Go Solar Before April 2023 - EVERYTHING Is Changing!

this video is sponsored by Bouge RV I love solar  in fact my first breakout video on this channel was in 2017 on my system five years later the only  video that has more views was a video on my same   solar system 10 years later I've covered all the  savings data on production and my experience to   help you guys understand what to expect but now  I've moved and it's time to start all over again   so all the things I've learned over the years  I'm taking it all to build a definitive solar   buyers guide with everything you need to know  and you're probably wondering about going solar   this is episode one and we'll cover planning and  solar panels. I'm Ricky this is Two Bit da Vinci   let's start with planning your system and what you  can expect in terms of cost the first step is to   understand what your goal is by going solar for  example for some it'll be saving money on their   electric bills or use more energy like running the  AC More Often without fears of crazy high cost for   others it'll be the environment and finally for  some it'll be about self-reliance and emergency   preparedness or some combination of all three  for me it's all three coupled with the why is   the how if you're planning a solar system for your  home you'll need to decide if you're going to be   going on grid or off-grid most people will go on  grid meaning your solar panels will supplement   the power that you pull from the grid and require  permits and operating agreements with your utility   this is because if your panels are producing more  energy than you're using you can feed this back   into the grid for your neighbors or others to  use check with your utility to make sure that   they'll give you some kind of a credit for this  so you can offset your usage when the Sun goes   down there are different rules around this and if  your utility doesn't reward you for excess energy   you'll want to add a battery to charge up when  you don't need it or get a smaller system off-grid   means there's no grid you'll need a much larger  solar system and quite a bit of batteries to   ensure adequate power throughout the day and year  winter summer day and night energy offset is a   term to help explain how big a system you'll need  so an energy offset of 100 means your system would   produce a hundred percent of the power you'll  need so for an off-grid system you might actually   want to consider maybe a 200 percent offset to  account for cloudy days bad weather and so forth   we'll come back to this in a little bit finally  maybe you want to go solar for your RV or travel   trailer an increasingly popular option and one  I've got my eyes on and I'm thinking about making   a series about an RV is basically an off-grid  system of batteries with limited space so other   design considerations come into play like weight  and size we'll touch on all three feel free to   check out all the chapters and Skip around if RVs  or homes or on or off grid matter more to you just   check out the chapters and find the part you want  to watch about odds are you're going to want an   on-grid home solar system that's what most people  will go with your options will be a roof mount   system or a ground Mount solar system this one  is a pretty easy choice if you have acres of land   that you have no use for a ground system can be a  good choice you can easily access your panels if   you have to service them or clean them and there's  no roof penetrations or other risks to your roof   costs are actually pretty similar to roof mount  systems because you have to run a very thick wire   very long distances and do trenching poor concrete  footings and other structural installations which   all add to cost in 2023 I'd say three dollars  a watt is a decent price here in the US prices   will be roughly similar for a roof mount system  around three dollars per watt but now you'll need   a roofer who will be installing brackets on your  roof to mount a racking system that holds your   panels hire a good Solar Company that does a good  job and you won't have any roofing issues or leaks   at all in all the 11 years I had solar on my old  house we had zero issues even through some record   rainfall Winters I'm a huge fan of rooftop solar  because this is a space not used for anything else   and also keeps the sun off your roof and your  attic cooler so for me roofs were just made for   solar panels but make that decision based on how  much land you have versus roof space and what you   want to do but the first piece of advice here is  to make sure you have a good roof with at least   20 years of life left on it before you get solar  panels installed my roof of my new house is not   in good shape which is partly why I was able to  afford buying it and to get a feel for how bad our   roof is you can see it's not in the worst shape  but it's clearly falling apart all of this needs   to be changed plus being over 20 years old the  underlayment that really the part that keeps you   protected from the weather is probably decorated  as well so we got to rip all this out and in some   areas like over here it's really bad you can  just tell the parts where the Sun hits it most   it's weathered quite a bit let's talk about cost  for me I actually have two roofs to redo the main   house and our little detached office Roofing is  quoted in squares where one square is 100 square   feet feet so our main house is 42 squares and the  office is another nine we decided to go with a   50-year asphalt shingle roof because we'll cost at  600 per square I'm looking at thirty thousand six   hundred dollars for a brand new roof the dream  was a standing seam metal roof but at Seventeen   hundred dollars a square my quote was 86 700  and yeah it was just a dream especially because   I also have to get the solar panels afterward so  now let's talk about the actual installation of   your solar panels the first thing if you're gonna  do a roof mount system like I'm doing you can see   here the racking is kind of going down here are  my inverters we'll talk about that in episode two   all the conduit has been kind of placed the first  thing you want to do is make sure you have a good   roof I've been in this house for a year and I'm  only going solar now and the reason is I just   got my new roof put on and the reason is you  never know what kind of damage is underneath   my roof was bad it was old I had a hot water pool  heater system up here that was leaking if you have   a choice to just put new Roofing over old Roofing  don't do that take the time to replace everything   fix any old or rotted wood do everything the right  way because this is your roof if there's problems   up here you're going to regret it so step one make  sure your roof is going to be good for the next   at least 20 years because your panels will last  well over 20 years and you don't want to have to   mess around with it again these are traditional  solar panels right here to install them you need   racking so the racking is what you see over here  so now what you'll notice is this flashing goes   under your roof shingles or tiles whatever you  have and that way you're waterproofed and secured   the water can't go back in underneath and script  roof from there you've got these footings that are   into the joist of your roof and then you got the  racking that goes right here and the panels will   sit on top covering these micro inverters and  everything else and get bolted down that's your   more traditional install but let's talk about the  bourge RV Sig solar panels and let's talk about   how you install those so unless your plan is to  just have one solar panel which that's easy the   odds are you're gonna have more than one so how  do you connect them well that comes to the first   decision you'll have to make which is series or  parallel so let me show you that here are the   two leads of a solar panel right these are called  mc4 connectors and don't do this but yeah they're   they're made to be very weatherproof and to  withstand the elements and sunlight and everything   else so you have two choices the first you have to  put them in series so here is the positive and the   negative of one panel and I'm going to connect  them together right so now we have the leads on   the end so these now were connected in series what  that means is that the voltage goes up so these RV   panels are 25 volts each and now this is now 50  volts right but the current stays the same we'll   talk about the benefits of either system here but  now let's go ahead and plug this in to our battery   because of these connectors you can't really screw  them up because there's a male and a female end   and you can't really get into too much trouble but  here we go okay so we have both panels connected   and we have an input so the first drawback  of doing it this way is that now if you have   shading on one panel it'll hurt the output  of both panels so if I put my hand here   and block the output it'll actually hurt both  panels production that's the first problem of   going in series but there are things you  can do if you go with a traditional panel   you can get optimizers on each panel but  then you get the added cost of going that   route here's your second option we'll  take these two right so we'll take the   positives of one and connect it to a adapter like  this okay so now the positives are tied together okay and the negatives will tie together so like before these panels are now connected  together but now that they're in parallel   the voltage of these blue driver panels  will not change it'll still be 25 volts   overall but the current now is twice  as high okay so we'll plug this in thank you and we're making power okay the benefit of this  now is if I have shading on one panel it will not   affect the other panel because they're in parallel  but the drawback is the current is twice as high   now because the voltage hasn't changed so the  wattage overall is current times voltage so either   way you wire these technically the wattage will be  the same right you have two panels but now we have   better shade performance because if you have trees  and things like I do you can kind of see back here   I have tons of trees shading is a big problem for  us and the second thing is because the current is   higher now these wires are going to have more heat  in them so the wire size is one of the limitations   that you're going to have you can't put more than  about 20 amps probably through these wires again   check with your cables and everything else but  that will be your upper limit so the way most   people will go around this is by putting them in  series of course if you're going series you're   going to likely have a string inverter which  is one big inverter which we'll talk about in   episode two but those are your two ways of wiring  these up now a really fun fact about these bourge   RV panels is these actually perform quite well  under shade and like cloudy days much better than   a traditional panel does my testing about 15 like  I mentioned and it's also just so easy to pull   up so if you're doing a permanent install on your  house you'll likely go with the traditional panel   and racking and everything else but if you want  to just roll these out really quickly if you have   a patio and you want to just put up some panels  and charge a battery or something else you could   do that but the really key advantage of something  like this is the portability so if you're looking   for an RV or you want to put them on top of a car  even I've tried that or an RV this would be so   easy to install there's no racking or anything  else you can just take off the back adhesive   and stick it down and that is the reason you  would go with this yes they're flexible as well   so that means if there's any situation where you  want to just roll them up put them in your car   take them out take them with you to a campsite  for example that's a great use case grab one   of these batteries you can plug in your laptops  and everything else you want to run while you're   camping power them off the Sun and stay topped off  for those kinds of use cases this is by far one of   the coolest things I've ever seen because there  are other flexible crystalline silicon panels   out there in the market but those are thin film  solar panels and they have very low efficiencies   usually around seven to eight percent this has the  efficiency closer to a traditional panel in this   form factor and that is what's so cool about this  and this is kind of a new entry into the market   Sig solar panels were not very common in the past  they were always very expensive and they still are   on the more expensive side that's where for this  you really want to have a good use case weight and   flexibility right I could just come in unplug  this panel grab it roll it up and take it with   me a traditional panel like the ones that have  over there that one panel is 400 watt and that   weighs about 55 pounds these are 200 watt each  and they're actually not all that much bigger in   terms of size like footprint but these two panels  weigh 10 pounds so a weight reduction of about 45   pounds and the flexibility of rolling it up like  this so if you're a big Avid Outdoorsman if you   have an RV you're going camping at all this year  and you want to just have a little battery to top   off your laptop other things like that run air  conditioning or a little mini fridge boo driver   you have some really cool mini fridges that I'm  looking at as well this is an amazing way to go   so enough fun for me let's get into the good  stuff the data from my first year and my new   house my highest usage was in September at 1704  kilowatt hours it's actually pretty usual for San   Diego with our later Summers our lowest month  was June at 763 cold hours when I reduced my   pool filter pump till we're only running about 50  of the time now over 12 months we use nearly 13   000 kilowatt hours or 13 megawatt hours but  remember that's our whole house and our office   and our entire business operation everything  you see on tuba DaVinci falls into that 13   000 kilowatt hours the average in the US is about  30 kilowatt hours per day or 10 950. so if my goal   was a 100 offset let's calculate how big my solar  system would have to be there are different ways   to do this but because I have historical data  from my previous house I came up with a way to   calculate the average number of sun hours per day  this is a generalized estimate but it is based on   real world data a way to average solar power  rise and fall curves from Sunset to sundown to   an estimated average each day the days are longest  in the summer and shortest in the winter and here   are my sign hours for my old house I came up  with 2.2 Sun hours at its lowest in December   and a high of 6.3 hours in the summer this number  is calculated by taking my old home's total system   size 5 kilowatts and resulting generation each  month and then dividing it by 30 days pretty   simple but pretty powerful because again this is  based on my actual data from my old house but my   new house has a problem we live on a hill and our  setting Evening Sun is blocked by the hillside   blocking slow Generation by around 3 P.M in the  winter and 6 p.m in the summer as a result I   subtracted one solar hour from each month to come  up with a projection for my new home I chose one   hour because the evening sun drops off in output  anyway so it's not like it's losing Peaks on time   so I think one hour is a good estimate with this  rough estimate I calculated that a 10 kilowatt   system on my new house will produce the following  amount of energy over 12 months I'm projecting to   produce 13 138 kilowatt hours to totally cover  my usage now there are a lot of factors like   time of use billing which charges you more money  at peak times versus off-peak times like four to   nine PM would be more expensive than midnight for  example and also tiered billing where your energy   in excess of a threshold let's say a thousand  kilowatt hours a month is built at a higher rate   than below that threshold but that's why I just  wanted to use averages for everything to help us   get an accurate measurement and take away some of  this crazy datas and surcharges and all the stuff   that you see on your electric bill using that  three dollar per watt figure this system would   cost me thirty thousand dollars plus a tax credit  of nine thousand dollars for a total system cost   of twenty one thousand dollars so how long will it  take me to recoup let's go back to my table to see   how much money I've spent on electricity my lowest  bill was 332 dollars in November and my highest   was 676 dollars in September and my yearly total  was five thousand five hundred and fifty six   which was an insanely High number and why if you  live in California going solar or something you   should really consider based on my projections  for yearly generation I can offset this entire   amount each year but let's assume there are some  fees and things you don't consider so let's say   that probably I'll pay around 500 a year on  electricity or a five thousand and fifty six   dollars per year savings which means my system  will pay for itself in just 4.15 years which is   pretty amazing my system in 2011 cost about  three times more per watt and had a payback   period of over eight years this means the rise  of electricity prices coupled with the fall and   solar prices have cut the payback period in  half I hope this has been helpful and I'll be   sure to put links to the descriptions to some of  these calculators and spreadsheets to play with   be sure to make a copy when you open it so you  have your own copy to Tinker with if solar is   an economic decision for you this should really  help you understand if it's financially worth   it it's hard to put a price on being energy  independent or self-reliant so if those are   your motivations this won't matter as much but  if you're looking into saving cold hard cash   check out the calculator and see how long it  would take you to recoup your cost so this is   just the beginning part two is going to be about  inverters and how that factors in so don't miss   that but here's my final takeaway my big goal  is to reduce the price of Solar for all of you   guys so here's some fun ways you can do that how  about buying used solar panels that could easily   save you 15 on the price of panels next week  we'll talk about how you can save on inverters   and other things so subscribe if you like this  video leave us your comments and questions we'll   try to address them in future videos and as  always I'm Ricky and this is stupid DaVinci

Channel: Two Bit da Vinci

Views: 100,395

Keywords: two bit da vinci, solar panels, are solar panels worth it, solar panels for beginners, solar panels for home cost, solar panel system, best solar panels, solar power system for home, solar energy, buying solar, solar panel, is solar power worth it, what to ask before going solar, EVERYTHING You Need to Know Going Solar, bougerv cigs, flexible solar, going solar in 2023, nem3.0 solar, Thinking About Going Solar, Go Solar Before April 2023 - EVERYTHING Is Changing!

Id: zaBnwCc9aS0

Length: 17min 21sec (1041 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 10 2023