Adopt green tech by 2014 to avert climate calamity

One more thing, Chris.

The intial cost is why our governments should be offering a zero- or very-low-interest loan to anyone who wants to put up solar on their building. Then you just pay back at your CURRENT average electricity bill rate for the last year.

That way, we get clean energy that pays for itself and saves us tons of money (I've haven't even pointed out the healthcare costs that we'd save), and the consumer actually pays LESS than they would have if they stayed with pollutive energy sources because energy costs go up by an average of 6.7%/year (govt #), so as utility costs go up every year, the loan payments become smaller than that, more and more every year.

But, that is what we'd do if we cared about our country and/or the life on the planet, but most people don't so nevermind.

If the consumer can't afford the initial capital, then it doesn't matter whether or not it can pay itself back. And... ten years? In societies where people move around alot, ten years could be longer than the time they stay in the house, so there is still no incentive to do it.

I'm not saying converting is bad, it's just that there are some basic problems that can't be ignored.

Steve, that's another commonly propagated lie against solar. In FACT, when people resell a house with solar they usually get more incremental sale price than the original cost of the system when new. This data is from the American Realty Association. The reason is that people are lazy when they have the house and don't want to deal with the financing, contractor, construction, etc. But people buy houses on EMOTION and are willing to pay a premium for a house that already has solar on it.

Install it, use it as long as you're there, sell your house for more incremental value than the price of the system. A pretty awesome deal really.

But hey, you just go ahead and continue to pay your utility company's ever-rising prices. Noooo problem. There will be plenty of smarter people who will understand the benefits and take advantage of them.

I didn't forget the batteries, I just didn't list them. I can only explain this so many times; sometimes I get tired of typing every single detail out.

EV:

Current completely-SAFE, Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFEPO4) batteries for my truck's pack is around $13000.00 to get me > 75mi range.

That is included in my maintenance estimate of around $0.15/mi because$13000/100000mi = $0.13/mi + only around $0.02 to $0.03/mi more for other things. In reality, we should probably expect these batteries to give MORE than 100,000 miles; especially if they're used smartly or with a range-extending system. That would reduce the $/mi for the batteries also.

As far as the house:

No batteries, I use grid-interactive. I could go into the same batteries as the EV, but I'll wait to see how it goes with them for a while. It'll always probably be cheaper to use utility power when the PV is not pumping out Watts, but not if they can extend the life of the batteries or reduce their price, which would both happen if lots of people were to go to a PV/LiFePO4/EV setup. Simple economy of scale would drive prices down significantly (don't go on about the few places where Lithium is found, please... it is plentiful enough for at least a few decades).

Well "Haha", you actually made 2 big mistakes.

1. Your electricity utility rate calculation is WAY off. Electricity comes in "rate tiers", not a "flat rate" as you imply. Here in CA where we care about our air and health, the # of kWhs you get for "baseline" vary by Summer and Winter. Since the upper tiers sizes are based on a % of the baseline kWh, the size of the upper tiers varies by season as well.

In Summer my baseline amount is 16.5kWh/Day, but in Winter I only get 12.9kWh.

Second, your quoted electricity rate is BELOW PG&E;'s BASELINE rate of $0.115/kWh.

Baseline Rate $0.11531/kWh

Tier 2 Rate $0.13109/kWh

Tier 3 Rate $0.25974/kWh

Tier 4 Rate $0.37866/kWh

Tier 5 Rate $0.44098/kWh

When you look at how much electricity you use BY month, and how the tiers work out, my AVERAGE rate is $0.21/kWh. More than double the rate you used.

2. You did NOT use a year-after-year rate increase of 6.7%, which I got from the DOE from average of historical data (note that recent rate increases in CA have actually been very close to 8%).

This is simple for anyone with a computer and a spreadsheet to do.

Take your utility records for a year. Determine your average monthly payment (duh, year total $/12). Mine was $233/month.

Now put that 233 or whatever value you got into a spreadsheet cell, and next to it, multiply the cell by 1.067% (I also tried with 8% as well and it obviously is MUCH better financially), then repeat that process so you multiply the original number by 1.067 TWENTY-FIVE TIMES.

\What you find is that your payments that are now only $233/month, in 25 years becomes $1,178.87/month!! (TRY IT!)

So, you can't use overly simplified math the way you did unless you are trying to get the answers wrong.

But, then I'm sure you're a very smart guy and you knew that you were doing it wrong all along. I wonder why you did that?

When you calculate things correctly, you'll see my numbers are spot-on. I've been interested in this for many years and did all my homework before making my move.

In my previous reply to Tsk Tsk, I mistakingly referred to them as "Haha".

Anyway, the first thing I should have pointed out was that you actually were COMPLAINING that going solar would ONLY save you $124,250 over the guaranteed life of the system (most system components will actually last years longer)!!!!

Your calculations were simplistic and therefore wildly innacurate, but even when you calculate that Renewables SAVE you money, you will still complain. It is simply amazing.

Now, as far as your complaint about taking the price of fuel into account (gas vs electric), you're right that I "double dipped" a bit, but not exactly the way you said. I CAN compare the removal of the need to buy gas, but I didn't take into account the AVERAGE $/mile for the PV/EV system, which is about $75000 * 0.5kWh/mi/(14000kWh/yr * 25yr) = $0.11/mi. So, my EV (a pickup truck, so don't compare it to a Prius or microcar) costs $0.11/mi, and a truck that actually GETS 20MPG (rated at probably over 28MPG) at lets say $5/gallon average over the next 25 years costs $0.25/mi, and it just goes up from there. You're right that I should have accounted for the average EV fuel cost form the EV.

It is actually a BIG difference if I power my EV via utility costs or a PV array. As I explained in one of my comments here, utility rates go up very surprisingly over 25 years (long term avg of 6.7%/yr, but recent averages higher). PV rates are fixed average rate over lifetime, utility rates are volatile and trending upward.

However, I surely can take into account that the SYSTEM of EV & PV allows me to save tons of money on energy for home and transportation vs what I used to do before I made the calculations myself and realised how profitable this combination is over the guaranteed life of the system.

Note that I used a VERY generous (to your side) limitation of only $4/Gallon for gas OVER THE NEXT 25 YEARS. The predictions coming from these sectors are for a general increase and increased spike activity. I could probably use $6 to $8 for an AVERAGE over the next 25 years, but you'd scream about it, so I used a $4/gallon.

This, again, is quite simple, but you've got to get the details right.

Determine the cost of your current car (start at $.042/mile and go UP) and home electricity, then make sure to apply yearly increases for both, add up the total you'd pay for 25 years.

Determine the cost if you were to go PV for Home & EV. This is system cost + EV Cost. Don't forget that you would have to a car ANYWAY, so the decision to go EV only "costs you" the delta of these. (For me, it was actually negative: my EV had dead batteries that I replaced and total was ~$14000). So, don't take the whole price of an EV, just the incremental.

When you compare Conventional Home & Car costs to Renewable Home & Car costs, the second one wins big time, every time, ECONOMICALLY.

I don't know where you're getting the $164,250 from.

The whole "capital cost" thing is why I want the govt to provide low- or interest-free-loans. Pay back at your last year's average monthly utility electric bill.