Solar Battery: Costs Still Too High

Over the weekend we had a presentation on what it would cost us to install a solar battery in our house.

Verdict: Too much, even after the rebates and discounts. We were looking at north of $13,000 for the work.

We put solar panels on our house in 2019, and have had mixed results from them. In the summer we generally produce more electricity than we use, which is good, but even then a bill or two isn't a surprise. And in the winter, of course, production bottoms out as snow covers the panels and we decide not to climb on the 2nd story to clean them off. We did that for a year, and figured the risk of sending someone up on the roof every time there was snow outweighed the benefits.

Getting a battery installed would help with some of that problem, but we're just not sure the benefits can compete with the initial cost, especially when we've got the dream of building a shop with space above it in the back yard.

In prepping for the sales visit, though, I did learn something about the software that monitors our solar: It'll show us production from individual panels. How I missed that in the years since we've owned the system, I don't know.

Here's a peek:

Up until a few days ago, a good number of the panels to the right were showing zero production, and that had me worried a bit until I looked at them from the street and saw they were still mostly covered in snow.

Being able to see this increases the urgency for me to get a wired connection from the inverter to our modem, as the 2G modem in the inverter itself will go out of service at the end of April.