Nov 30, 2022·edited Dec 1, 2022Liked by D. Dowd Muska
I did a solar science project in 1962 when I was in the 7th Grade and I've been following Solar Science ever since. Beyond the solar work done by Apple on their corporate headquarters in Cupertino or Amazon's Corporate Center attempts at a Green Environmental Building, I have seen nothing that tells me that Solar Panels are affordable, reliable or efficient! Aside from the obvious facts that tell us these panels are not a viable option, they are not environmentally green or Eco-friendly. The Child Labor used in the Republic of the Congo for Cobalt Mining and in China where Child Labor is used to assemble Solar Panels, shows that Democrat activists are neither concerned about Climate Change, the Environment or Human Child Slavery and Human Rights! The people in my neighborhood that have obtained Solar Panels are "Leasing" them and they are complaining that the cost of the lease, offsets any profit they might derive from using solar to reduce electric bills! Not only is it not currently worth it economically, the "Leases" continue to increase in cost, which makes their future investment look even worse over the next 20 years of their lease. Unless they somehow purchase a large lithium battery back-up to provide energy in the event of a Blackout, they will be in the dark like everyone else during a Blackout! Solar panels are currently a bad investment for home owners that are looking for relief from the Democrats energy hysteria!
Well over a decade ago, my elderly in-laws were talked -- dare I say conned -- into photovoltaic panels for their large home in Scotland. They were promised large checks every six months for selling the excess power back to the grid, plus a government grant (read: their son’s tax money) to cover about seventy percent of the install due to their circumstances (my father in law being over 70). A government warm home scheme evaluation suggested this route OR full wall insulation (inside or outside, it’s not clear). The former would be a few days of work, the latter ‘significant disruption for weeks or even months’. What do you think an elderly couple would chose?
We were not consulted on this project -- it was just there one day when we dropped in. With my father in law now gone to his reward and mother in law temporarily in a care home, we’ve been taking advantage of an empty house to pour over their records to see what needs keeping. In the past few days it’s been folder after folder of bumf to do with this project, which we were repeatedly told was ‘making them a lot of money’. Uhhhh.....
Distilling to the cold, hard numbers here, the amount spent on the panels, their maintenance, and a new PV grid tie inverter in 2019 plus the electrics work over the past two years because the old system can’t handle the spikes of power on rare sunny days has been MORE than the money sent to them every six months when they sent in the readings from the FITS meter. The electric bills for the house stayed consistent over the years (these panels don’t power the house THEN sell the excess to the grid, which is what they were told), so the best that can be said is that they did not lose TOO much money. However, the panels’s frame which sits on the old tiled roof has caused significant sag in the roof and now the walls themselves are having issues with cracks. That’s going to be a fortune to fix and might even mean knocking that section of the house (a 350 year old stone forester’s cottage) to the ground in the future.
So. Not a fan of solar panels, me.
(Or government snake oil salesmen who shill them).
I did a solar science project in 1962 when I was in the 7th Grade and I've been following Solar Science ever since. Beyond the solar work done by Apple on their corporate headquarters in Cupertino or Amazon's Corporate Center attempts at a Green Environmental Building, I have seen nothing that tells me that Solar Panels are affordable, reliable or efficient! Aside from the obvious facts that tell us these panels are not a viable option, they are not environmentally green or Eco-friendly. The Child Labor used in the Republic of the Congo for Cobalt Mining and in China where Child Labor is used to assemble Solar Panels, shows that Democrat activists are neither concerned about Climate Change, the Environment or Human Child Slavery and Human Rights! The people in my neighborhood that have obtained Solar Panels are "Leasing" them and they are complaining that the cost of the lease, offsets any profit they might derive from using solar to reduce electric bills! Not only is it not currently worth it economically, the "Leases" continue to increase in cost, which makes their future investment look even worse over the next 20 years of their lease. Unless they somehow purchase a large lithium battery back-up to provide energy in the event of a Blackout, they will be in the dark like everyone else during a Blackout! Solar panels are currently a bad investment for home owners that are looking for relief from the Democrats energy hysteria!
Well over a decade ago, my elderly in-laws were talked -- dare I say conned -- into photovoltaic panels for their large home in Scotland. They were promised large checks every six months for selling the excess power back to the grid, plus a government grant (read: their son’s tax money) to cover about seventy percent of the install due to their circumstances (my father in law being over 70). A government warm home scheme evaluation suggested this route OR full wall insulation (inside or outside, it’s not clear). The former would be a few days of work, the latter ‘significant disruption for weeks or even months’. What do you think an elderly couple would chose?
We were not consulted on this project -- it was just there one day when we dropped in. With my father in law now gone to his reward and mother in law temporarily in a care home, we’ve been taking advantage of an empty house to pour over their records to see what needs keeping. In the past few days it’s been folder after folder of bumf to do with this project, which we were repeatedly told was ‘making them a lot of money’. Uhhhh.....
Distilling to the cold, hard numbers here, the amount spent on the panels, their maintenance, and a new PV grid tie inverter in 2019 plus the electrics work over the past two years because the old system can’t handle the spikes of power on rare sunny days has been MORE than the money sent to them every six months when they sent in the readings from the FITS meter. The electric bills for the house stayed consistent over the years (these panels don’t power the house THEN sell the excess to the grid, which is what they were told), so the best that can be said is that they did not lose TOO much money. However, the panels’s frame which sits on the old tiled roof has caused significant sag in the roof and now the walls themselves are having issues with cracks. That’s going to be a fortune to fix and might even mean knocking that section of the house (a 350 year old stone forester’s cottage) to the ground in the future.
So. Not a fan of solar panels, me.
(Or government snake oil salesmen who shill them).