: Why don’t all buildings use solar panels on their roofs to generate electricity?
In: Technology
A lot of large businesses receive subsidies for their energy to the point where they could not possibly recoup the cost of installing solar panels. At the end of the day, it’s all about money to big businesses.
For homeowners, a single family may use so little electricity where it would take decades to recoup the cost, or, again, their electricity is so cheap that it doesn’t make economical sense for them to do so. My electricity is about 24 cents per kWh after taxes, and the vast majority of it is generated from renewable sources, thanks to proper spending from my local governments, and my geographical location. So not only would I need to wait for 20-30 years to start to make my money back from my panels, but it also wouldn’t have much of an environmental impact.
Both of these combined also highlight economies of scale. It would make more sense for a dedicated company, or even a local government, to dump millions of dollars into a solar or wind farm, and then distribute the power out, than it would for individuals to spend thousands of dollars each to produce a much smaller amount of energy.
Interest costs. You can earn higher interest on capital used to install solar panels than your electricity bill.
Solar panels on every roof is probably the future. But for now it costs initial money to install them.
It depends on many factors how fast you can recoup the money. In ideal conditions, if you let’s say install them yourself and use all the generated electricity yourself (charging your EV for example), they can start saving money after 3 years. Which is great. Basically free money.
On the other hand if you have to pay someone to install them, and have to take a loan to afford it, and you don’t use all the electricity yourself (you get way less $ for the electricity you generate, than what you pay to buy the same amount. Because you pay for the distribution in big parts), or maybe you need expensive batteries in addition… then it might be worth it after 15 years.
So, recouped after 3 years? Nobrainer. Do it.
Recouped after 15 years? Nobody knows what changes in 15 years. Probably not worth it.
While people mention cost of solar pannel as factor it is worth to mention it is least important factor.
Untill recently the most expensive part was invertor which ensures solar panel output matches national standart ( to low and most electronics would not work, to much and electronics burns)
Bext important factor – actuall efficiency. Double sided pannel which allows wide ungle to make usefull sunlight ubsorbtion is also pretty recent invention. Old panels had to be adjusted every minute, so rotating mechanism was also required.
Howsholds also need potent battery with low degradation factor. Noone want theyir electronics to shutdown every time cloud fly by.
And they were and still are frigile and requires regular washing. In cities they covered with smoke byproducts very fast.
So to sum:
Old batteries costed way more then electricity they could produce before they break.
Morden one approaching to meaningful efficiency.
germany has a law that forces new buildings build 2026 and later to have solarpanels on the roof, i think its neat
In Australia 30% of freestanding houses do. They are also on fast food restaurants, big box stores, carpark shades, and a while bunch of other places.
They are a relatively new technology, but they are slowly becoming more and more common.
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