won't be producing enough useful power, and you won't have made even still, let alone a profit. At which point, you're going to buy new panels again. This time, maybe things have improved, and you might make back the 2nd round of investment on the newer tech, assuming the prices are lower then you bought the original gear for. You might even turn a profit. But by then, we might be running on renewables or nuclear to the point where having your own panel system makes no sense, so back to square one we go!

The intention is there, the principle is sound, but the actual implementation of the whole PV panel thing on houses is more for show than practicality. You need a proper large-scale PV field to make any money, and even that'll set you back a large chunk when you have to replace those inverters and storage.

It's still early days for this tech, and it's mostly about the bragging rights and ability to be smug, to be fair. I'm all for upping the efficiency and making them properly practical, but until then we're just using them to look good and get rid of disposable income.

[pogo]

Also, Two-Face was a respected lawyer serving the public good before someone threw acid in his face, whereas (depending on the story) the Joker was a small-time criminal who went - if you'll pardon the expression - batsh*t crazy after falling in some chemicals.

It’s a right-wing meme I’m pretty sure. Clinton’s reputation as “two faced” is based on the brouhaha over her having an e-mail server at home, but that is an entirely manufactured issue. She did not break any laws, was not prosecuted. She may have broken some administrative rule, when at the state department, but so did many other people, including previous presidents. She may have fallen foul of US secrecy laws but these are arcanely complex, far too broad and arbitrary. In particular they had the practice of reclassifying documents as secret, even after their public release, which seems designed to catch people out. They of course did this in secret (until discovered).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._recl ... on_program

It’s only been in the news as Republicans for political reasons have kept it there, holding hearings and triggering unnecessary investigations. But they have turned up no evidence of wrongdoing.

And Trump as a “Joker”? Sure, he’s a joke. But he’s also a nasty racist bigot. He’s a pathological liar and a thug. He’s a thin-skinned narcissistic prima donna. He is temperamentally unsuited for public office, and uniquely unqualified to be president. The image is an attempt to draw some parallel between them where there is none.

[Darkflame]

The Joker is:
a) Infinitely smarter then Trump in every portal I have seen of him.
b) Not raciest.

In response to the whole PV panel thing, I had a quick google, and came across this...

http://energyinformative.org/lifespan-solar-panels/

Which seemed to give the idea that they'll degrade at around 0.5% a year on average. However, something people don't seem to realise is that further down, it states that the batteries and inverters need replacing around every 5 years also.

The warrenty I got (which is pretty standard) is 25 years at 80% of original generation capacity at the end of that. (ie, if generation capacity is below that, they have to replace it).This degrade over time is factored into the ROI estimates of 7-8 years.
Invertors do indeed go quicker (like I mentioned above), which is why the warranty is for that 10 years. So factor in needing two of them over 20 years.

As for battery's; There is no batteries. As mentioned above, you need to have a energy supplier able to buy back energy (and hence act as a "battery" for you).

Musk wants us to have batterys, mind. But thats little to do with how PC is used today.

The intention is there, the principle is sound, but the actual implementation of the whole PV panel thing on houses is more for show than practicality. You need a proper large-scale PV field to make any money, and even that'll set you back a large chunk when you have to replace those inverters and storage.

No, it really isn't. Your talking bollocks.
The return on investment is 7-8 years and that is counting everything you have said.
Even if the panels stop working completely at the end of their warranty I have already made back their cost at least 3 times over.

(and no, we got no subs or grants - that ROI time is without artificial help)