April 5, 2025

39 thoughts on “Are solar panels worth it in 2024?

  1. I’m old fashioned I guess. We rely on thick insulation walls and roof, and the shade from trees, to keep our house cool. We don’t need air conditioning and our summers can reach 35-40 Celsius. No need for solar panels. The carbon footprint is far less if you simply insulate and grow trees. It’s so simple.

  2. Matt, What makes you use 18kwh in a year? My house is very energy efficient like yours. It is new and air tight. My yearly usage is around 6.7kwh/year. Adding an EV puts me around 10.3kwh.

  3. Good lord man, how many children do you have such that you would need that much power. We have a small 1450 Sq Ft home and our whole SDG&E bill shows that we only use about 300 kilowatts on average per month and there are just the two of us. A tentative installer giving us a bid said we'd only need 8 to 9 panels. With all those panels are you making the whole house and all appliances electric? I bet you're going to put in a pool or outdoor lighting……

  4. I’d like to see a more detailed breakdown of the ROI. Not sure I believe 7 yrs ROI especially when adding expensive batteries. TBH solar doesn’t really make sense to me unless you are doing it yourself.

  5. Solar panels are a loss
    It cost you close to 30k to buy them.
    That's 150$ a month for 20 years.
    They degrade at 1% per year at least.
    In 20 years they will be functioning at under 80%
    It's cheaper to buy electricity.
    Plus financing if you don't have the 40k.
    Oil and nuclear is by far the way to go

  6. Don't care what this video says. Yes, solar panels are still worth it. They provide a clean renewable energy, redusing carbon emissions and slowing climate change.

  7. At 50 to 100 dollars a piece I would cover the entire roof. I bought a dozen of them for $600 off Marketplace and run my entire air conditioning unit during the daytime. In the desert where we get sunlight most of the year I cut my bill in half and I don't even have batteries at night I just worry about daylight collection… if you just want to quick and easy setup to taper your bill off I did my whole system for $1,000

  8. I'm a big fan of solar but think it's unfair for homeowners to have to pay for grid tied systems. If the government is so concerned about going green, they should be doing more then just giving us incentives. If coal and other fossil fuels are so evil, put solar on everyone's home and tie them to the grid. The USA would have so much extra power we could sell it to Canada and Mexico.

  9. I don't think they were ever worth it for the average homeowner. I came close to buying a grid-tied system but I didn't want to wait 10 years to start saving money.

  10. My biggest hold back (beyond a roof direction that is a few degrees off from ideal), is that if I put $40k into it, that works out to not making $4k on that same money at a nominal 10% ROI. Since my power bill is around $300/month, its kind of a wash economically. The one thing that I can't predict accurately is the rising cost of kwh from my power company vs the eventual cost of maintenance on a home solar setup. After all, inverters are not known for lasting forever. I own a Tesla, so I can tell you about the cost of a supercharger inverter failure. Thoughts anyone?

  11. Love your videos, Matt. I have a question I want to direct to you and @hardykornfield1733 about your metal roofs and solar panels. We're getting ready to do solar with batteries on our home and I want to replace our roof with a metal one. I'm in Oklahoma where the summers average around 90+ degrees, so do you guys run into any issues from heat with your panels on your metal roofs?

  12. My thing is
    I don’t care on payback or going green.
    Or whatever
    I don’t want to pay city , state , government or corporation greed .

    Off grid all the way
    30,000 gallons of rain catching system
    30,000 kw solar system
    Propane tanks underground

    Prepping is where it’s at

  13. The term net zero is very misleading. A true net zero lifestyle is living without all these materialistic items driven by consumerism. As you erect another oversized structure to exist as a human, claiming to be low impact to the environment.

  14. So, if your utility savings are $1500 a yr, and the system cost was $55,300, I calculate a 36.6 yr pay back. And the panels are “ warren teed” not guaranteed for 25 Yrs, and the roof integrity only 10 yrs—does that make sense ? What happens if panels degrade over time, or damaged by hail, and get dirty requiring cleaning, or leaks develop in your roof, or if the company goes out of business—like so many when government subsidies get dialed back?

  15. I remember when the environmentalists promised us "free" energy from windmills and solar panels. But after hundreds of billions in every type of subsidy (federal, state, ratepayer, etc.), we find that these energy sources are way more expensive and vastly less efficient than nuclear. Windmills have a very high failure rate, which pushes up their costs in many hidden ways. And suddenly we are being told that solar panels are not enough, that they need battery banks to boot, and expensive power grid upgrades. What else will we discover? How about the massive problems with electric cars…

  16. Solar tech move to Quickly ever year move ahead an out dated in few year. Each year there a better solar panel. I don't know how they offer 25yrs warranty when they stop making them in a few years.

  17. At the 7 1/2 minute mark when you are talking about reducing power at the panel due to reduced demand, with net metering why wouldnt this excess power be returned to the grid so others can use it.

  18. Question. I have an existing solar system off grid. I'm looking for a solar guy or company to help me and to expand. Please advise who might be around me who are solid people.

  19. I am still wanting to install 22 Bifacial 500W solar pergola along the lower side of my house 8’ to 12’ (high side) of walkout basement facing south. My roof faces east/west and wouldn’t have been useful.

  20. How are you going to be net positive in 7-8 years when it’s 38k after credits and you say it will save $1500 a year. That’s 25 years break even. Even factoring in MA credits of 500 a year that 19 years

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