Has anyone in the OT added solar panels to their home? If so what's your advice on the matter? After the fact have you been happy with your decision? The wife has been on me to explore adding this to our home.

Silly move, takes about 15 years to ever break even

Average home ownership is 8 to 10 years

You are just buying it for the next guy

If you decide to get them, pay them in full. Do not lease. Expect the rate of return on your investment to be the same or less than a pool if/when you decide to sell your home.

I saw a house in Denton off 288 yesterday with them scattered all over their roof, looked like hell. Not sure the ROI but it would have to be pretty good for me to put them up.

Democrat activities

I wouldn't buy a house that already had them so there is that.

A nearby guy, here in the country, had plans to put up a bunch of solar panels and install the big batteries, and sell back extra energy to the local power co-op. That went well till the power co-op changed the rules and charged HIM to send them the excess energy. That killed his payout math. He isn’t doing the solar now. Says it won’t pay out in any reasonable time without the sell back. That said, the math was his, and I haven’t discussed it further with him.

I'd like to run my shop or the MILs tiny house on panels but haven't taken the plunge yet.

The way the state is growing and how little is being done to keep the grid and power supply growing to meet that new demand it might be something we will need to be having if we want it or not... you know if you like power at your house.

ERCOT is already predicting peak demand will beat projected production this summer on the reg.

I cannot see that it would save me any money for many many years BUT those units that can store the power in batteries (like Tesla offers) so you can run at night even if the power is down or on days without a ton of sun but no power are interesting to me.

What you say is indeed something to consider. We have a big Generac and a lot of Propane. If I could add solar for a reasonable cost, I would consider it. We may have power problems this summer.

As much hail as we get I can't see them surviving a big storm.

We are working on a contract to cover the farm with them. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Getting power from a star is fun and cool.
I use a panel on a small scale for camping and fishing trips off the grid.
Bolted it down to cross bars on top of my vehicle.
Powers a generator in my vehicle I can run anything from laptops to power tools off the grid.

I just spoke to a trusted realtor friend. She said it only makes sense if you are confident you are going to be in the house for at least 15 years. She said you get effectively nothing in terms of increased home value, contrary to what you might read on the internet. I liked the idea of Tesla solar panels with a Tesla power wall. It would save me about 4K a year on my energy bill and function for a few days like a generator for a few days which is also attractive. The installation cost would be about 60K, with a 30% tax break, so a net 1-year outlay of 40K. A 10% return per year isn't bad, but again, it only pays off if you stay in the house for 10-15 years. I can't confidently say we will do that, so this thing might be DOA.

I keep seeing that in the news and other places, but I can't find it stated on the ERCOT site. ERCOT shows a forecasted 82,739 MW load and +97,000 MW capacity for summer 2023.

https://www.ercot.com/files/docs/2023/05/03/sara_summer__2023.pdf

Assuming that the ERCOT Region experiences typical summer grid conditions, ERCOT anticipates
that there will be sufficient installed generating capacity available to serve the system-wide
forecasted peak load for the upcoming summer season, June - September 2023.
The base summer peak load is 82,739 MW. This load amount is based on average weather
conditions at the time of the summer peaks for years 2007 through 2021, and does not incorporate
ERCOT's summer 2023 weather outlook. Weather forecast information, including the 2023 summer
weather outlook, is available at:
https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards/weatherforecast/
The peak load also incorporates load adjustments to account for incremental solar rooftop system
additions as well as the interconnection of Large Loads (such as crypto-mining facilities) to
Transmission Service Provider networks and individual generating units. The background tab
includes a detailed description of the methodology used for accounting for these Large Loads.
Over 97,000 MW of summer-rated resource capacity is expected to be available for the summer
peak load