Latest articles by The Solar Nerd

When you buy an 8 oz bag of potato chips, you generally expect the bag to actually contain 8 oz of chips. Following the same logic, if you have 6 kW of solar panels installed on your roof - about an average size system in the United States - it would seem reasonable to expect that system to actually generate 6 kW of electricity on a clear sunny day. But it works a little differently with solar panels.

Solar panels don’t have any moving parts and they rarely fail. But when they do, it can be a real pain. Relative to the total cost of your system, one solar panel isn’t that expensive. A budget panel might retail for $200, while a premium one might cost twice as much. But if you have a panel failure on your roof, not only do you have to worry about the cost of replacing the part, but the labor cost of having a technician come to your house, diagnose the problem, climb onto your roof, deinstall the bad panel and install a new one.

A couple decades ago, home solar panels were very expensive and mostly limited to enthusiasts running low power, off-grid setups for their cabins. Today, the prices have dropped to the point where an average homeowner can affordably install enough solar panels on their roof to provide 100% of their electricity needs. So what can you expect to actually pay? The answer is: it depends. It depends on how much electricity you use, which way your roof is pointing (if you’re planning a rooftop installation), how much shade you get, what your local climate is, and more.

One of the great things about solar panels is that they just sit there, silently turning photons into electricity and making you money. They can essentially be maintenance-free for 25 years. But one question solar homeowners often have is: if my solar panels are dirty, what’s the best way to clean them? The best way to clean your solar panels is with tools you probably already have: a bucket of plain water, a soft brush or cloth, and the kind of extension pole you would use to squeegee your second floor windows.

Do you have a swimming pool? Nice! It’s not very pleasant to take a dip when your pool temperature is in the 70s, is it? The upfront cost of equipment to heat a swimming pool with traditional methods - natural gas, propane, or electricity - can be relatively low, but you will quickly learn that the monthly fuel cost for keeping 10,000 gallons of water at a nice temperature adds up quickly.

It’s pretty darn annoying when the electronics in your life start glitching. Are you having trouble with one of your devices? Have you tried turning the thing off and then on? That usually fixes it for me. But if that doesn’t work, it’s time to track down the source of the problem. If you’re talking about a device that relies on receiving a remote signal, whether that signal is wired or wireless, electromagnetic interference (EMI) is problem that can sometimes occur.

If you’re reading this during coronavirus times, you might be giving the idea of getting out of town and going off the grid more thought than usual. Whether that’s the case or you’re just normally into outdoor activities like camping, boating, or hunting, one thing that most people want is portable power. You might only need to keep some low-power devices charged like some phones or a tablet, or you might have more extensive electricity needs for things like a portable fridge to keep your drinks cold.

Homeowners planning to add solar often have a problem of limited roof space. To work around that, solar installers often turn to the highest performance panels so that a solar array can generate more power with fewer panels. Two of the biggest companies in the high performance end of the home solar market are SunPower and LG Solar. You might recognize the name SunPower, but be surprised to learn that LG Solar is a division of LG Electronics, the South Korean electronics behemoth that makes everything from smartphones to TVs to refrigerators.

People are accustomed to haggling on the price of a car, but you can negotiate the price of other products and services too. Did you know that you can even haggle the price of a mattress? I’ve never done it, but apparently it’s a thing. You can negotiate the price of your home solar installation, too. The general way to go about it is to get quotes from multiple contractors, and then see if the higher priced installers will match or beat the price of your lower cost bids.

Arizona is a great state for solar energy. Not only does it have some of the best year-round sunlight in the country, but it also has favorable incentives, including a generous state tax credit. This means that you can get two tax credits for going solar: one federal, and one state. Here’s a map of the solar energy that falls on the United States, with the areas with the highest solar potential colored in deep red: