Is it Worth Investing in a Solar Roof and Power Walls?

Question

When evaluating scalability, where the costs incurred are minimized and the pros achievable are maximized, would it make sense to spend money on a solar roof and power walls in the case of home energy consumption?

Answer 1

Depending on one’s objective or goal and one’s finances, investing in a solar roof and power walls can be worthwhile. There can be huge out-of-pocket costs at first, but these can be mitigated by federal tax credits which can help tremendously. The investment is usually recuperated in 6 to 10 years and this is the payback period. Since panels have a warranty of 25 years, a good number of years after the system pays for itself, an individual will enjoy free electricity. Moreover, helping secure one’s energy needs as well as helping the environment can sometimes be priceless.

Comments

My wife and I put in ~10kw of solar after we moved from Texas and our first power bill in our new home was 400$.  

Great decision.  We make about 18 Mwh a year, and our bill is locked at 8$ in fees.  Those solar panels get more valuable every time they raise the prices.

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Really interesting, thanks for sharing this data! One thought is.. The solar panels are under warranty for 25 years, but probably not the power walls? As we all know batteries don't often last too many years, so the power walls would likely need to be replaced after 10 years? Adding a longer payback period, as I'm sure Tesla battery banks of that size are a large cost.

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Probably the best MKBHD content so far. My PhD was about optimization of smart grids, including smart houses with solar panels and EVs. I'm saying this because I understand how much research and effort in general was put in building up for this content. The most difficult part in this process is how to make it simple enough so that the general audience would understand most of what you're talking about. I think you did a very good job in making it as simple as it can be, although I understand that it still could be very complicated for some people with all those numbers and graphs. Overall, well done Marques! An incredible content that even professionals and researchers can find it useful.

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Marques you forgot 1 thing the function of a solar roof is the roof itself worth about 30,000 dollars. Total cost 93,000 - 30,000 = 60,000
So, in just over 5 years you start making about 10 grand plus a year from the sun which offsets the electric bills and the whole system pays for itself.

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As an employee of the said Solar company, I appreciate this content and how the daily process was explained.

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It’s crazy how much higher the kWh consumption is in comparison to a European house of similar sizes. But it good to see that this PV and battery installation is working scaling so good. 55 MWh / year. CRAZY

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One thing you could do, is to have a heat pump for the heating and air conditioning and hot water. They also have a washer/ dryer all in one unit. It washes the clothes and without removing the clothes, uses a heat pump to dry the clothes as well and is ventless. It uses the heat pump to remove the moisture in the dryer. You could then be free of the expense of the natural gas bill. Whether you use the gas or not, you still pay a connection fee to be connected and then you get charged for the gas you use too. Without any gas line at all, you automatically save on the connection fee. You could also have rotary turbines to capture the wind power as well, even at night. If it’s cloudy, it’s usually windy as well.

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To someone in the Netherlands who's not using a lot of energy, these numbers are absolutely massive. We have a 3.5 kW solar system, which, at about 3-4 Mwh a year, covers about 150% of our energy. And that's while we heat and cool fusing  AC (with a tiny bit of gas usage on really cold days).
Granted, our house is a bit smaller, but even then. Also, our payback period came out to be around 3 years, which is pretty hilarious, although without a battery unit.

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My family got a Tesla roof last year (install finished December 2022) along with the Power Walls, set up in Connecticut, and I can say for sure the chunks of snow sliding off the roof is wild the first time you notice it. We got it because we needed a new roof anyway just due to age and normal wear and tear, so the solar roof just made sense for us. One thing Marques didn't mention is that some power companies will pay you to take your roof's generating capacity during peak usage, so you can end up with the power company paying you some months. The power company will take our roof's power during peak hours (most notably during the summer when everyone gets home and kicks on AC) and we'll run off our battery walls in the meantime, and get a credit for it, along with all the net negative we sell back to them besides.

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I paid a deposit for the Tesla sunroof for approx. 4 years ago.
NEVER heard anything from Tesla.
 1 year ago I asked for a refund of the deposit. I called about 20 times and sent Mail a number of times, never got an answer. Had to show up and claim the money back. After a lot of apologies, the deposit was refunded.
I will never buy a product from Tesla again

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This just shows once again how important house insulation is. One only realizes afterward how much energy is consumed for cooling and heating. Thank you for this detailed content. Greetings from Vienna!

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I would definitely update your AC system to a heat pump. I am in Chicago, and I can use it for heating in the spring and fall when you reported having the biggest surpluses from your report. With an efficient setup you could use a heat pump most of the year and supplement it with your natural gas. Thank you for the report, it was explained so clearly by you that I think I actually understood most of it. Nice job!

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Great straight forward content - only thing in my opinion missing from the ROI analysis is the actual roof replacement cost. Depending on the size of house, gables, pitched, etc a cash replacement cost could be anywhere from $15-30k. If you are in need of a roof replacement anyway, going with solar + power wall could shorten then ROI from 10 years to that lower end of 6 years assuming you were going to have to replace your roof anyway and wasn’t covered under insurance. Great content!

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I really like how your Tesla roof solar tiles look. Very classy look, you can't really tell you have solar on your roof, just looks like a tile roof.

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Hubby watched this tonight, he has been wanting to go off-grid since he built his first home in 1986, but CA building & planning in San Diego County thought he was crazy back then!!!  Been doing research since then for our next (final) house to retire.  He says this review is the best, most thorough, and concise that he has seen. Great job & very well done!!!

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You should do a heat pump and use the gas as a backup, they call it a dual fuel system.  You can even upgrade the furnace efficiency to 92%, but it only runs when the heat pump can't (generally below freezing) and gets the house toasty quicker than the electric coils of the typical emergency heat backup installed with a heat pump.

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The system still requires a large financial investment.  I'm 82 and will do this when I get my CyberTruck since I don't want to indebt myself right now.  I've had solar in the past and loved it.  My son sells solar so when I'm ready I'll be buying solar panels from him rather than a full roof.  He is Tesla certified for the storage part.  Since I live in Tucson, Arizona it will be well worth it.even if I use my CT for backup and get a smaller system.  I learned a lot from your presentation. Thank you!

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Well covered.  I have 1 powerwall + 14.8 kw of panels here in South Australia.  My situation gets even more interesting because my electricity price is dynamically determined based on the real-time market price (I use an energy retailer called Amber Electric).  Another factor to consider is the orientation of panels, for example, west-facing can sometimes be more optimal since it provides energy later into the evening, when prices are higher due to peak usage.

I'm hoping to install another 7kw of panels on my garage and add another powerwall.