In Calif, they insist on installing it, power companies claim they want to have their linemen be safe, and to be able to pull a plug. I had to install one too. They look like @$^, and the installer beat the *%# out of my stucco putting it in, and for the 7" of conduit, pounded a nail into the stucco to hold a clamp.

I sure hope this is still true in 2006, I'd love to take that too. The installer took the rebate off the top, I signed it over to them, so I did not take the income of it.

With all the talk about ROI, I'm wondering if anyone has factored in a possible property tax impact.

In Florida, I can't get a definitive answer about the implications, except that the appraiser might wait 3 years to add the system to the value of my house. I don't know if at that time the entire house would be recalculated, thus losing the benefit of the Florida Save Our Home amendment which caps property tax valuation increases at 3% maximum.

So it seems that the property tax may be the biggest negative factor for me, in fact it would probably prevent me from getting a PV system.

Calif Exempts solar installs from being taxed/assesed.

Now we are at the end of 2006. Behind very quiet hurricane season. Not much political tensions in Middle-East. Oil and gas prices are rather "cheap" and steady. Looks like the interest on the solar panels (or renewable energy) is rather weak right now. In other words: Great time to buy! (As long as you can find anything to buy?)

As it should not be news for anyone reading this forum this won't last. It is known that global oil supply is almost the same as global demand. No new significant oil wells have been discovered for many decades. Current oil wells are getting old and production have started to decline in majority of them. Once the tipping point is reached the oil (and energy) prices will skyrocket. Then all of us having any renewable energy systems in place can smile... Either our ROI time reduce significantly, or we can just sell our existing system with some good profit?

How do you other guys see the near future? What is your motivation on investing on renewable energy products?

IHMO we are decades away from peak oil. Prices now are high only because of clever supply side maniputalion. The are some very large and signifigant finds happening recently, not to mention in the US we have 2-300 years of coal that could supply ALL of our energy needs ... coal can be made into desil so while I know WHY you think the way you do, the realitly is things aren't so end of the word as some would like to have us think

As for solar, it was 2.50 watt three years ago, with the trippling of production, any slack in demand could have a collapse in prices ... I wouldn't buy panel now unless it was to feed some subsidy based system, I think in a year, prices will be much lower than today ... windsun is also seeing prices starting to break down

IMHO, we are not 'decades' away from peak oil. Maybe 10 years if some global economic slowdown happen, as it seems now. If not, I expect it happen within 3 years. Just my opinion of course... What I have heard the latest "great findings" are just drop in a bucket: Maybe can sustain earth consumption half year the most!

But even if we can use the coal, oil sands, oil shale etc. unconventional sources to replace the fossil fuels what we are going to do with global warming due to greehouse gases? Many experts agree that earth can not sustain much more greenhouse gases without catastrophic changes in atmosphere. Once a certain level has passed the process starts to feed itself... thus is unstoppable at that point. US EPA web site has nice charts to see how significantly the industrial era has changed atmosphere contents and temperatures:
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/recentcc.html

I do expect that within 2 years both EU and USA will put more pressure to cut down the CO2 emissions, which means reduction in fossil fuels use.

The problem is that China, India, and other nations are becoming the heavy manufacturing for the US and EU... All that is happening is that we are transferring our "pollution" to other countries that are not even signatories to Kyoto and other treaties (or at least, don't have the environmental enforcement that is in the US and EU).

Solar is neat and wonderful... But if people are serious about limiting CO2 (I am not a believer in man-caused massive Global Warming), the only near term engineering type solutions out there right now are nuclear and/or massive cuts in consumption (by US and EU) and/or population reduction.

I agree with one thing--this is not going to be a pretty in the decades/century ahead for vast numbers of people.

-Bill

To steer the discussion back to PV ROI, I've had the lcuk and pleasure to listen and work with Andy Black, the preminent authority on PV ROI in the world today. Andy is very familiar with the N Ca PG&E territory, so those in this thread arguing about price/KWH, TOU, basic ROI versus other more accurate financial models should dig in to the voluminous info Andy has documented in this area.

Since I can not add to what Andy already says on this subject, here's a good starting link:

http://www.solarliving.org/workshops/te ... 3&pageid=3

Andy has previously published in SERG as well. Check for older pubs to see articles he's published on ROI from 2004/2005 timeframe:

http://www.norcalsolar.org/

It is almost a year from this post I made and everything is going pretty much as I thought last December...