[007 license to sell]

Since your wondering if the Green trend has come to Vegas you will want to read this article. Our utility bills are high in and around Las Vegas and older homes even ones that are 5 or 6 yrs old can cost allot to keep cool in the Summer. The new homes are addressing that problem by building a more energy efficient home and it's not just energy star windows and appliances.

Green trend taking root in local housing market
News Story | Posted 06/25/2011
Q: I know some of the new homes in Las Vegas come with all kinds of energy-saving features. I'm more interested in a resale, and I'm wondering what my options are. Are you seeing more of these homes on

Source: Las Vegas Review Journal

[mricu]

One thing many people fail to include in their costs are the ongoing maintenance of the solar panels. Solar panels are far from install and forget items. They are exposed to some pretty harsh conditions and are prone to damage such as oxidation (think about the fogging of your car's headlights).

Solar panels are still not that efficient at converting all solar energy it receives into energy. The daily wear and tear will only decrease your already low efficiency even lower, meaning you'll be getting less power as days, weeks, months fo by. The longer you wait to maintain them (ie treat the oxidation), the more energy output you are not realizing. I don't know how much people charge to carry out such maintenance, but no doubt it would be a "premium" service which could potentially wipe out any savings associated with going solar.

I guess another thing to try to put into your cost estimates which none of the online calculators have.

[olecapt]

Originally Posted by mricu

One thing many people fail to include in their costs are the ongoing maintenance of the solar panels. Solar panels are far from install and forget items. They are exposed to some pretty harsh conditions and are prone to damage such as oxidation (think about the fogging of your car's headlights).

Solar panels are still not that efficient at converting all solar energy it receives into energy. The daily wear and tear will only decrease your already low efficiency even lower, meaning you'll be getting less power as days, weeks, months fo by. The longer you wait to maintain them (ie treat the oxidation), the more energy output you are not realizing. I don't know how much people charge to carry out such maintenance, but no doubt it would be a "premium" service which could potentially wipe out any savings associated with going solar.

I guess another thing to try to put into your cost estimates which none of the online calculators have.

PVs are generally glass covered...no oxidation. It is not normally listed as a failure mode of the panels. In fact the manufacturers will warrant these panels for up to 20 years indicating pretty strong faith in their reliability. I would expect some failure modes as these things temperature cycle and get reasonably hot. But they should be pretty reliable. They will get dirty but mostly that should be dealt with by washing them off.

Most of the failure mechanisms involve water ingress. That has less probablity in our climate.

I would expect some maintenance of the electronic package that goes with them...inverters are pretty reliable but anything handling high power over decades is suspect.

So I doubt it is a large expense. Though it needs to be included in any calculation..

[uncle_el]

Originally Posted by 007 license to sell

Pulte homes Villa Triest in Summerlin has been building solar homes for the last two years they have solar roofing tiles and radiant barriers as well. Some builders will offer radiant barriers for an additional cost. Electricity is high in and around Las Vegas

i live in one of those homes (i believe I was the 6th or 7th person in the neighborhood). the community/project itself is a public/private partnership between pulte, unlv, nv energy, sunpower, and the us department of energy.
because the "green" thing is so new, the appraisal process was very interesting- at the end of the day, it's so new that the solar energy roof tiles (a photovoltaic system) didn't/couldn't have an inherent value. said another way- with the downturn of the market, the home prices in this community are right in line with other homes in the area that are not "green".

with all of that said, it seems as though the pv system "cuts" the power bill by about one third.
while worth it because i didn't have to buy the system, nor retrofit an existing home... as someone mentioned, the return on investment isn't where it needs to be for the general consumer.

i believe there are a few other communities popping up in the valley now that are doing some sort of pv system as standard. it would seem that may be the wave of the future.

[baily23]

Originally Posted by MSchu

I thought some manufactures were putting up panels for free on customers homes?

Please give them my address!!!

[drumhobo]

The solar roof tiles are horrible, there inefficient to begin with, and electronics don't like heat so now instead of being above the roof, where they can be cooled. They are tge roof. Also the reason that on a new home your bill is only 1/3 is because the builder put a small system on the roof, so he can sell it as green.

[Danknee]

Check out this article from yesterday (click). Creating electricity directly from heat! This is obviously breaking news and not even conceptualized into a production model yet, but this is great news for a city with plenty of heat to spare.

I imagine this will go large scale first to revolutionize power plants first (as stated in the article), but it could be incredibly profitable/applicable in Las Vegas if they could create something with a 5 year-ish ROI for residential use that utilized our 8 months of heat.

The article also talks about the possibility of the phase changes being the difference in temperature of surface water to deep water, so maybe this could become the next hydro power plant breakthrough.

[yellowsnow]

I have solar hot water and pool heat. I would have done the whole thing if the numbers had indicated it was worth the investment.

I do believe our electric rates are too high. Someone here on the forum has a better idea. NVEnergy generally gets what they want around here so his way to square it up was to buy enough of the stock so the dividends pay his electric bill.

[SportyandMisty]

Originally Posted by Danknee

Check out this article from yesterday (click). Creating electricity directly from heat! ...

Thanks for posting the article.

[von949]

Im very interested in those smaller, more quiet windmills that are installed on top of the roof. They take about 7 years to pay for themselves but I would not mind the wait. Im sure it will never happen with my current HOA though.

http://inhabitat.com/affordable-effi...es-next-month/