Solar Energy Basics webinar from Real Goods and 1BOG from David Llorens on Vimeo.

Solar Energy Basics webinar from South Coast Solar and 1BOG from David Llorens on Vimeo.

Solar Energy Basics webinar from GroSolar and 1BOG from David Llorens on Vimeo.

Solar Energy Basics webinar from HelioPower and 1BOG from David Llorens on Vimeo.

Solar Energy Basics webinar from SolarCity and 1BOG from David Llorens on Vimeo.

Untitled from David Llorens on Vimeo.

While solar power has a good reputation for being a clean energy, it also has a bad reputation of being expensive. Most people don’t think of it as something they can really afford to invest in. While we might want to make good environmental decisions, more often than not, our wallets win out. But wait…before you write off solar power completely, have a listen to this podcast…

There is a company called 1 Block Off the Grid that is using a unique business model to make solar power significantly more affordable to you and me. To learn more about this model, I had tea with Dave Llorens, General Manager. Our conversation started with the basics of how solar power works, and why we should consider investing in it in the first place…

Listen to the Podcast Here

Having worked as a salesperson in the residential solar industry, I’ve encountered almost every question you could imagine related to solar power.  There are many common misconceptions about solar, and here I’ve compiled what I think are the top 5:

1. You need batteries to store the electricity.  

Almost all solar systems are what is called “grid-tied,” which means that your system is connected to your electrical grid, so no batteries are required. You pull electricity from the grid when you are not producing (at night), and you feed your energy back to the grid for credit instead of storing it in batteries.  Think of it like rollover minutes.

2.  When the power goes out, my home is still powered. 

Nope, when the power goes out, grid-tied systems go out too. The reason is that it’s not safe to be pushing that electricity back out onto the wires while workers may be trying to fix the problem, so your inverter (the big box near your meter that turns DC electricity created by the panels into usable AC current) recognizes that the grid is out, and shuts your system off. The solution? Spend a couple hundred on a generator or don’t worry about it too much; the power doesn’t go off that often.

3.  Solar is only for environmentalists.  

Solar now often pencils out economically as a wise investment. If you live in an area with solid rebates and expensive electricity, it’s probable that solar will beat index funds as a long-term investment.

4.  Solar doesn’t work in areas with fog.  

This can be explained by example. Here in San Francisco, if you were to take the absolute foggiest neighborhood and the absolute sunniest neighborhood, and place an identical system in each location, they would differ by less than 20% in annual electricity production.  Another interesting point is that conventional photovoltaics are more efficient in cooler climates.

5.  New whiz-bang solar technology will make solar a $1 a watt in only a few years.  

Online media loves to hype up new technologies, often quoting their theoretical cost of production as though it is actual installed cost. The truth is we’ve been using the same solar technology since the 60’s, and those systems are still producing energy (and I’m sure their owners are laughing all the way to the bank). We’re only about twice as efficient as we were back then, so solar’s not like the laptop you bought two years ago that’s now obsolete. Remember all these $1/watt articles about nanosolar? Well thin film is still rarely employed on residential applications (it is less efficient and thus requires more space) and when it is, it is priced comparatively to conventional crystalline silicon.

The point is that solar makes economic sense today, and once installed it continues to work for decades. It produces a commodity at a set production rate, and that commodity is one of the few things that we can all be assured is going to increase in value (unless someone figures out a safe way to split the atom).